Oregon Sea Grant

Fisheries & Seafood

Toward Resilience and Sustainable Seafood Supply: Assessing Direct Marketing Approaches for the West Coast Fishing Communities

Principal Investigator: Barbara Walker
University of California, Santa Barbara

Co-Principal Investigators:

• Carolynn Culver, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Kimberly Selkoe, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Caroline Pomeroy, University of California, Santa Cruz

Associate Investigators:

• Stephanie Mutz, Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara
• Pete Granger, Washington Sea Grant
• Jamie Doyle, Oregon Sea Grant
• Jeff Feldner, Oregon Sea Grant
• Amber Von Harten, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium
• Heather Lahr, Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Program

Funding: West Coast Sea Grant programs
Oregon contact: Jamie Doyle

Fisheries Direct Marketing Arrangements (DMAs) involve fishermen selling their product directly to consumers or food service businesses, through off-the-boat sales, e-commerce, community-supported fisheries and similar programs, rather than through traditional market channels.  DMAs are widely believed to generate environmental, economic and social benefits, including more sustainable fishing practices, increased profits and income stability for fishermen, along with better consumer access to locally caught seafood and enhanced awareness of local fisheries and their management.

Many West Coast fishermen and communities are adopting or considering DMAs, with documented successes and failures. To date, there have been no rigorous assessments of conditions that lead to success, how DMAs can be used in combination with each other or more traditional marketing arrangements, and of their effects on communities.

This West Coast regional research project has two overarching objectives:

• to rigorously evaluate the patterns, processes, and impacts associated with seafood DMAs
• to integrate this knowledge into practical tools for use by West Coast communities and others in DMA  decision-making.

The project team is addressing these questions through integrated social science research and extension techniques, with a goal of developing products that will be tested in two West Coast fishing communities - Coos Bay, Oregon and Santa Barbara, Calif. - and eventually used by other communities on the west coast and elsewhere. They are working to develop a DMA toolkit that will allow fishermen and managers to understand a range of DMA types, assess whether their communities are ready to launch such approaches, and provide concrete tools for implementing them. Once the study is completed, Oregon Sea Grant Extension will disseminate the research results and tool kits via seminars in coastal fishing communities.

Learn more:

• NOAA news release announcing the regional grant
• Sea Grant video: Buying Albacore Tuna Directly from a Commercial Fisherman
• Fresh, Local and Good for the Community (NOAA Spotlight, November 2011)

See also:

• Fisheries & Seafood