Saving Seafood

The Blob returns: Alaska cod fishery closes for 2020

December 11, 2019 — The Gulf of Alaska’s federal cod fleet is bracing for a complete shutdown in 2020 after an 80 percent TAC cut in 2018 and another 5 percent last year, down to 17,000 tons.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council announced its decision on Friday, Dec. 6, in response to low recruitment.

“We’re on the knife’s edge of this overfished status,” said Council Member Nicole Kimball, vice president of Alaskan operations for the Pacific Seafood Processors Association.

The fall 2019 stock assessment returned biomass numbers for gulf cod below the necessary threshold as a food source for the endangered Steller sea lion.

The infamous Blob of 2014 — a mass of warm water that hovered in the Gulf of Alaska — likely depleted the cod’s food supply and severely restricted recruitment. The fall 2017 Gulf of Alaska survey yielded historically low numbers at 46,080 metric tons, down more than 80 percent since 2013.

“That warm water was sitting in the gulf for three years starting in 2014, and it was different than other years in that it went really deep and it also lasted throughout the winter,” said Steven Barbeaux with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. “You can deplete the food source pretty rapidly when the entire ecosystem is ramped up in those warm temperatures.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New client confirmed for Alaska salmon MSC certificate

October 17, 2019 — The Pacific Seafood Processors Association (PSPA) successfully transferred the clientship and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certificate for Alaska salmon over to the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF) as of 1 October.

The development brings about the conclusion of “a deliberate and cooperative transfer process,” PSPA and AFDF said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Control of Alaska salmon’s Marine Stewardship Council certificate changes hands

October 15, 2019 — The Pacific Seafood Processors Association (PSPA) has transferred the clientship and Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certificate for Alaska salmon to the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF), the groups announced Friday.

The MSC certificate for the Alaska salmon fishery remains unchanged, said AFDF.

The Alaska salmon fishery originally received the sustainability certification from the MSC in 2000. In April, the Alaska salmon fishery successfully completed the full 5-year re-certification under MSC. The current certificate is valid through Nov. 11, 2023.

AFDF is also the client for the MSC certification of Pacific cod and the client for the Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) certification of Pacific cod and Alaska salmon.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Longtime Pacific Seafood Processors Association President Glenn Reed retiring, with no regrets

July 24, 2019 — Glenn Reed is retiring after more than 20 years as president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association, a nonprofit trade association representing seafood processing companies.

Reed’s retirement will become effective at the end of 2019, with the PSPA announcing on 22 July that Christopher Barrows, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, will become the organization’s new president beginning 15 August.

“I am honored to be selected by PSPA to carry forward these important messages. I enjoyed my time in the U.S. Coast Guard patrolling the waters off Alaska and in the North Pacific Ocean as well as living in Juneau and traveling throughout Alaska to coordinate Coast Guard activities and develop lasting partnerships,” Barrows said in a press release. “I look forward to the opportunity to address future challenges facing the industry as well as to help ensure the continued sustainable management of fisheries resources.”

Barrows represented the United States Coast Guard as part of the North Pacific Anadromous Fisheries Commission, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, the North Pacific Fisheries Commission, the U.S.-Russia Intergovernmental Consultative Committee on Fisheries, the U.S.-Canada Bilateral meetings on Ocean and Fisheries, the United Nations’ Consultative Process on the Oceans and the Law of the Sea, and in meetings of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Barrows has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and a master’s degree in marine affairs from the University of Rhode Island. Once he assumes the presidency, he will be based in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaskans fret as Chinese, US tariffs go into effect

July 6, 2018 — The next phase of the Chinese-U.S. trade war kicked into effect on Friday, 6 July, as each country imposed USD 34 billion (EUR 28.9 billion) worth of tariffs on a range of goods that, on the Chinese side, include a variety of seafood products.

According to a list issued from the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China, more than 170 seafood products are subject to the new tariffs, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on 6 July. However, confusion remains as to exactly which products are subject to the tariffs – especially amongst those engaged in sending seafood to China for reprocessing and re-export.

That’s a big question for many involved in the seafood industry in Alaska, which relies heavily on Chinese labor to complete the difficult task of removing pinbones from much of its catch. In fact, in large part due to the seafood industry, China is Alaska’s largest trading partner, with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of salmon, flatfish, and cod heading to China for reprocessing and re-export.

Glenn Reed, president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association, which represents companies operating onshore processing plants for Alaska salmon, crab, and pollock, as well as Pacific cod, said there is still uncertainty on the issue.

