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Merten Bangemann-Johnson, CEO, NeighborWorks Umpqua
Challenge: The southern Oregon fishing industry was struggling as it faced global competition, with its seafood often sold to corporate buyers for export instead of to local residents. As a result, access to fresh seafood was limited.
Food is an enormous asset in the Pacific Northwest economy and quality of life. That's why NeighborWorks Umpqua offers a range of programs designed to both encourage healthy and eating and support this segment of our economy. Our initiatives include a farmers' market, a program that supports the planting of backyard gardens, a retail store that provides an outlet for local artisans and farmers to sell goods and allows food entrepreneurs to test and create value-added products in our licensed commercial kitchen, and a collaboration to develop edible landscapes in public parks and spaces where everyone has access to locally grown perennial foods.
Another major focus is our local seafood industry. You might assume that seafood ordered in a restaurant on the southern coast of Oregon is local. But you likely would be wrong. Communities on the Oregon coast have limited access to fresh, local seafood because the vast majority is exported to overseas markets by corporate buyers. Farm-produced seafood of lesser quality is then imported and sold to Oregon consumers at prices equal to local seafood.
People don't often ask for specifics about the seafood they eat, and some restaurants seem to think a local distributor means local fish. It doesn't. This can make it difficult for a fishermen to differentiate themselves in the local market.
Lack of consumer knowledge is just the beginning of the challenge. Small-boat fishermen are forced to pay many of the same fees as large-scale operations, which often monopolize permits and processing facilities. In fact, the lack of smaller, local processing plants has forced some ports to use larger out-of-state processors, sending money and jobs out of Oregon.
In 2015, NeighborWorks Umpqua became a beneficiary of WealthWorks, which works to advance a region's overall prosperity and self-reliance, strengthen existing and emerging sectors, and increase jobs and incomes for lower-income residents and firms — all at the same time. It describes itself as "a systematic approach that identifies enterprising opportunities in a region and engages a wide range of partners in turning those opportunities into results that both build and capture wealth. It can complement or incorporate traditional economic development methods, but intentionally focuses on creating more value that becomes rooted in local people, places and firms."
NeighborWorks Umpqua received a two-year grant from a WealthWorks Northwest arm called Rural Development Initiatives, formed in 1991 in response to the timber industry crisis facing the Pacific Northwest. NeighborWorks Umpqua partnered with organizations in Coos, Curry and Douglas Counties — all located on the southern coast of Oregon — to develop a plan. The result was the Southwestern Oregon Food System Collaborative-Seafood Project, bringing together residents and organizations involved in community development, education, and natural resources.The group worked to identify ways to help South Coast communities thrive on their own terms. One idea was to link the development of greater local fish-processing capacity to interactive port tours in which visitors could meet fishermen and watch them work. This would help not one, but two local industries: seafood and tourism.
More broadly, we are facilitating collaboration within the region to determine ways to address the many needs of the fishing community: ice-making equipment, distribution systems, access to public hoists, training, technical assistance and consumer education.
We also have made direct investments into local businesses. NeighborWorks Umpqua dedicated 30 slots per year in 2015 and 2016 for our Dream$avers program, a 3-to-1 matched savings program, to help fishing and other seafood-related enterprises build their businesses. Meanwhile, a notice to local businesses in the seafood sector received responses from six businesses, and we connected them to resources that can provide assistance on their business plans. It's expected that one or more of the six will receive WealthWorks funding of their own.
On the policy front, the initiative has attracted new partners that focus on these types of barriers in the value chain. The Oregon Food Bank Policy Division is holding policy forums with local fishermen to test the idea of proposing legislation to increase access to their catch by niche buyers.
Most recently, the Seafood Project organized group "listening" sessions with leaders from six South Coast ports, more than 100 fishermen, owners of restaurants and grocers, and community members. We continue to expand, educate and learn, and remain focused on finding ways to revitalize local seafood businesses and the communities they support.
