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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/fishermen-feeding-mainers-unfamiliar-fish/>
"As a fisherman in Maine’s groundfish industry, Geordie King is used to
uncertainty: Once your net is cast, you never know what it will haul up when it
returns, if it returns at all. This unpredictability holds true in general when
it comes to the sea, which swayed King’s 49-foot, teal-hulled gillnetter, the
Brittany Lynn, in gentle rolls as we sat in her wheelhouse, the boat’s engine
idling beneath our feet. But even for King — who, after fishing in the Gulf of
Maine for 40 years, was used to his work being affected by the volatility of
innumerable factors — the abruptness with which the pandemic upended the
fishing industry was remarkable.
“It pretty much came to a dead stop for several months,” King remembered, his
eyes searching somewhere beyond the wheelhouse’s window, where the water of
Casco Bay sparkled in the tilted winter sun. “The markets momentarily dried up,
trucking dried up … the whole infrastructure came to a grinding halt. So that
basically put a stop to fishing.”
It wasn’t the fishing itself that was the problem. In fact, many boats were
able to safely resume operations within the first year of the pandemic — the
coastal breeze supplied adequate air circulation; the open ocean, with no land
in sight, provided ample social distancing. But as Susan Olcott, the director
of operations of the nonprofit Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association (MCFA), lays
out, just about every other aspect of the industry was in crisis. Fishermen
“didn’t have a market for their catch. Restaurants were closed and overseas
markets were not happening,” Olcott explains. “It was not profitable for people
to keep fishing.”
When the pandemic struck, MCFA had already been supporting Maine’s fishermen
and working waterfronts for 15 years. And as Olcott, along with Ben Martens,
MCFA’s executive director, witnessed the pandemic’s havoc on the community, the
nonprofit launched a program called Fishermen Feeding Mainers (FFM) to help out
people like King as they navigated the unfolding disaster. Using federal Covid
relief funding, FFM purchased fish at the Portland Fish Exchange from
groundfish captains, which guaranteed competitive prices. By investing in their
fish, FFM enabled fishermen to return to work, confident that they would
receive fair pay for their catch. In turn, FFM would make good use of the fish:
by donating it to local food banks and the food programs of public school
districts."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
