Ben Martens
Executive Director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association
Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association works to enhance the sustainability of Maine’s fisheries through advocating for the needs of community-based fishermen and the environmental restoration of the Gulf of Maine.
Q: What is your job title and location?
A: Executive Director, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. Brunswick, ME.
Q: For you personally, or for your work, how do you interact with the local food system?
A: The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association works with fishermen to fight for sustainable fishing regulations. We believe that through accountability, science based management, and fishermen driven solutions that we can have robust and abundant fish stocks again in the Gulf of Maine. This will (hopefully) lead to a lot more local seafood for folks in Maine and beyond to consume. Fishermen are not often seen as part of the food system, but they take great pride in feeding their communities and we hope to increase the presence of local seafood in our diets.
Q: For you personally, or for your work, what do you see as some strengths of our local food system? Weaknesses?
A: We have a lot of capacity to catch the best seafood in the world in Maine, but we don’t really know what to do with it when we land it. Most of our seafood ends up getting shipped out of the state to be processed and sold. This means that we don’t get it eat it, but it also means that we lose a lot of the product value. One of the biggest weaknesses facing the seafood segment of the food system is that because seafood is complicated, and because the negative stories that exist around this sector, we don’t have new and innovative businesses starting in Maine with a focus on seafood. We have some innovation in lobster, but for most other species, there just isn’t the energy and entrepreneur spirit that we need.
Q: What are the most important things that should be happening in the region to support increased production, consumption, and access to local foods?
A: We need to be making it easier for local producers and consumers to share in the benefit of the local food system. Even with all the focus on eating local, small farms, businesses, and fishermen are going out of business because they can’t get paid for their goods. At the same time, many local folks can’t buy local foods because of the costs. This is a really difficult issue to deal with, but for a lot of this it is just economics and we don’t really know how to make the local food system work for everyone.
Q: What's for dinner tonight?
A: I have some Gulf of Maine scallops that I froze last year that I need to finish eating before the new season starts in December.