F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

Beginning of the Will



The impossible seemed to inch forward a bit at the Portland Lobstermen’s Town Meeting in March. Seemed to because you had to have been in on the discussion a hundred times and attended many Town Meetings to have noticed it. Not everyone there would agree that movement was detected, but it was different this time, at least for the veterans of this conundrum.

At times, attempts to induce some movement on this meets so much resistance is seems like a religious debate or political extremes going head to head. It’s a bit like, but different because it’s about money, the Red Sox and the Yankees thing.

Tension in a sober room when lobstermen and dealers talk boat price can feel just two beers short of a brawl. Unlike a municipal town meeting adjourning where someone says thanks for coming, then people gradually stand up, mill around and leave.

Meetings of dealers and lobstermen start with a bang and often end with someone suddenly, saying “Weelll!” In near unison, all the chairs in the room make a scrapey metal sound against the floor as everyone stands up, the dealers somehow vanish, lobstermen talk and debate in small huddles, then it’s over.

Next time it’s back to square one. Maybe 20 years of this gives a better feel for progress being made. There are no witnesses to the 100 plus year history of this dilemma. What lobstermen do is clear and that it costs more to do it today is obvious. What dealers do seems plain enough, but how they do it is not and each may need to keep that close to their proprietary vest. One other thing is clear. Dealers need lobstermen and lobstermen need dealers.

The Lobstermen’s Town Meeting brings together people with a lot of experience, knowledge and vested interest in the lobster industry. They make time to travel to this event and hope to contribute and get something. As intractable as the boat price appears to be, bits and pieces of the very beginning of an understanding of the lobster price phenomenon were detectable in Portland.

Hints were evident that economics, marketing, and science may have a place in the room with the pointed and raised fingers. Not the end of an answer, but the beginning of the will to seek an understanding of the problem.