Northwest Fishing Communities Find Economic Power Doing Business Together
Six port communities on Oregon’s rocky southwestern coast are taking their seafood-rich economy into their own hands. More than 80 percent of the state’s catch travels frozen to places like China for processing before working its way back to Oregon and other dinner plates. The lack of local and regional links in global seafood supply chains is the problem that the Southwestern Oregon Food Systems Collaborative is working to change. Its strategy is to build new locally-owned, mutual-aid supply chains — or value chains — across great market gaps that have grown in the wake of the region’s near-total focus on global commodity exports. The approach is showing signs of success in southwestern Oregon. It also shows real potential for transitioning so many other, mostly rural places now caught between past economies of resource extraction and future economies of resource conservation. Read the rest here 12:36
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