US salmon fishermen are farmers

Tor-Eddie Fossbakk The implication is that they can be included in various programs under the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) farm bill. USDA is the number one food agency and has a budget of about USD 95 billion. According to the newspaper article, the executive director for the United Fishermen of Alaska, Mark Vinsel, said "fishermen need to have parity with fish farmers in any kind of support or other programs. He also underlined the importance of “Country Of Origin Labeling of wild and farmed fish. There may be efforts to undermine that and we can't have any backsliding on that. We would also like to see all product forms covered by COOL, especially canned salmon." Now that fishermen are included in the farm bill they can, for example, push for more US seafood to be included in the nation's school lunch program. They can also apply for low cost loans to help improve their business or modernize equipment, and other programs traditionally available to US farmers, including marketing programs, loan deficiency payments, cooperative marketing associations. Get more information at www.usda.gov/farmbill Photo: NOAA/NMFS Caption: This is also farming. Fishermen putting out gillnet for salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska.