A federal grant will be used to revive a nonprofit, increase local fish purchasing, grow San Diego anglers’ percentage of profits, and raise the profile of the local fishing community for years to come.

Plans are underway to revive the San Diego Fishermen’s Marketing Association, a nonprofit mostly inactive since 2013.

Thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service as part of its Local Food Promotion Program, the San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group and the San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center are driving this latest effort with a network of partners.

“San Diego has a long and rich history as a commercial fishing hub. However, like in many coastal areas, these local providers have been forced to compete in global supply chains that value efficiency and low cost over quality and sustainability,” said Pete Halmay, director and founder of the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market. “This grant will help us create the support structure needed to unite the fishing community around a shared vision and marketing strategy, setting it up as a critical component of the San Diego food economy for decades.”

The San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group is a nonprofit comprised of anglers from the ports of San Diego representing eight major fishing gear types – including trap, dive, net, experimental, albacore bait, longline, deep-set buoy gear, and hook and line – that harvest approximately 65 different species of fish and crustaceans. It will serve as the visionary and partnership lead of the project, bringing the goals of the fishing community to the forefront as the group embarks on a more robust marketing effort.

The San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center is a partnership between The San Diego Foundation, the County of San Diego, and the world’s leading think tank, The Brookings Institution, to conduct research and policy analysis and help solve the region’s biggest problems.

With the federal grant, San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group and San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center will revive the San Diego Fishermen’s Marketing Association as a means for delivering local shared marketing and launching a robust outreach and engagement effort to consumers, restaurants, and retailers.

Pointing out the marketing association was “still active at a very low level,”

Halmay said anglers approached the San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center to help set up a funding grant to revive the nonprofit to “really put it on the map.”

“There are about 150 to 200 commercial fishing boats in San Diego County in Point Loma, San Diego and Mission Bay, and Oceanside, which (collectively) sell about 50 different kinds of fish product,” Halmay said adding, “We’d like to expand that because, in order to do business with restaurants, we have to have a good and stable supply of quality fish products.”

Driving the effort to revive the marketing association, the San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center will support the San Diego Fishermen’s Marketing Association’s work to strengthen and shorten the region’s supply chain to increase local fish purchasing.

The objective is for:

– The fishing community to benefit from increased sales;

– Restaurants and retailers to have better access to fair-priced sustainable fish;

– The public to enjoy healthy, affordable, and local seafood.
“This grant is a win for many in San Diego: The fishing community will benefit from increased sales; restaurants and retailers will have better access to sustainable fish at a fair price; and the public will get to enjoy healthy, quality, affordable seafood,” noted Susan Guinn, president/CEO of San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center.

“A report by California Sea Grant found that only 8% of San Diego’s 86 seafood markets consistently carried local fish. With 70 miles of pristine coastline along the Pacific Ocean, San Diego County should be a hub for the local catch, yet the disparity between what is available in markets, restaurants, and our fishing fleet is stark, risking the viability of the local commercial fishing industry as a whole,” said Halmay. “The time to forge a path toward increased local purchasing of San Diego-caught fish is now.”

GET INVOLVED

Those in the local fishing industry can contact the San Diego Fishermen’s Marketing Association to be included in a directory of fishermen, providing greater visibility for vendors to make more local sales. Those in the food and restaurant industry can utilize this resource to directly contact fishermen for the freshest catch. Other initiatives are underway that will also be launched soon. For more information, visit sandiegofishermen.com.