“We’re watching the situation closely. We know we this could affect us all from fishermen, processors, support business, communities, the state, etc. We just don’t have good info at this point,” he told SeafoodSource via email. “We may not know the impact until after 6 July.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska: Bering Sea cod conflict brewing between on and offshore buyers

December 21, 2017 — “Cod Alley” is getting crowded, and some fishermen want to limit the boats in the narrow congested fishing area in the Bering Sea.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is looking at changes, including restricting flatfish factory trawlers from buying cod offshore.

The Pacific Seafood Processors Association is pushing for restrictions on factory trawlers to protect its members’ shore plants in Unalaska, Akutan, King Cove and Sand Point.

According to the PSPA’s Nicole Kimball, seven factory trawlers bought cod from 17 catcher boats in 2017, up from just one factory trawler that traditionally participated in prior years. The Amendment 80 factory trawlers act as motherships, processing but not catching the Pacific cod.

“The share delivered to motherships increased from 3.3 percent in 2016 to 12.7 percent in 2017, while shoreside processors had a reciprocal decline. This is a meaningful shift. At this point it is open-ended, and there is nothing to prevent future growth in this activity,” Kimball testified at the council’s December meeting in Anchorage.

Local government representatives shared the shoreplants’ concerns, citing a loss of tax revenues needed for schools and other services. On a smaller scale, it’s reminiscent of the inshore-offshore battle in the pollock fishery about 20 years ago.

“This is a big deal,” said Unalaska Mayor Frank Kelty. “It looks like we’ve got trouble coming down the road again.”

Cod is Unalaska’s second-most important product, behind pollock, he said.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

 

Committee Chair Refuses to Advance Alaska Governor’s Fisheries Tax Hike

February 24, 2016 — Commercial fisheries may see taxes increase, but only if other resource industries do, too.

Under a budgetary thundercloud, Gov. Bill Walker is trying to squeeze funding from any source. A commercial fisheries tax bump, part of nine such bills in the Legislature, has slowed to a crawl in committee as fishermen decry it.

Fishermen, and House Fisheries Committee chair Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, fear Walker’s tax plan could disproportionately pinpoint the commercial fishing industry while other resource taxes die.

Stutes said during a Feb. 23 committee hearing that she’ll hold the bill in committee until further study.

“I have some reservations about passing this bill out of committee,” said Stutes. “I’ve been seeing a lot of the other resource tax bills faltering. I’m going to hold this in committee until I’m comfortable that the fishing industry is not being singled out. I would like this committee to assimilate and digest what they’ve heard.”

United Fishermen of Alaska, the state’s largest fishing industry group, brooked little opposition to the bill during a February meeting, but cracks appeared once Stutes opened the committee to public comment. The committee heard from fisherman that the tax plan seemed poorly thought out.

Richie Davis, a representative for the Seafood Producers Cooperative, said the tax bump is proof that either the Walker’s administration doesn’t fully grasp the social and economic aspects of the fishing industry, or “or somebody is using Alaska’s fiscal crisis as a springboard to cripple our industry.”

1 percent across the board

House Bill 251 would levy a 1 percent increase on commercial fisheries taxes. Current rates range from 1 percent to 5 percent, depending on the category.

Comment from two separate hearings on Feb. 18 and Feb. 23 called the tax plan too simple, too rushed, and too ignorant of the other resource taxes in the state. A 1 percent across-the-board raise, fishermen said, ignores the industry’s nuances and unique challenges.

The fisheries tax schedule is one of the more complex in Alaska tax code. The fisheries business tax and fisheries resource landings tax sprawl across different categories and sectors.

The state levies a fishery business tax and a fisheries resource landing tax, which distinguish between established fisheries and developing fisheries, each with different rates for floating processors, salmon canneries, and shore based processors.

The 1 percent tax rate increase doesn’t make enough distinctions, industry said.

“The approach HB 251 takes is quite frankly oversimplified,” said Vince O’Shea, vice president of Pacific Seafood Processors Association.

O’Shea, along with Icicle Seafoods representative Kris Norosz, pointed out that a 1 percent increase could conceivably work for some sectors but would stress salmon canneries, which are glutted with oversupply and having trouble profiting at the current 4.5 percent cannery rate.

“There hasn’t been quite enough analysis on the proposed action,” said Norosz. “I’m not quite sure how we got to this.”

Ken Alper, director of the state’s Department of Revenue Tax Division, said the 1 percent tax rate bump aims to bridge the gap between the state’s spending on fisheries management and its revenue.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce