Audiences will have a chance to explore the future of Rhode Island’s commercial fishing industry in November at a panel during the FIT Symposium at Johnson & Wales University.
The symposium, which launched in 2021, will focus on the connection between food and wellness. Three commercial fishers – Marisa Ferris, Chelsea Murgo and Jim Boyd – will take the stage to discuss their multigenerational fishing families and how the local commercial fishing industry is attempting to build a future in a world of changing climate and regulations.
Ocean State Media’s Luis Hernandez spoke with Jordyn Zacharias, fisheries marketing specialist for Rhode Island Seafood, and Chelsea Murgo, a commercial fisher, about how to make commercial fishing in Rhode Island more sustainable.
Editor’s note: Ocean State Media is a media sponsor of Johnson & Wales University’s FIT Symposium. Editorial decisions are made independently from business-related partnerships.
Interview highlights
On how local consumers can support local fishers
Jordyn Zacharias: Everyone wants seafood, but no one really thinks past it being on their plate or it being in a restaurant or a market. And so I think making that next conscious choice of why you're choosing a specific species and trying to keep it local and supporting the local economy, the local fishermen, the families just like your own…They work hard all year round regardless of the weather, regardless of whatever else is going on; they're still out there because if they're not fishing, no one's doing it for them.
I think as a consumer, it's our responsibility to support those families and those commercial fishing businesses and keep as much of the seafood being landed in the state local because we're the Ocean State. There's no reason that we should be eating imported species or stuff that doesn't come from the local fishermen and the local waters.
Chelsea Murgo: Every time you go out to get a meal, say, ‘What on your menu is local? What has been landed here in Rhode Island?’ They may know the answer to that; they may not, but the more people that ask for locally caught seafood, the greater the likelihood it is going to end up in that restaurant.
On how to better connect the fishing industry in Rhode Island to consumers’ plates
Murgo: There is a (need) in Rhode Island specifically for an entity to exist that can take the fish that I'm catching, fillet it, and then turn it back to restaurants and the consumer. I think there's a huge need for someone to be processing that fish to keep it here in Rhode Island.
Zacharias: There's not the capacity to keep all of the fish being landed by those commercial fishermen in the state. There is so much of it that a lot of it is at least regional before it goes overseas.
It is also important that we try to shift the tide, no pun intended, of what consumers want to be eating because the problem that we see is that people are comfortable with salmon and shrimp and snappers. It's a lot of things that we don't have here locally. And so that's the biggest question we get is, “Where can I get salmon?” It's either imported or it's farm-raised. That's part of the problem, too, is that people need to be able to make those connections.
