Community Supported Fisheries

Community supported agriculture (CSAs) is a growing tool to save the family farm. Sign up and you get a box of fresh produce each week, straight from your local -- usually organic -- farmer. Everybody wins.

Depending on where you live, you can do the same (or similar) thing now in support of family fishing boats. Add the term community supported fishing to your lexicon.

From Maine to California, it's possible to connect directly with the folks going out each day to catch fresh, seasonal seafood. You get a fresher product from someone you know. The folks on the boat get a better price for their catch. Fishing communities stay alive and healthy, rather than withering away into "colorful" remnants on a once-thriving waterfront.

I spoke with Zeke Grader, at the Institute for Fisheries Resources in San Francisco who says you can't yet buy an actual share of the catch in California, though their website will hook you up with places to buy fresh seafood everywhere along the coast.

But as bloggers like Carolina Bolado on Menu Pages, and publications from Gourmet Magazine to the Christian Science Monitor are reporting, community supported fisheries are a growing trend nationwide.

You can, for example, buy a year's catch from a Maine lobster trap for $2,995 -- with the average catch around 150 lobsters a year. Or you can buy a share of the catch for just $249, with the guarantee of "a gourmet lobster feast for 4" from the lobstermen with the Catch a Piece of Maine partnership.

Closer to home, there's a Fishfone at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, between Monterey and San Francisco, where you can call about buying fish straight from the boat, seven days a week.

Check out a few other options with the Menu Pages links, or visit the harbors and farmers markets near your home that offer fresh-from-the-boat seafood.

Let us know what you find in your neighborhood. We'll help spread the word!

And if all this sounds like too much trouble, you can't go wrong by using the Seafood Watch pocket guide for your region to select sustainable seafood at the market, or your favorite restaurant.