Fishing Industry, Struggling to Stay Afloat, Sends Virtual SOS to Feds

by Fishermen’s Voice Staff

Maine fishing interests joined a national call to the federal government to increase federal support for America’s fishing communities.

On May 4, hundreds of independent fishermen along with small and mid-sized seafood businesses across the country and their allies sent a letter to the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Agriculture, and Congress urging increased federal support. Representatives from New England, Alaska, the West Coast, and the Gulf, spoke out in an accompanying video message. Their message underscored growing concerns about the impacts of COVID-19 on small and mid-scale seafood producers and called on the Trump Administration and Congress to address the increasingly urgent situation facing fishing communities nationwide.

Maine signatories to the letter includes Mere Point Oyster Co., Scully Sea Products, Maine Farm to Institution, and several individuals.

The letter outlined several recommendations to enable fishing communities to weather the COVID-19 crisis and adapt to its abrupt and dramatic impacts on the seafood supply chain.

Mere Point Oyster Co., Scully Sea Products, Maine Farm to Institution, and several individuals were the Maine-based signatories on a national call to the federal government to increase federal support for America’s fishing communities. Screenshot courtesy of Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.

The recommendations include $1.5 billion in additional emergency funding (with at least half allocated for small and mid-sized fishing operations); debt forgiveness measures; support for young fishermen; investments in shoreside infrastructure; access to testing, protective equipment and medical care; and eligibility for the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.

All together, there were 238 signatories, including commercial fishing trade associations, seafood businesses, food and agriculture groups, environmental organizations, social justice advocates and concerned citizens. Collectively, they represent three million people, including 30,000 commercial fishermen.

“We are seeing more and more consumers looking for direct access to safe, healthy, local seafood. In New York, we are responding by launching the largest community-supported fishery program the state has ever seen,” said Elise Gilchrist, director of communications for Dock to Dish.

“We’re seeing thousands of independent fishermen suddenly on the brink of losing their homes and boats as a result of COVID-19,” said fisherman Lance Nacio of Anna Marie Shrimp, in Montegut, La.

Alaska-based Sitka Salmon Shares founder Nicolaas Minc said, “We have thousands of customers in the Midwest who depend on our community-supported fishery as their primary source of seafood. It’s in our country’s best interest to take care of the fishermen and direct-to-consumer businesses that are providing the essential service of supplying nutritious protein to the country.”

Nationally, the seafood industry generates 1.1 million jobs and contributes over $100 billion per year to the country’s GDP.

“On behalf of fishing families, businesses, and communities across the nation, we would like to thank the federal government for the $300 million in disaster assistance that was allocated to the seafood industry in the CARES Act,” the letter said. “While this relief will enable the seafood industry to offset some of the impacts experienced thus far, it will not adequately mitigate the unprecedented losses that have been suffered nor the impacts that we anticipate over the coming months. Therefore, we are requesting additional support from the federal government to maintain our livelihoods and supply essential food from the ocean to the American public.