MARCH/APRIL 2019
VOLUME 10 ISSUE 2
FOCUS ON SHELLFISH
SEE PAGES
Aquaculture changing lives in Georgetown
More than just providing financing to farmers, a new company serving this coastal community in Maine is changing lives and keeping watermen traditions alive BY MATT JONES
12-25
Beneficiaries of ‘character’ loans from Georgetown Aquaculture LLC are with Pat Burns (third from right) and consultant Dana Morse of Maine Sea Grant (far right). Our faith has been well placed, says Burns
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continued on page 12 US-EUROPE TRADE
EU shellfish market ripe for the picking For nearly nine years, the United States and the European Union have not traded any raw shellfish products. That could change this year, but are US shellfish growers ready?
There’s no real preference among European consumers as to farmed versus wild. What’s important is the ‘story’ and people are willing to pay for it, says source Credit: Adobe Stock continued on page 7
Grim prognosis for US farmed shrimp sector Outlook bleak as American farmers continue to compete against cheap imports, low shrimp prices and cumbersome regulations
he island community of Georgetown, Maine has been struggling since the fisheries they’ve depended on for a living have all but dried up. Pat Burns, a Georgetown resident of over 30 years knew something had to be done. “Our (wild) harvest used to include clams, mussels, finfish, ground fish, lobster, shrimp and even tuna to a certain extent,” says Burns. “Lobster is pretty much the only one left. In 2015, our clam harvest was the lowest in 25 years and that was primarily due to the warming of the gulf. Green crabs have also begun to invade our water sheds and the clam harvest began to suffer dramatically.”
alling production of oysters in Europe opens up opportunities for oyster growers in the United States. “Hundreds of millions of oysters are missing from the market and we could be part of the solution,” Alexander Wever, Food Export-Northeast’s European In-Market Representative, told attendees at the 2019 Northeast Aquaculture Conference and Exposition (NACE) in January in Boston.
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FARMED SHRIMP
India, Indonesia, Ecuador and Thailand are top sources of imported shrimp. American consumers do not fully understand why US farmed shrimp is more expensive, says source Credit: Adobe Stock BY RUBY GONZALEZ
glance at the US consumption data of shrimp indicates there are ample opportunities for investment in this sector. The US imported 1.5 billion lbs of shrimp in 2017, or over 90 percent of total domestic consumption. Shrimp remains the most popular seafood among Americans, with each person consuming an average of over 4 lbs annually, over 1 lb more than the second most popular – salmon. Yet a closer look shows that behind these tantalizing statistics is an industry marked by low shrimp prices, intense competition against imports, tighter regulations and high mortality rates, to name a few. Texas is the country’s largest producer of farmed shrimp, producing roughly 3.2 million lbs in 2017. Alabama is a distant second, producing a scant 304,572 lbs that year.
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