Local seafood: rethinking the direct marketing paradigm

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Faced with strict regulations, rising operational costs, depleted stocks, and competition from less expensive foreign imports, many fishers are pursuing new ways to market and sell their catch. Direct marketing arrangements can increase the ex-vessel value of seafood and profitability of operations for fishers by circumventing dominant wholesale chains of custody and capturing the premium that customers are willing to pay for local seafood. Our analysis goes beyond a paradigm that understands direct marketing arrangements as solely economic tools to consider how these emerging business configurations create a set of conditions that can result in increased bonding and bridging capital among fishers by incentivizing cooperation, communication, and information production and organization. To build our case, we report on the economic value being generated for fishers in a cooperatively owned and operated direct marketing arrangement in eastern North Carolina. Over the course of 2 years, fishers participating in the Walking Fish communitysupported fishery received 33% more revenue for their catch compared to the average monthly ex-vessel price of finfish and shellfish landed in the surrounding region, and an additional 14% to 18% more per dollar by way of year-end profit sharing. We argue that these economic benefits create an incentive to participate, resulting in cooperation among fishers and increased communication skills that foster bonding and bridging capital that put fishers in a position to identify and respond to challenges that threaten the socialecological resilience of the systems within which they operate. We suggest that "institutional starters" like these can play a critical role in increasing the resilience of social-ecological systems, including fisheries.

Fair trade fish: consumer support for broader seafood sustainability

“…; Stoll et al . ). We found that consumers more commonly identified the social benefits of local seafood, but that differences existed among respondents.…”

“…; Stoll et al . ), it was not clear how consumers understood these benefits and how their perceptions influence their choices. Our results suggest that consumers are more attune to the social than to the environmental benefits of purchasing local seafood, with benefits to the economy identified most frequently (Table ).…”

Expanding the ‘geography’ of resilience in fisheries by bringing focus to seafood distribution systems

“…CSFs are based on the community supported agriculture model in which consumers pre-pay for shares of seafood. Fishers have started to turn towards CSFs as a way to earn higher ex-vessel prices for their catch and cultivate new relationships with their communities by bypassing or partnering with traditional distributors (Stoll et al, 2015). Through these arrangements consumers gain access to a wide range of species, including 'underutilized' ones with which they may be unfamiliar, such as dogfish and herring.…”

Place-Based Rural Development and Resilience: A Lesson from a Small Community

“…They act as a type of "institutional starter" [54] by fostering the emergence of nascent institutions that facilitate the production and mobilization of social capital toward improved social, economic, and ecological conditions. Viewed through this lens, communities have to focus projects on actions that create a set of conditions that facilitate institutional emergence, such as social networks, rules, and norms, and help to sustain communities such that they may be responsive and resilient to disturbances that threaten the viability of the systems within which they operate.…”

“…Elements from the case study support the identification of the community as the appropriate territorial dimension of a socio-technical niche [61] to practice and experiment with such system/structural changes, alternative and more diverse supply chain structures, and new institutional governance and market arrangements. These identify and promote new relationships between actors [54,61]. The analysis suggests consideration of place in a holistic perspective, considering all the interrelationships among the different components.…”