HOMER -- Alaska's fisheries will shift from today's rural lifestyle to a business-oriented industry geared toward competing in global markets, the governor's special fisheries adviser, Alan Austerman, said recently.
The magic arrow in Alaska's quiver is fresh product, but Alaska's wild stocks are not going to be enough, he said. To compete, he believes the state will have to begin farming fish.
Austerman, a former commercial fisher from Kodiak, was in his second term as a state senator representing Kodiak, Homer and other parts of the Kenai Peninsula, when Gov. Frank Murkowski tapped him for the fisheries job last month.
While settling in to his new job in Juneau recently, Austerman took some time to speak about the status of Alaska's fisheries and their future.
"The state of the fisheries right now is that some are in peril and some are doing quite well," he said.
Whitefish fisheries are strong, with decent catch rates and market prices, but the salmon industry needs to rethink itself, Austerman said. To that end, he would like the governor to put together a long-term business plan for the Alaska seafood industry.
"We need to have a discussion about what the salmon industry wants to do," he said. "Hopefully we would come back with enough answers as to where we want to be right now and direct these industries toward a viable, sustainable industry."
Austerman is optimistic.
"Commercial fishing in Alaska has a very bright future, including the salmon industry," he said. "It will be different, but it will be quite viable."
The state's commercial fishers need to compete on a global level, he said. To do that, they need to abandon some old ideas, he said.
"The fishery is going to be more in tune to the businessman and the global market," he said. "That means the strict idea that it's a social lifestyle is mostly going to be gone."
Austerman said Bristol Bay gillnetters, for example, will have to change their ways to maintain the quality of product necessary to compete in worldwide markets.
As an example, he mentioned the cooperative fishery established last year in Chignik, which parceled out shares of the resource to co-op members. By eliminating the competitive nature of the fishery, more time and care can be devoted to the harvest.
"I think you'll see more fisheries like Chignik, where the quality of the product becomes much more important," Austerman said.
While he said the canned fish industry may have a future in the state, it will be second to the fresh fish producers.
Along those lines, he listed expanding mariculture in the state among the priorities on his new horizon. As a senator, he prefiled a bill that would allow farming of halibut and blackcod, but not salmon, in Alaska.
Currently, all forms of finfish farming are illegal in Alaska. Austerman said he has not spoken with Murkowski about fish farming and made it clear he can speak only for himself.
"The governor has indicated that mariculture is high on his list," he said, adding that salmon farming is not on the table now or in the near future. "But there are other species, and we need to put them on the table.
"I've made up my mind that I'm in favor of farming fish in Alaska -- as long as we do it in an environmentally safe way."
Net failures at farms in British Columbia and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest have seen hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon released into the Pacific Ocean. The non-native species brings the risk of introducing disease to wild salmon stocks.
Land-based fish farming, which Austerman supports, uses tanks rather than floating nets to prevent accidental escapes.
"Farming aspects, and what impact it would have on the Alaska fisheries, have interested me for quite some time," he said. "It's an intriguing possibility. Given the current price of sablefish, or blackcod in today's market, my guess is that would be the No. 1 fish pursued.
"It would place us in a position of having a year-round product that would hold the market. Currently, there's a demand for blackcod, but the supply is seasonal. They're sold, and then there's no more. If you would raise them, you'd have them year-round. Prices would drop some, but you'd make up for that."
The other benefit Austerman sees driving fish farming in Alaska is the possibility of employment opportunities for displaced salmon fishers.
He doesn't know where the Legislature or the public stands on the issue, but he said the first step is to open discussions and find out.
Homer Rep. Paul Seaton, also a commercial fisher, said he's going to have to look at the details before he makes a decision about fish farming.
For starters, he said, there are a lot of IFQ holders who would need to be involved in the discussions.
"If the proposal would compete with fishermen, then I'd say no," he said. "But if it were something in which fishermen could participate, like a co-op, I would consider it."
Seaton said he thinks Austerman is more in favor of opening discussions about fish farming than he is pushing fish farming.
Austerman said education and marketing would have to go hand in hand with fish farming.
While he concedes that, in his view, wild fish are always a better product, he's not worried about the spill-over degradation of the wild Alaska branding campaign that might come from stocking markets with an inferior farmed product.
"It would be very difficult to try to educate every housewife in the country who goes shopping for seafood," he said. "Selling people on fish farming would depend on how you market it. With salmon, there's a mystique about the wild Alaska fish."
He said that in addition to a marketing and education campaign for farmed fish, he would like to see the salmon marketing program continue.
"I definitely think there's a future for (the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute), but I don't know how much funding we'll have to contribute," he said.
Before fish farming becomes a reality for Alaska, the Legislature would have to act to change the statute that currently prohibits it.
Chris Bernard is a reporter for the Homer News.
