Evolution of Groundfish Sectors Business Viability Model in New England

The New England groundfish fishery faced a transition in 2010 and moved from a days-at-sea effort control system to output controls with allocations to sectors. From this sector management system, 18 sectors were formed, with membership often grouped according to community affiliation, gears, relationships, and geography.

A three-phase Sector Business Viability project is initiated to gain an understanding of each sector by an evaluation of individual sector viability through the development of business profiles. Since no two sectors are alike, this sector-specific information was crucial to understanding these differences. Furthermore, this paper tries to identify whether fishermen are becoming more accustomed to the new system and/or if there is an incentive to smooth out their landings to obtain more stable prices, e.g., having their combined landings affect price and the strategies for dealing with volatile prices. An analysis of the seasonal landing patterns and market fluctuations of each species is also provided to understand a sector’s ability to maximize the value of landed catch. While individuals within the system have engaged in novel marketing of their catch, so far none of the sectors had a sector-wide marketing initiative to regulate their landings across time and offset some of their losses.