New Bedford Journal
27 September 2009
Community Supported Fisheries (CSF)
A Study in Cooperation
Today, the portion of our worship service entitled ‘New Bedford Journal’ could be entitled A Study in Cooperation. On Friday, for an hour and a half at the National Park Visitor Center on William Street, local area fishermen and local farmers sat down together in a roundtable discussion to talk about how they could coordinate a fish share into already existing Community Supported Agriculture. The discussion was facilitated by the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance (NAMA) that has organized Community Supported Fisheries programs in Cape Ann and Boston.
The mission of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance is to restore a sustainable marine system that both supports healthy diversity and an abundance of marine life for human use. For the past decade, it has looked for effective collaboration between fishermen and farmers, and has pursued one primary question: if we care about the health of our oceans, does it matter how, where, and when we fish; and, who catches the fish that end up on our dinner plates? The answer: Definitely!
The Alliance has a number of programs:
The Alliance addresses conflicting mandates within the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 that maximize economic efficiency and lead to further industrialization of the fishing fleet, at the expense of the fish, who end up the losers. Attempts to recover collapsed fisheries have not been successful. Against the tide of the industrialized fleet, and the favors they receive from fisheries regulators, small-scale fishermen fishing in their home waters are organizing and working toward better alternatives to rebuild fisheries and save the marine ecosystem.
In the Northwest Atlantic region, community based fishermen are coming come together to declare there quality is about more than just the of total allowable catch declared by fisheries managers. An important new effort of the Alliance – the Loaves and Fishes Campaign – connects family farmers and community based fishermen to permit sale of local fishing catches along with produce at local farmers’ markets and CSAs.
In the room on Friday, in addition to representatives from the Alliance, organizers of various cooperative initiatives, and Massachusetts Agriculture Commissioner Scott Soares, were a number of local farmers, including Weston Lant, the outspoken owner of Lucky Field Organics in Rochester, and three commercial fisherman – Tim, a young lobsterman from Westport, Dave Densmore, a commercial fisherman and poet (in the ‘cowboy poet’ tradition) from Alaska, and Ed Barrett, commercial fisherman from Plymouth and President of the Mass Fisheries Partnership which coordinates state and local Lobstermen’s and Commercial Fishermen’s Associations, Hook Fishermen’s Associations, and Fish Exchanges, and which supports pilot projects like designing a low-impact scallop dredge.
Getting fish and farm produce together is not an easy task. Boston doesn’t allow seafood to be distributed where farm foods are. Both farmers and fishermen were highly skeptical of bureaucracies – farmers complaining about the incompetence of local Board of Health inspectors; fishermen about the necessity that every regulated species catch had to be federally reported. Nevertheless, CSFs – Community Supported Fisheries – like Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) could benefit both consumer and producer. People would pay for their fish needs 12 weeks ahead, giving fishermen needed capital to use for their operations. This lowers the price of fish for the consumer and gives fishermen a fair price for their work. Seen in terms of a wedge against the unfair favoritism shown to large, industrialized fleets, cooperative fishing enterprises at the local community level address important social equity issues. Commissioner Soares agreed and added that the Nutrition Bill could be worked to get better access to both local farm produce and fish for general health reasons.
The discussion was down-to-earth and powerful, but cognizant of the complexity of competing interests and goals.
Dave Densmore gillnetted on the Columbia River, purse seined for the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, and hunted King Crab out of Dutch Harbor and Unalaska in the Aleutians. In 1971, a King Crab boat he was running caught fire and burned, forcing Dave and his crew to abandon ship. They spent four nights adrift in the Bering Sea, in the days before survival suits. High wind and waves, driving snow and numbing cold, made their survival a miracle, but only after their life raft was run down by a Japanese trawler.
This poem is in memory of his son Skeeter who died at sea
I remember when I first knew I'd someday have a son.
Long before most think of it I was looking forward to that run.
Twelve years old, sitting on a net pile, watching my father's hands,
It dawned on me, I too, would be a man.
Just a simple lesson in splicing, but abruptly so much more to me.
Because suddenly I was filled with a deep and hungry need.
