THE FRESHEST CATCH

Any small business advocate or compost compiler can tell you that local is better. It means fresher food, a smaller environmental impact and more money for the local economy … that’s why community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms have become wildly popular. Traditionally, CSAs have been strictly produce, but last year, a group of fishermen in Gloucester adopted the model not only to provide super-high quality fresh fish, but also to revive a floundering (sorry) local industry.

Cape Ann Fresh Catch (CAFC) is a union of small local fishermen, supported by shareholders, who buy into the fishermen’s pooled catch.

But community-supported fishing (CSF) has to tackle challenges that are foreign to CSAs. The catch can be unreliable. There’s real danger out at sea. There’s heavy regulation from the government, and the large, commercial competition uses bigger, more efficient equipment to reap the same ecosystem as the small, independent boats.

"There’s just a limited supply of fish in the sea," says Boyce Thorne Miller, policy and science specialist for the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA). "Smaller gear and smaller boats are just much more environmentally friendly. The problem is that smaller is less efficient, and while we try to find ways to make everyone happy, management at larger industrial fishing companies care only about efficiency and their bottom line. While they are more efficient, to remain so, they have to use larger and more damaging gear. Also, operating in global and national markets means that not only is [the fish] being shipped farther away from where it was actually caught, and therefore not feeding the people that caught them, but the high demand also encourages overfishing."

For Miller, the biggest problem is the lack of local markets, which forces the industry to engage in environmentally detrimental practices. So NAMA attempts to create supply chains, build infrastructure and work with farmers markets. The boots on the ground are the fishermen of the CAFC, but the day-to-day operations are run by the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association (GFWA).

"Our goal when we set out four years ago was just to familiarize people with the kind of fish we were catching," explains GFWA president Angela Sanfilippo. "Most of what we were getting was haddock, hake and other fish that are often considered ‘junk fish.’ Most of the fishing families up here are Italian, so we are very familiar with these types of fish and know how to prepare them. You usually don’t see them in a lot of markets, or if you do, the quality isn’t good. So, we try to educate people about how to use them, in order to build demand. The problem was we had little publicity and had trouble getting the word out."

Enter Niaz Dorry, coordinator of NAMA and Gloucester resident, who had set up the country’s first CSF in Port Clyde, Maine, and thought her community was a logical location for the next site. She contacted the GFWA, whose members had seen their livings steadily dwindle since stricter government regulations were enacted in 1996.

As excited as the fishermen were to engage with this new model, there were still logistical issues to figure out. First off, they were flat broke.

"We started in January of last year, trying to fish shrimp, but it didn’t go very well," Sanfilippo explains. "After that, we met every week to try to figure out a plan".

What the group came up with was the idea to start an annual "Seafood Throwdown" in Gloucester, featuring a spread of dishes prepared with the so-called "junk fish" in order to promote their catch. The results astonished them. "We got a hundred people to sign up right then," says Sanfilippo. "And even though our first try didn’t go so well, we just said, ‘What the hell, if it works, it works.’"

They officially launched in June of ’09, but began operating on a volunteer basis that April, and, with the help of Dorry’s connection to North Shore farmers markets, started to build a presence beyond Gloucester. In the first month, they had signed a whopping 780 people, according to Sanfilippo.

Today, Sanfilippo estimates that CAFC supplies to about 1,000 consumers at more than 14 different locations around the state, and expects that number will grow, since the CAFC is still accepting new members for the next four weeks through their website (namanet.org/csf/cape-ann-fresh-catch).

At the Harvard Square farmers market delivery site last Tuesday, shareholders streamed in to grab their weekly oceanic bounty—both whole fish and fillets, ranging from 2 to 6 pounds, depending on what they signed up for—and chit-chat with Peter Burns, an original CAFC shareholder, childhood fisherman and current zoo archaeologist, who volunteered to organize the stand at Harvard’s market (many of the people who dole out CAFC’s fish do so on a volunteer basis).

Shareholder Michael Louis, 26, biked up to the truck, cooler in hand. "It’s a way to get great, local, sustainable seafood, [and] support fishing communities," he said. "It’s not only better than the stuff we used to buy in the supermarket, but it’s also cheaper."

Alice Johnson, 72, joined CAFC after the sub-par quality of other available fish had made her family give up seafood altogether. Now, she says, "The freezer is always full of stock."

"We’ve just been experimenting with it," she says. "When I was growing up in Maine, we used to have fishermen come door to door with fish, so this is pretty close. Filleting the fish is always a challenge, but we’re getting better each time, and the [CAFC] website has some great video tutorials."

Despite the success of the CSF, fishermen, like Paul Metivier, who’s been at it for almost 30 years, are feeling the pain of this year’s new state regulations.

"The regulations are just killing us," says Metivier’s wife, Debra. "The biggest change this year, other than all the other bells and whistles, is that all of the regulatory duties have shifted from government agencies to the actual fishermen and the people dealing with the catch."

Massachusetts fishermen are now responsible for making sure that they don’t go beyond their quota, catch the right fish and do it in the right way, a job that once belonged to state officials. Starting next year, the whole sector, which includes all fishermen, CSF-affiliated or otherwise, must hire and may have to pay for a regional manager, as well as an official, to check the catch coming off the dock.

"When we started out, we were operating as a small business, with the ability to grow as much as we were able," said Debra Metivier. "Now, we’re basically government employees."

This year, the state regulations changed to adopt a quota system that defines exactly how much each fisherman is allowed to catch. This "catch share" system is a departure from previous government regulations, based around factors such as geography and season. Since the mid-’90s, the state had followed a "Days at Sea" regulatory model, which defined how many days a vessel could be out at sea and how many fish it could catch per day. In the new system, the coast is divided into fishing "sectors." Each sector is allotted a certain poundage of catch, and it is up to the sectional manager and the fishermen to determine how much each person can catch.

"What they’ve basically done is put all the fishermen in the same bed, sharing one sheet," said Metivier. "If one person rolls over, they are penalized pretty harshly to make up for everybody else. What this means is that regardless of how good my husband is at his job, the most he can make in a year is about $38,000 because that’s what he gets from catching his quota and selling it at the market price."

As we spoke, she anxiously awaited her husband’s return from his
first outing of the season, unsure whether he would catch enough to keep them going. While the Metiviers did try the CSF route, it ended up being too much trouble for the return they were getting. Because the CSF can only afford to buy and distribute so much of the catch from those involved, their returns amount to a crapshoot. Even Sanfilippo admits that the organization doesn’t yet have enough capital to "cover bad days."

"We do remain hopeful that this movement will continue to grow, because I think it’s really great to have people enjoying such a high quality of fish and keeping what we catch local," says Metivier.

But there is optimism (based on the early returns) that the program will pick up speed as people begin to buy in, both monetarily and ideologically, to what they’re doing.

YOU CAN STILL SIGN UP FOR CAPE ANN’S FRESH CATCH ON A PRO-RATED BASIS THIS SEASON! VISIT [[http://namanet.org/CSF/CAPE-ANN-FRESH-CATCH|NAMANET.ORG/CSF/CAPE-ANN-FRESH-CATCH]].