Fishing for a growing industry

SOMETHING FISHY: Tina Jackson, president of the American Alliance of Fishermen, with Robert Carpenter, supervisor of piers for the state DEM. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
SOMETHING FISHY: Tina Jackson, president of the American Alliance of Fishermen, with Robert Carpenter, supervisor of piers for the state DEM. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

Commercial-fishing advocates pushing for more locally caught seafood to stay in Rhode Island hope a study detailing new financial information on the state’s struggling fishing industry will further their cause by quantifying its strengths and promise.
The continual decrease in commercial-fishing boats in Rhode Island, the increasing age of Rhode Island fishermen and an aging population of vessels – also detailed in the report – could paint a less-than-rosy future. But other data collected, including what authors say is previously unreported information on the value of a thriving seafood-processing industry – $100 million in 2010 – offer hope for growth in the state’s commercial-fishing industry, the advocates say.
The report, “Rhode Island Commercial Fishing and Seafood Industries: The Development of an Industry Profile,” was released in late October. It was sponsored by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation, a nonprofit, private foundation based in South Kingstown and established by commercial fishermen to support fisheries-research projects.
Among its key findings, all for 2010:
• Income from the processing of seafood in Rhode Island, including seafood imported here for processing, was at least $100 million.
• The estimated total value of fish sold in Rhode Island was $201 million.
• Estimated total income associated with fish landed by Rhode Island home-ported vessels was $150 million.
• Estimate of total employment in Rhode Island connected directly to harvesting, processing, distributing, etc. was 6,951.
• The number of state-licensed commercial fishing boats decreased to 1,298, from 1,488 in 2005.
• Lobster was the highest-valued seafood caught by Rhode Island fishermen.
• Major species landed in terms of volume included ilex squid, Atlantic herring, little skate, loligo squid and Atlantic mackerel.
The profile comes at a pivotal time for the state, commercial fishermen and the businesses that rely on and support the industry. Fishermen are at odds with the state over regulations they say make it too difficult to be a commercial fisherman, resulting in the continual decrease in their numbers. They also want more of their product to stay where it is harvested. The state could benefit from helping the commercial-fishing industry survive and thrive, thus helping the state’s own strained budget, they say. Janet Coit, director of the R.I. Department of Environmental Management, said the study will support efforts statewide to keep more locally harvested seafood on the plates of Rhode Islanders.
“Marine fishing is an important part of our economic picture, not just for the value of what’s landed but for the leverage of all the things associated with that,” Coit said. “I think this report helps give some numbers in the hundreds of millions-of-dollars range that indicates that we can grow this sector.”
The report is making the case that commercial fishing in Rhode Island isn’t a dying industry, she said.
“This is a vital industry with real potential for growth – thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars,” Coit said. “Every dollar value on a fish that’s landed has ripple effect.”
The state acknowledges the importance of commercial fishermen and supports them, said Christine Hunsinger, a spokeswoman for Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee.
In Oct., Chafee signed three bills designed to assist the fishing trade. The first bill creates the Rhode Island Seafood Marketing Collaborative, with the purpose of supporting local fishermen and small businesses and to encourage Rhode Islanders to use locally produced and harvested seafood. Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, D-New Shoreham, and Rep. Peter Martin, D-Newport, sponsored the legislation.
The other bill discourages the poaching of striped bass and the last one clarifies licensing requirements for commercial rod-and-reel fishing boats.
Sosnowski, who chairs a Senate task force tracking the status and trends of Rhode Island fishing, said the report mimics some of the task force’s findings and validates its direction.
“The only true way of survival is through direct marketing,” she said. Sosnowski called the report “a very worthwhile endeavor.
“We’ve got the economic value of the fishing industry,” Sosnowski said. “Yes, there’s some blanks there but there’s a lot more here than we had before.”
The purpose of the study was “to catch a glimpse of an industry that is in transition,” explained Peg Parker, executive director of the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation.
But she was encouraged by some of the other data uncovered, such as the amount of money processors bring into the state and the dominant value of lobster harvested here, even though lobstermen are declining, Parker said. The downward trends in landings and the number of commercial fishermen in the state are not surprising and are right on track with trends in other ports across New England, said John Scotti. He led a research team from the Cornell University Cooperative Extension Marine Program that worked on the report. But what was surprising was the information discovered on the shore side, Scotti said.
During the six-month study, his team discovered that the seafood-processing business in the state was thriving. The income from processing had previously not been reported because processors are not required to keep the same data as fishermen, he said.
“There’s a lot of information about commercial fishermen, because almost everything they do is reported from species landed, gear type … there’s a huge amount of data,” said Scotti. “When it comes to seafood processing, there’s hardly any information.”
With a lack of historical perspective, Scotti said his team decided to survey the top 25 processors.
“The interesting thing that came from that, besides the amount of product that they process, was that we also found that they receive a lot of product shipped into the state for processing,” he said.
The research team discovered that all together, on the low end, the state’s processors brought in about $100 million in 2010. That’s $60 million from processing what was landed here, $30 million from processing the 44 million pounds of seafood shipped here for processing and $10 million from the seafood Rhode Island commercial fishermen landed elsewhere.
Tina Jackson began commercial fishing six years ago, dragging offshore for fluke and groundfish before transitioned to lobstering. She is president of the American Alliance of Fishermen in South Kingstown. The commercial-fishing advocacy group has members from Maine to New Jersey.
Jackson hopes the report focuses public attention on how valuable the fishing industry is to the state economy.
“These declines [in the number of fishermen] are a direct correlation to regulations, management, poor science and in my opinion the [poor] public perception of fishermen,” Jackson said. “It is continually forgotten that these men and women are business owners, producers, and job creators that risk their lives each and every time they leave the dock.
“It is imperative that the privilege of fishing be maintained as is it always has in the past,” she said. •

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