In that moment's time I passed from boyhood to man.
Sitting there in the sun, watching my father's hands.
Looking into his face I loved with all my soul,
I knew without a doubt I'd someday play that role.
Son and Father, Father and Son, what I was and knew would be.
I couldn't wait for the second role, I knew would someday come to me.
I had a King crabber in the ship yard, when he came into this world,
It's hard to keep your focus, when wondering, Boy or Girl.
My father made the call, said, "Well the baby's finally here."
Of course he was a junior, even his nickname was mine as a kid.
Guess I hoped to see myself in everything he did.
I only held him a couple times, then back to the Bering Sea for another round.
Where four long hard months later my King Crab boat went down.
No Mayday, just a half-swamped, storm-tossed raft that took an off-shore line.
I'd hardly even held my son but it seemed I was out of time.
It was a dark, bitter irony to have the son I'd wanted for so long,
And here I was about to leave just when he'd finally come along!
But we were rescued, though it seems, a miracle to this day.
Wither miracle or luck, guess only God can say.
I think God's most precious gift to us is watching our children grow.
He was two when I next went North; it was our first time apart.
Having to pry his fingers from my coat was a direct blow to my heart.
He'd just seemed to know I was leaving and held on with all his might.
Though it broke my heart, I had to go, I had to catch a flight.
So, I bought a family troller to fish down here off the coast.
My priorities had changed, I'd rather have my children close.
Skeeter started fishing at three years old, wish I'd taken him with me more.
But you just can't fish as tough, with little kids aboard.
He was such a tender-hearted boy, just pleasing seemed to be his goal.
Watching him laugh and play, we seemed bonded to the soul.
You know he used to laugh so hard, his eyes would squeeze tight shut.
And when I had to scold him, it was a double edged cut.
When as a kid I used to hear, "This hurts me more than you."
But it wasn't until I had to do it that I found out that was true.
Yeah, he got his share of discipline, but there was a lot I just let go.
Cause I recognized that 'Tom Sawyer spirit', he too had in his soul.
The winter he was seven, I pulled him out of school.
There's more ways than one to learn how not to be a fool.
He spent that winter with my crew and me, learning to be a man.
I've got to say, he learned it quick, and turned out a right good hand.
He even learned the tows and marks, and handled the boat just fine.
Whenever I'd glance up to the bridge, his grin towards me would shine.
Nothing could make a fisherman prouder, than to watch his young son handle their boat.
I doubt there was a happier, prouder father, on land or afloat.
Several years later in Alaska, Skeeter got his first big buck.
He'd hunted and stalked it hard, alone, had nothing to do with luck.
You know I still watch that hillside, I guess I'm hoping for some luck,
To catch a glimpse of the ghost of my son, stalking the ghost of that big buck.
My father had raised me wild and free, and I tried to give him that same space.
But I was always haunted by the feeling, my son wasn't long for this place.
A beautiful sunlit day in June, special made for a boy in his skiff.
A warm, sparkling, sunny day that seemed, itself a special gift.
My father and son, off on a lark, a short skiff ride around the bay.
It was Skeeter's day to do what he wished. He turned fourteen that day.
But the sunlight turned hard and garish, everything seemed painted black.
As the reality hit home, that they were never coming back!
The anguish of the search I can't begin to tell.
The hope, the fear, the reality, I'll just say...I've already been to Hell!
Afraid I wouldn't, then afraid I would, find what my son had left behind,
Searching, searching, that cold clear water, can just about take your mind!
My son was gone before his time, seemed I'd barely begun to teach.
But now the dream is lost and gone, forever out of reach.
One breath at a time, one day at a time, I guess that's how one gets through.
Though it all just seems so pointless, anything you set out to do.
Though I try not to live in the past, I'll always miss what might have been,
The times we'd have shared, my son, partner, and friend.
But I have so many memories of my son, on his too short voyage to being a man.
One of the fondest is teaching him to splice, and watching him watch my hands.
David Densmore
Skeeter’s Song, 2004 (with minor edits for reading)
This is my New Bedford Journal for September 27th, 2009.