The similarity of farming and fishing

By BECKY NELSON
Bramblings
About 10 days after reading that an 18th century shipwreck in York, Maine had resurfaced on the beach following a series of powerful nor’easters, we took an afternoon off and headed to the beach. I was amazed how many people were walking on the beaches up the New Hampshire coastline and into Maine. It was windy, cold, blustery and pretty chilly on the sand.

We were late. The sand and seaweed had already re-covered the wreck, even though a sign put up by York officials confirmed we were in the right place. It was not a lost trip, however. I love the ocean. The color of the water differs every time you look and the sound of the waves and the smell of the shores is something I crave when I haven’t visited in a bit. When living in Dover, we would often head to the ocean after work for a stroll in cold weather and sometimes an evening dip if summer. I miss being that close to the sand and the surf, but have never regretted coming back to the farm. An occasional trip to the Isles of Shoals or a whale watch boat ride or just a half-hour watching the waves tumble in on the sand or a walk on the beach and I am happy.

After a yummy seafood meal, we were on our way back to the hills. I had not stopped to think about how much fishing is like farming until a reader recently responded to one of my columns, telling that the plight of the small-business fisherman is very much like the plight of the small-business farmer, with restrictions, quotas, regulations and high costs of fuel, supplies, equipment and maintenance chasing many out of the business and challenging those that stayed fishing with smaller paychecks and more angst. Her husband had recently retired from fishing and her son is still sticking it out.

A lot of changes have recently hit the New England fishing industry. Strict quotas on cod have forced many fishermen who made their living fishing for these fish to hang up their equipment and dock their boats for good. The requirement of fishermen to pay monitors to ride along on their fishing boats to assure that they are not taking more fish than allowed or fishing in restricted areas has hung a financial anchor around the neck of many that has proved to be too much to keep their business afloat.

It pains me to think that our government has found it necessary and prudent to require fishermen to hire on inspectors much like is required of packing houses to hire on inspectors to monitor meat packing. It is my understanding that the new federal budget includes funds to defray these fishing-monitor costs, but the damage has already been done. Just as there are far fewer full-time farming enterprises in the New England region, there are now far fewer full-time fishermen heading in and out of our New England ports.

I just know that those fishermen and their families that left the industry miss the business. Just as it was wonderful to have our children work with us in the fields harvesting food, it must have been just as special to have their children ride along on their trips over the waves to harvest seafood. Just as the sun and the soil are in my blood, the salt and the water has to be in theirs. Times change, our collective wisdom of conservation and best practices change, businesses come and go. But it really hurts me when small business seafood producers hang up their buoys and dock their boats for the last time or we land-based small business farmers empty their barns and retire their plows.

Chances are those fishermen and farmers who have left their respected businesses will never return to the business, even if regulators, lawmakers and communities loose the reins on the factors that forced them out of the careers in the first place, but it should not go by unnoted by the rest of us who do not work in these industries. The food on our plates and in our snack sacks rely on farmers, ranchers and fishermen. If they struggle, we struggle. If they succeed and thrive, we do as well. We should take pause before every meal and thank those folks who make it possible to have our food on the table and try to support our local food producers by paying the extra dollars for locally raised food. I would much rather eat locally caught seafood and watch lobster and fishing boats chugging up the coastline when I visit and eat locally raised vegetables and meats and see tractors working the local soil than eat fish or vegetables raised thousands of miles away and see our farming and fishing land and seascape change and be “lost.”

Becky is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport: [email protected]