Local Food Supply, Global Demand
by Brenda Tredwell

All the fisheries are interlinked— we’ve got to support each other.

“Certain legislation and an emphasis on global markets, rather than local food supply, is taking power out of our hands. In rural, low income areas in many parts of this country—not just Maine—fishermen and farmers are being forced out of self sufficiency” said a source from Maine Feeds Maine, an organization whose local approach to food supply supports fishermen. A percentage of foods grown or caught in Maine and sold to large distributors has potentially traveled 1,000 or more miles only to be trucked back. Maine seafood gets shipped back—processed, frozen or packaged—creating higher prices for consumers and profit for corporations. Within the US livestock industry, extreme consolidation has allowed regulation to be directed by corporate interests, and it’s been said the fishing industry is headed in the same direction There are only a handful of major grocery distributors in the world—many of which are headquartered overseas—a lot of money is being taken from American hands and being funneled into the pockets of large European corporations and distributors. Maine’s Hannaford is European owned.

While the world market is vital to the fishing industry, small local operations and independent fishermen are suffering. Fishing is a keystone industry in Maine, yet it’s getting harder to sell fresh caught seafood locally. One reason for this is that it’s shipped out of state. Additionally, there is a rising preference for processed seafood. Fresh seafood sold from local fish trucks, or local wharves is becoming scarce as regulations make it harder for these small independent operations to survive.

“Ordinances allowing individual towns to manage resources, such as shellfish, often work better than legislation from Augusta or Washington,” according to a fisherman who has worked in several fisheries. The industry cannot work in isolation; there needs to be communication between the fisheries which extends across state lines, and attendance at Town or Harbor Committee Meetings, where zoning and access issues affecting local industry are discussed. “All the fisheries are interlinked—we’ve got to support each other,” said a Gouldsboro clammer during a recent town shellfish meeting. “That’s Right!” replied others, who’d come directly from the flats, still wearing their boots. It’s vital that local knowledge of fishing resources be incorporated into fisheries management plans.

Direct local marketing eliminates surcharges tacked onto food costs and keeps profit within communities. Community Supported Fishing (CSF), which operates on the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, is catching on. The Port Clyde Draggerman’s Co-op, working in conjunction with the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association, has 150 subscribers who purchase shares of their catch. Customers receive deliveries of locally harvested seafood, which was paid for in advance. Direct sales allow for more sustainable profits for fishermen. The group is working with the Island Institute to promote the Port Clyde Fresh Catch brand in order to preserve long term sustainability and provide fresh local fish to their community.

Community Supported Agriculture started small, with big producers questioning the ability of CSA to succeed. However, it has grown in the last 10 to 15 years into a significant market place for farmers and a popular place for consumers to get fresh farm produce nationally. Buying local also reduces storage (electricity) and long-haul (diesel) trucking costs. Fishermen aligned with this CSF agreed on a conservation plan; fishing with by-catch reduction nets, and using fishing methods that protect habitat and stocks. On the world trade and corporate levels, commodities are articles of commerce (agriculture, livestock, fish) shipped and traded around the globe, and “futures” are bulk commodities bought for future delivery as a hedge against price changes. Even highly perishable live lobster can now be sold at this level. Until recently, the largest obstacle in marketing lobster was price fluctuation, creating (stable pricing) difficulty for large scale buyers from the food service and distribution industries. Technology has changed things. Live lobster bought from US wharves by Canadian buyers is held in tube houses or cold water storage tanks at airports, awaiting release onto the international market.

As global demand for seafood and “green harvesting” has increased, so has the pressure for approval from the Marine Stewardship Council. London is 3025 miles from Cutler, Maine. An increasing number of lobstermen feel that a North American-based standard created from within the fishery itself would better serve the lobster industry than stewardship policy coming from the London based MSC. While the US lobster industry has entered into the pre-assessment phase for Marine Stewardship Council’s approval, many lobstermen present at the Canadian/US Lobstermen’s Town Meeting (April 4-5, 2008/Portland) felt joint marketing between all US lobster regions and Canada would be more beneficial to the industry than MSC approval—provided that unified regulations and conservation standards were established.

United States and Canadian lobstermen feeling cut off from profits—while bearing the brunt of high operating costs—have concerns regarding thepossibility of handing power to an outside set of controls when they could create their own standard.

While consumers demand green products, how much of that is marketing—or a transferal of one country’s carbon footprint to another? Wood harvested and processed into pellets in the US is marketed in Scotland as a source of green heating. It is not processed or harvested from their backyards, so from the Scottish perspective, it’s sustainable. Is labeling products ‘whale-safe,’ ‘green,’ ‘organic’ valuable or just a marketing tool, or a band-aid used by corporations to reassure us?

A world food supply crisis is eminent, according to some world agencies. The increased US dependence on cheap imported foods, the loss of farm land to development, the dependence on more expensive foreign petroleum, the lower value of the dollar, and the recent reduced status of the U.S. in the world, add up to what critics have called a national security issue. Closer to home, the Downeast Foodshed and the Maine Food Policy Council support local emergency food supply in the event of crises or disaster.

In order to avoid over-reliance upon out-of-state food sources, these two organizations support local food production, agriculture and seafood harvesting in Maine. According to a list of statistics citing threats to Maine’s food production capacity compiled by Maine’s Food Policy Council “From 1977-2002, Maine lost almost 140,000 acres of farmland, with declines in potato production accounting for 50,000 acres....” and “Though Maine has over 3,000 miles of coastline, waterfront access for fishing ports has decreased to 25 miles.” There is growing concern that the interests of fishermen, hunters and farmers need to be protected, supported and preserved for reasons beyond the economic...

“Like soil, the ocean can’t be overworked,” said a farmer from AroostookCounty whose family was in the potato business. “Farmers used fish fertilizer to enrich their fields. Fishing and farming built each other up.” His belief is that the two industries need to continue to do so. As the wind whips through a dusty alley of potato houses near the Houlton border, several farm trucks pull in...a couple of Aroostook County trucks that fishermen may never see, sport bumper stickers supporting the fishing industry, “down to the east.”