Federal officials have determined that foreign competition has affected the lobster business in the state. So the authority has announced cash grant for lobstermen of up to $12,000 and free job training. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has certified a petition filed by the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen’s Association that market forces caused their price and volume to drop.
According to the information this grant is available through the department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance program and can be obtained by those who can prove that they commercially harvested and sold lobsters in the state in 2009 and in at least one other year between 2006 and 2008.
Margaret Van Patten, of the University of Connecticut, said that participants must also be able to show that their average gross non-fishing income for 2009 didn’t exceed $500,000 and that their fishing income last year didn’t top $750,000, according to the program guidelines. David Simpson, director of DEP’s Marine Fisheries division, said that only about a half-dozen commercial fishermen in the state make their entire living from lobstering.
Job training will help lobstermen diversify their catches, draw up business plans and receive training that could lead them into a whole new line of work. Simpson also said that while more than 200 people hold state lobstering licenses, most do it part-time or in addition to other commercial fishing. The pressure is already there due to reduced catches. About 500,000 pounds of lobsters were taken from Long Island Sound last summer, compared to nearly 3 million pounds per year in the late 1990s.
A committee of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is proposing a five-year ban on lobstering from Woods Hole, Mass., to Cape May, N.J., a move that some Connecticut lobstermen see as a ploy to help their counterparts in Maine. Simpson said the grant and training program is not related to the moratorium, and that no decision has been made on that proposal.
