Group wraps up its hearings this week; Aims to find ways to help the industry stay afloat
By Jonson Kuhn/NBC – 2 KTUU
December 12, 2024
Struggles around insurance for fishing boats and pack loans for small-scale processors were just some of the topics addressed during a meeting between state senators and various members of Alaska’s seafood industry.
The Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry, met Tuesday at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office for its fourth round of discussions after forming during the last legislative session through Senate Concurrent Resolution 10.
The task force has been meeting since September with the expectation of wrapping up this Thursday. Senator Gary Stevens said the goal of the meeting is to create as many bills as possible to assist the state’s fishing industry in getting them through the legislative process.
“We can’t just throw money out the door and give fishermen and processors all the money we can. We need to find ways to help out where we can, where we can afford to do it,” Stevens said. “The highest and most employees in Alaska are in the fishing industry working in the processing and the fishing industry itself and so the economy of the fishing industry is very important to Alaska.”
Stevens said the task force was born out of a “perfect storm” of issues facing the state’s seafood industry, from plants being sold to competition with Russia who are farming fish, as well as processing facilities closing, leaving communities such as King Cove and the Pribilof Islands with no processors at all.
Tuesday’s meeting opened with testimony from several small-scale processors throughout the state who expressed their collective concerns with affordable financing, pointing to a fish pack loan as a potentially viable option to support small processors and direct marketers in Alaska.
Chris Hanson, a Sitka-based freezer troller, shared the story of having to close his direct marketing company due to the increasing issue of a lack of cash flow, as traditional lenders tend to shy away from the particular risk profile.
“While we don’t start selling our fish until the end of the salmon season, in Alaska, we don’t fully sell our inventory until well into the following year,” Hanson said. “This is the crux of the matter for us as small producers. We have to outlay large amounts of cash and produce a year’s worth of inventory in a few short months.”
Stevens said it’s one of many issues facing the industry that the task force intends to find solutions for.
“Maybe we can help out there in some way through AIDEA, through loan programs to low-interest loans to help them pay for that and get them over the hump until they get paid by the people who buy, Safeway and Kroger, whoever buys their product,” Stevens said.
