Alaska salmon fishermen have another opportunity to benefit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which helps compensate fishermen for losses incurred as a result of the competition with farmed fish. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office has announced that the USDA has re-certified a petition granting continued assistance to help offset the lower prices received for salmon catches during 2003 because of competition from foreign pen-reared salmon. In order for the program to continue, the price of salmon in 2003 had to be at least 20 percent lower than the average for the previous five years.

When the dust settled from the 2003 season, the average price came in at 35.2 percent lower than the qualifying years. Under the TAA program, USDA will provide both technical assistance and cash if increasing imports of a directly competitive commodity contributes to a significant decline in producer prices and results in a loss of net fishing income during the year. The program was originally designed for farmers. Fishermen were added at Sen. Murkowski's request last year for the first time.

"It is not good news that Alaska fishermen continued last year to be impacted by competition from farmed salmon from other countries. Still it is good news that the government for a second year will help offset lost income to Alaska salmon fishermen," said Murkowski in a press release. Murkowski hopes more fishermen will take advantage of the program this year. "We also hope the process will go more smoothly and more fishermen will both apply and be found eligible for benefits this year. This year there will be a full application period and more notice to potential applicants, and both the Department of Agriculture offices in Alaska and the fishing industry are more familiar with the way the program operates and how to get the most from it," she added.

Fishermen can receive up to $10,000 per fishermen per calendar year based on 50 percent of the price loss they faced per pound of fish harvested. In addition, the Marine Advisory Program of the University of Alaska Fairbanks will offer qualifying salmon fishermen who apply for TAA benefits a variety of technical courses at no cost. Murkowski said more fishermen are actually likely to qualify for aid for 2003 than 2002. Since the program requires an actual net loss of total income for fishermen to qualify for aid, many fishermen did not qualify last year because they had received other compensation or earned income from non-fish jobs that resulted in them not having a net income loss for the 2002 tax year.

Several million dollars was distributed to fishermen through the program last year. The average fisherman who received aid gained about $2,200 in assistance, with about 100 fishermen gaining the program maximum of $10,000. Murkowski said she continues to work with the department to try to make the program work better for Alaska fishermen. USDA is mailing application materials to all fishermen who held licenses to fish for salmon in Alaska in 2002. Fishermen may also obtain the TAA application from http://forms.sc.egov. usda.gov/eforms/mainservlet, or from their local Farm Service Agency service center. The local FSA service center is located in the blue building at 4014 Lake St., Suite 201. The phone number is 235-8176. Applications (FSA-229) must be submitted to the Farm Service Agency by Jan. 20. Salmon fishermen may call (866)-872-3320 for more information about program services in Alaska.

On the heels of the closure of trawl fisheries in the Central Gulf of Alaska due to halibut bycatch, the Alaska Marine Conservation Council has released an updated report detailing waste in commercial groundfish fisheries in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska. Every year millions of pounds of unwanted fish and other marine life are thrown back into the sea dead or dying. This marine life is discarded as "bycatch" because it is the wrong species, sex or size.

The report, titled "Bycatch: Wasting Alaska's Future," provides recent bycatch statistics, reviews problem fisheries and recommends conservation guidelines to reduce bycatch. The report reveals that more than 300 million pounds of groundfish were wasted in 2003 enough to fill 178,930 F150 pickup trucks to maximum capacity. It also says that salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea doubled between 2002 and 2003, despite chinook and chum salmon bycatch "savings areas." Bering Sea trawl fisheries intercepted 52,358 chinook and 189,401 chum and other salmon in 2003.

According to the report, not all bycatch gets counted, and fish released do not always survive. National Marine Fisheries Service recognized that bycatch actually retained in the net and observed is a minimum estimate of fishing-induced mortality. For example 47 to 67 percent of small fish that escape through large mesh panels in trawl nets are estimated to die from injury or predation. The source for data used in this report comes from the National Marine Fisheries Service, compiled by Fisheries Information Services of Juneau. The full report can be found on the AMCC Web site at http://www.akmarine.org/, under "Reports and Publica-tions."

Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978 and has also designed and built gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and sablefish and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist.