There used to be fish:The Decline of Fish and Fishing Communities in New England

“Fishermen around me have gathered the courage to stand together,” called a worn but yet unbroken speaker outside the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) offices in Gloucester, Massachusetts; “we’re asking you to come out,” he paused, turning to face a grid of glass windows, removing his navy hood and pointing the bull-horn up at the austere authority of the new office park. Raising his voice, he bid again, “We’re asking you to come out. [Pause] The issues we’re facing require congressional action. If the fleet size goes down any more we’ll reach the tipping point,” he sighed, “losing the infrastructure necessary to maintain the industry.” The building was silent. Thick glass held steadfast returning only mirror images, undecipherable signage, hung from the necks of folks bewailing: “20 Years of Sacrifice Only to be Sectored Out.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is the government body tasked with implementing fishery conservation and management policies developed by each of the eight Regional Fishery Management Councils (RFMC) established under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The act was formulated to include fishermen in the process of developing management policy, but clearly the 300 or so fishermen and their supporters who gathered in Gloucester last October do not feel that their concerns are being heard or that the Fisheries Service is doing an adequate job of representing their interests. Many now complain that the federal law has set fisheries up to fail in New England and across the nation (Northeast Seafood Coalition 2009).

This paper examines the tools and regulations that have precipitated declines in fish stocks and the people whose livelihoods depend on them. It begins with a short description of commercial marine fisheries since World War II, moves on to outline the unique managerial structure of RFMCs and the regulatory history of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in New England, and finally explores options to increase biological and social health in New England communities through improved regulatory and political support for marine aquaculture. Development of sustainable aquaculture in New England will bring tremendous opportunity to the region, potentially reversing longstanding negative environmental and economic trends, and employing people in ecologically beneficial work. Commercial fishermen stand to benefit from increased aquaculture production, especially if relationships between aquaculture and capture fishery stocks and habitats are strengthened and promoted. All fishers will benefit from the preservation of shared port infrastructure, processing, markets, machinery and repair shops necessary for small scale producers along New England’s bays and harbors.
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On the Evening News!

My Mom and Dad were interviewed on the Evening News about their multiple twin-calf births. Pretty good story and super-cute footage! You can slide the timer bar over to skip the ad in the beginning.
♫ http://www.wabi.tv/news/6665/unexpected-delivery-at-blue-hill-farm

Come to the New Entry Sustainable Farm Tour August 6th

West Coast East Coast

In California many farmers at a regional conference on sustainable agriculture complained about difficulties finding a market for their goods. So far I have not seen this problem so pronounced in central coastal Maine. In fact, overwhelmingly artisans here seem unable to keep up with demand and in fact 3 out of the 4 I interviewed actually tried to recruit me to their trade… It was tempting… very tempting… on par with moving to Hawaii tempting.
People seem willing to pay a fair price for artisan foods if they are able, and right now supply has not increased enough to meet the current demand. (And the demand will increase so long as we as citizens continue to decide that all people are worthy of real food, including ourselves, the impoverished and the working poor.) So, at least for now the major issues seem to be:
1. Farmers losing their land due to property tax structures and land easement
2. Environmental contamination (from runoff, genetic flow and a general lack of holistic agricultural planning) And
3. Change in the environment, including urbanization, loss of habitat and changes in climate.
I went to this discussion at the town library and we talked about what five things would you do (given benevolent dictatorship)?
5 things to change US Ag
1. Some way to reward farmers for being good stewards of the land and make it more economically viable to farm a beautiful place than to subdivide and build track homes on it.
2. Nutrition and Agricultural education for the general public (through public schools, and community services) andPaying those (farmers and artisans) who already know about Food and Agriculture (soil systems, year round growing, how to preserve the harvest) to develop curriculum for re-training efforts as we continue to transform our economy.
3. Stimulus money directed to building local food systems infrastructure (such as cooperatively controlled processing facilities, coordinated transportation and marketing, and municipal composting)
4. Higher safety testing for new agricultural developments including Genetically Modified Organisms, Growth Hormones and Pesticides, from a whole systems approach including economic feasibility studies, long term soil and water systems health, and human health.
5. Greater enforcement of existing labor laws including minimum wage and anti-slavery laws.

What are yours?

