Wild and Farmed in One Bay - Weather or Not

In spite of the challenging weather we have had this winter, our Maine fishermen still manage to harvest the finest seafoods for our table. Just as surely as Maine's best bouillabaisse is made from Aroostook County potatoes and wild caught halibut and lobster and mussels and scallops, our fishermen need a new approach to work together. Combining wild caught with farmed is now a realistic possibility. Those who farm our kelp and our shellfish are the same ones with local knowledge and skills and the boats and crews to to do both kinds of harvesting. Wild and farmed, we need to work all together to support and preserve our way of life, our communities, our working waterfronts.

One fisherman here probably cannot raise and market all the species our bay is willing to give, but together we can craft a realistic approach to multi-species harvesting. What do we all need to do to support this multispecies approach? We need to inform ourselves about appropriate scale approaches and not let ourselves be manipulated by those with large scale commercial vested interests.

Consider both wild caught and farmed. Aquaculture is not a bad word. Mariculture might be a better word - farming in the sea, for the benefit of the sea as well as for our table.