The Astoria Fisherman’s Co-op is a cooperative organization that brings together independent fishermen to collectively manage and promote their fishing operations. Members of the co-op typically share resources such as equipment, processing facilities, and marketing efforts. By pooling their resources, they can access larger markets, reduce individual costs, and have a stronger bargaining position when negotiating with buyers and suppliers.
- Seafood is highly commoditized once it enters the supply chain, the price is what it is regardless of quality, or who caught it. The only way for a fisherman to make more money is to catch more fish, which means bigger boats, more days at sea, diminished quality and more waste. For most of us in the industry this is not a good model, nor is it good for our communities, or the resource. In order to achieve financial success and life quality we feel a better model involves taking the time to take care of our catch, brand it and market it ourselves. We formed Astoria Fishermen’s Cooperative in an effort to ensure a better quality of life for our fishermen, access to better quality seafood for our community and better use of the resource.
- In the US we currently export 80% of the seafood we harvest domestically and import 80% of what we consume!!? This makes no sense. Much of it is shipped halfway around the world- to be processed cheaply in countries with questionable human rights and quality control policies- and then shipped back as finished product. Wild capture fish initially has the lowest carbon footprint of any kind of food production, but two trips halfway around the world unnecessarily add to it. We also import lower quality farmed fish to replace the higher quality wild capture fish we have exported.
- The world’s dependence on farmed fish is un-sustainable. Wild fish stocks are being depleted to feed farmed fish. Because the farmed fish doesn’t gain a pound for every pound of wild fish it eats we are effectively depleting our oceans to feed fewer people a lower grade of fish.
