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[music playing]
(male narrator) In recent years, community supported fisheries, or CSFs,
have grown in number and size on a national scale.
Despite their potential, a variety of technical barriers, risks and overarching questions about CSFs have emerged.
(Carolyn) In a CSF, we all have similar challenges,
even though we might be set up differently.
Pricing, marketing, distribution, health and permitting, health safety.
(narrator) In order to help navigate these challenges,
and to help identify needs for communities engaging in CSFs,
a national summit was held at Rye, New Hampshire between May 30 and June 1, 2012.
This summit provided the initial opportunity for people working with CSFs to meet, share and learn from each other.
Seventy fishermen, small business owners, and representatives from non-profit sectors, universities and government agencies
worked with facilitators to form roundtable discussions on social, environmental and economic topics related to CSFs.
(Stephanie) We have just recently, very recently gone through
a lot of permits and a lot of the logistical issues.
It's still fresh in my mind how difficult some of those obstacles were so I can definitely share that information
with people who have not, who are not, you know, at the level we are
but in the same moment learn from the people who have been doing it longer than us.
(Carolyn) It's actually been pretty emotional for some of us
that have worked really hard and have felt somewhat in isolation doing the work
and to be able to sit in a room with other people that are similar-minded, they've seen the need to change
and change isn't easy, but somehow they were the ones in their communities that were able to make that leap
and I think that's pretty interesting.
(***) Port Clyde Fresh Catch is in the fourth year
and, uh, so we can share some of the mistakes we've made and some of the things we've done right.
(Mark) As we network and go back home
just trying to build a, like a network of fishermen
you know, to expand that so you've got good solid people that are in it for the long haul
and they're gonna fish in a good manner and they're gonna provide seafood, you know, into this, into this pipeline.
(Margie) And from this conference, I have a huge to-do list.
I got so much out of it. It's, it's amazing. I just felt like this enormous sponge.
And, um, I can't wait to implement all the things I've learned.
(Sonia) Just being together and knowing that we're not alone doing this,
so being together with a community of people who are struggling with the same goals and how to, how to do that.
We got a lot of ideas for different models.
Things that we've been struggling with how to do, we found people who are successfully doing them,
so we're taking ideas from them.
(Oren) To be able to kind of talk shop a little bit
and compare, you know how they're doing things and what we're doing and just get new ideas.
[music softly playing]
(narrator) The conversation from the summit is ongoing
as fishermen and CSF organizers continue to exchange ideas, experiences and expertise
to help improve their methods of direct marketing.
Extension specialists and organizations that work with fishing communities
are helping to address the community needs identified at the summit.