NOAA Fisheries’ 5-Year Plan Focuses on Boosting Seafood Economy

NOAA Fisheries’ National Seafood Strategy Implementation Plan, announced in early September, outlines the agency’s focus on boosting the domestic seafood economy and enhance the resilience of the seafood sector in the face of climate change over the next five years.

NOAA Fisheries officials acknowledged that while the domestic seafood industry enhances public health and nutrition, creates jobs, and helps build a climate resilient food strategy that’s facing many challenges, including putting the domestic supply of sustainable seafood at risk.

“The Implementation Plan is where the rubber meets the road,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Janet Coit said. “It outlines the specific actions to achieve the goals we laid out in the strategy to support our nation’s seafood sector and the benefits it provides.”

The mandate calls for maintaining or increasing sustainable wild-capture production, increasing sustainable aquaculture production, fostering access to domestic and global markets for the U.S. seafood industry, and strengthening the entire domestic seafood sector.

Emphasis on protected species, and equity and environmental justice are also part of the strategy.

Changing ocean conditions, shifts in distribution and abundance of marine resources, heat waves and damaging storms are factors under consideration impacting access to fishing opportunities seafood production and fishing to support dietary needs, cultural traditions and tribal treaty rights.

Increasing sustainable domestic aquaculture production, the second goal, includes finfish, shellfish, invertebrates and seaweed. This is where the global and domestic demand for seafood production has been met over the last 20 years.

A third goal, to access domestic and global markets for U.S. seafood, is seen as a benefit that translates into greater global seafood supply and food security, while decreasing U.S. reliance on foreign fisheries at risk of overfishing, IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fisheries.

The fourth goal is to strengthen the entire domestic seafood sector, by making seafood a vital part of the blue economy. This includes the need for a growing, diverse seafood workforce that attracts young harvesters and seafood farmers to the sector.

Planned efforts include gaining a better understanding of barriers to access to seafood and to modernize and maintain U.S. seafood infrastructure, in order to strengthen and enhance opportunities for coastal seafood communities and regional food networks.

The plan includes four pilot initiatives, including support of Alaska’s seafood sector resilience; revitalization of the Port of Port Orford, Oregon; increased climate resilience in highly migratory species fisheries, and bolstering resilience in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic shrimp fishery.

NOAA Fisheries also noted in the Sept. 3 report that the agency has developed an economic snapshot report summarizing the status of the fishing industry in Alaska.

“Specifically, the snapshot estimates economic losses and characterizes the decline in the Alaska fishing industry’s profitability from 2021-2023,” Sarah Shoffler, the National Seafood Strategy Coordinator for NOAA’s office of policy said. “We are in the process of finalizing the document.”

The Alaska seafood resilience initiative involves analysis of the market, economic and geopolitical drivers affecting Alaska seafood production and trade, and effects on Alaska seafood businesses and communities. Technical assistance is to be provided to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for seafood purchases program.

Alaska produces over half the fish caught in waters off the U.S. coastline, with an average wholesale value of nearly $4.5 billion annually. West Coast fisheries in California, Oregon and Washington harvest close to one billion pounds of seafood annually, worth nearly $1 billion.

The full plan can be seen and downloaded at https://tinyurl.com/yc4nmy9j.

Source: https://fishermensnews.com/noaa-fisheries-5-year-plan-focuses-on-boosting-seafood-economy/