The Maritime Provinces and Maine, moving toward the same goals, at seperate paces

First published in Landings, January, 2014.

The report by the Maritime Panel on the Lobster Industry raised a few eyebrows, both in Canada and in Maine. The three member panel, formed in July, conducted numerous public meetings and met with representatives of more than 100 organizations before issuing its 96-page report in November. Many recommendations made in the report are as relevant to the Maine lobster industry as to the Maritime provinces. A careful review of the report reveals the encouraging news that Maine is currently attending to issues that its Canadian neighbors to the north have just recently come face to face.

The report issued 33 recommendations in three broad areas: Industry Relationships, Industry Operations, and Industry Structure. The section on industry relationships describes how the many players in the Maritime lobster industry connect to each other within their own group and across the industry as a whole. The report noted that groups, such as shore-side processors, dealers, and lobstermen, don’t cooperate with each other well and, moreover, regard each other with deep suspicion. The report recommended creating a new environment in which industry organizations are modernized, coordinated and empowered.

So what does that mean, exactly? One of the first things the report called for in this section was for lobstermen to come together and participate in well-organized, representative fishermen’s organizations. Those organizations should come together under a larger, provincial organizational structure in order to work together to jointly address issues related to the entire lobster industry.

In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, lobstermen fish in specific Lobster Fishery Areas (LFAs). Within each LFA there may or may not be an entity that represents the lobstermen (Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association is one province-wide organization). Maine, on the other hand, has a long history of effective state-wide organizations representing lobstermen. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has been around since 1954; the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association since 1991.

The report’s second recommendation in this section suggested that processors, dealers, and buyers in the lobster industry establish, participate in, and pay into a provincial-based organization that would represent their interests in order to work together. “In the end,” the report admonished, “there is nothing to be gained by being disorganized.”

Maine lobster dealers have recognized the validity of good organization. The Maine Import Export Lobster Dealers Association, created in 1985, provides a place where companies that buy and ship lobster can join forces. Lobster processors, shippers, retailers and wholesalers pay between $250 and $300 in annual fees to become a member. In addition, lobster processors and dealers join Maine harvester representatives on the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative, a new organization formed by the state Legislature in 2013, to protect and improve the brand identity and, ultimately, the price paid for Maine lobster.

Maine is also ahead of the game in terms of another of the report’s recommendations. Specifically, it called for the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to set up a data collection system for catch and effort in the lobster fishery that is electronic, at point of sale, automatic and available in real time. “While the Panel makes this recommendation to DFO, it must also express to fishermen and onshore sectors the importance of this requirement and calls on these sectors to step up and take on their share of the responsibility for implementing such a system.”

In New England, all lobster dealers are required to provide trip-level electronic reports on a weekly basis to their state or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). And in Maine, ten percent of lobstermen must report effort data (trap hauls, soak time, etc.) through logbook returns.

The Department of Marine Resources lobster sea sampling program also provided valuable data through placement of trained observers onto commercial lobster boats. Since 1985, observers have recorded data on each lobster caught in a lobsterman’s traps on a given day, including size, sex, and whether they are legal, sublegal or illegal. Compiling this data enables the DMR to see geographic, temporal and biological trends in the near-shore lobster fishery. Maine’s ventless trap survey and juvenile lobster settlement index provide additional data on sub-legal lobsters.

A second section of the Canadian report deals with Industry Operations. Industry Operations, in this context, are the activities carried out to land lobster, and then ship and process it. The report very pointedly called for a shift from the current practice of high volume fishing to one where harvesting is matched to onshore capacity. That shift, said the report, will offer “the best chance for each lobster to achieve its fullest value potential.” In order to switch to a lower volume fishery, which avoids overloading land-side infrastructure, it is essential that the quality of the lobster be improved.

Specifically the report calls for the Maritime lobster industry to develop industry grading standards and have fishermen grade to those standards at sea; for the provinces governments to provide the resources to inspect and enforce where quality standards and grading requirements are not being respected; and for the dealers and processors to begin paying shore prices to fishermen that reflect the value and quality of the catch.

The Lobster Council of Canada has been promoting development of quality standards through meetings with lobstermen in the provinces for the past year. In September, 2013, Canadian harvesters, processors, live shippers, scientists, and federal and provincial government officials met on Prince Edward Island to begin the process of identifying three to five objective quality standards that could be used consistently to categorize lobsters. It was the first of three meetings on how best to identify a lobster’s grade. Following these meetings the task group will recommend the industry-wide adoption of the three to five quality grading standards.

While lobstermen and buyers in Maine have begun to tackle the issue of ensuring high quality standards among lobster landed and shipped in the state, those efforts have been voluntary (see Landings, July 2013). The new Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative is working to develop a brand strategy for Maine lobster, and quality will be an important part of that.

The final set of recommendations in the report addressed issues in the structure of the Maritime lobster industry, specifically how the industry is set up and where there are structural gaps that contribute to loss of value. The report terms this a Value Recovery Strategy that, if implemented, would “bring about real change in the Maritime lobster industry; change that will provide a new information base for all players; a dynamic marketing and promotion initiative for Canadian lobster; a mechanism to bring fishermen and buyers, and processors together to work out prices; and the means to pay for these new structural initiatives.”

The Value Recovery Strategy first off calls for creation of an independent Maritime Lobster Market Intelligence Institute. The Institute would be independent from both government and industry and provide regular information on market-related issues to all members of the industry who contribute towards funding generic marketing, including lobstermen in a transparent, reliable fashion. The goal is to remove the amount of anecdotal information floating around the lobster world and diminish distrust among industry sectors.

In addition, the report recommends that the provinces develop and implement a comprehensive generic Marketing and Promotion Campaign for Canadian lobster. The Lobster Council of Canada, created in 2009, is making strides in promoting lobster; the report suggests that the Council develop a business plan for a branding, marketing and promotion campaign; conduct that campaign; and hold a marketing conference each year to assess progress.

A more complicated recommendation focuses on setting a price for lobster prior to the lobster being landed. The report endorsed the idea of creating a price-setting mechanism for determining price pre-season. Such a mechanism would be based in legislation but not mandatory. If, however, lobstermen in a certain LFA or those in a fishing association negotiate an agreed-to price, that price would become the minimum legal price that can be paid to that fleet or group.

To finance all this, the report recommends that a penny for every pound landed be contributed from both Canadian lobstermen and shore-side businesses. The majority of those funds would go to the Marketing and Promotion Campaign while a smaller portion would go to the Lobster Market Intelligence Institute.

Maine, in this instance, is ahead of the Maritime provinces. After much contentious debate, the Legislature this spring established the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative (MLMC) with an annual budget of $2.25 million by its third year of operation. The funds come from a fee attached to the licenses of lobstermen, dealers and processors. Four lobstermen have seats on the MLMC’s 11-person board; three members are dealers or processors and two members are public members representing marketing, promotion, retail, food or science expertise.

In addition, the Maine lobster industry received a significant boost when it received certification last spring from the Marine Stewardship Council of London after a six-year application process. That certification acknowledges that the Maine lobster fishery is a sustainable fishery, a fact that carries ever-increasing weight in national and international markets. Prince Edward Island has now begun a similar quest for certification from the MSC.

The report’s many recommendations provide an excellent array of ideas for the lobster industry to consider. They cite a report on the lobster industry published in 1932 which noted the need for “basic improvements in quality and marketing”… and “more systematic collection of market information and better promotion.” The report repeats this challenge for change, but the author’s are clear that “the industry itself is responsible for seeing it [change] through.”