THE PRICE AND THE PROMISE OF CITIZENSHIP

President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address stated: “that we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood,” and urged that, “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.” – Obama, January 20, 2009

The ongoing “Food Crisis,” which showcased grain shortages and price volatility and sparked riots across the world last summer, brought public awareness to eaters everywhere that we have created a system in which access to food is highly vulnerable to international market forces. Everywhere now attitudes are beginning to shift as environmental concerns force people to recognize that we must be stewards of the land, and recent spikes in food prices are raising questions about what it means to have an equitable democratic society. To encourage agriculture we must make it profitable again which will require increased prices to farmers for their produce, but we also have to provide food security for the poor. The paradox of building a strong agricultural sector while ensuring food security for all will be one of the great policy challenges facing our country in coming years. Food policy councils represent one way forward and have the potential to provide a safe and healthy way for communities to deal with that conflict and to coordinate and build relationships between members of a food system across urban and rural landscapes, and to promote civic engagement among underrepresented groups.

Tom Vilsack, recently appointed as Secretary of Agriculture in the Obama administration, has been applauded for creating the second official state-wide food policy council in the United States by executive order in the year 2000. The Iowa Food Policy Council had many early successes and was diverse both in its representative stakeholders at the table and range of policy recommendations. However, when Governor Vilsack left office in January of 2007 the council effectively ceased to exist, leaving spectators to wonder about the durability of such agencies to address systemic change in the food system. Since their inception, support for food policy councils has grown exponentially – the promise of innovative and creative problem solving by empowered citizens, shifting policy at the local level toward a sustainable and just food system, appeals to a wide range of political and social activists. Many Foundations, including Kellogg, Mazon and the California Endowment are currently investing in policy councils. In 2007 The American Planning Association wrote its first ever policy guide on community and regional food planning. Since as far back as 1996, even the USDA began funding Food Policy Councils through Community Food Projects Competitive Grants. Wayne Robberts, manager of the prominent Toranto Food Policy Council, has gone as far as to suggest:
Our problems do not come from scarcity, but from not knowing how to treat abundance. .. Marry Poppins came down into a family that was totally dysfunctional and then used her magic to make their family functional, which is I believe that a FPC does which it underlies a system which has all the necessary ingredients for success…

While food policy councils are revolutionary in their ability to coordinate disparate actors across the food system, they most certainly cannot remedy all of the problems currently plaguing our global food system. For this reason, it is vital for the greater goal of ensuring food sovereignty that we take a critical look at food policy councils to fully understand their limitations. With the appointment of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture in the Obama administration, an unbiased critique is needed now to inform the progress of the food justice movement nationally. This paper seeks to analyze the potential and limitations of food policy councils to influence or inform public policy and restore local control over the food system. Additionally it is our intention to catalog various conditions for success. By so doing, we hope to provide a better understanding of what food policy councils can and cannot do. Through this process, we hope to provide a better understanding of the problems and potential of the food policy council model to transform food systems.

Update

OK, so I haven’t posted in a while… but I wanted to just give a little personal update on my life and then next I'll share some observations from talking with some producers here in Maine.

It’s official! I am graduate student at Tufts University in Boston! Classes start in September. I sat in on a class last week and I kind of felt like the ugly duckling when she sees herself flying with a flock of swans.

In the end of April I finished up my work with Food First- keep posted for some excerpts of my research there- and then my roommate and I took a trip down the coast to Big Sur and up to La Honda. Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful. Then I flew out to Minnesota to look at a school there and met Ken Meter with Crossroads Resource Center and Corinne Rafferty with the Institute for Agricultural Trade Policy- Both really awesome organizations doing some phenomenal work. From there I went to Boston and fell in love with the school, the city (well, for a city, you know), the people, the thick Boston accents. And up to Maine where I have been visiting my family. You all know I’m pretty much a big sap so I’ve been head over heals for my parents maple syrup, Flossie’s raw milk and fresh butter (and mom’s fish chowder), I made cheese with a farmer in Troy and spent a morning with an oyster farmer, though we couldn’t harvest the oysters due to recent heavy rains. I also got to make fresh pesto and gnocchi with my nephew which was pretty fun.

I want Real Food Now and it Starts with Me

I want Real Food Now and it Starts with Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaxPacSm5c
I just have to share this video I saw- it was made by Elementary school students in Louisiana- and it just gets right to the heart of the real food justice issue of valuing people and all life. “Who wants milk from a cow with steroids?” No one really WANTS that crap… really? Corn Syrup? Even the people who profit off the stuff probably don’t REALLY want to drink it. “I am somebody and I won’t be stopped by nobody.” It is so awesome to see these kids empowered to stick up for themselves and demand their basic needs.