October 3, 2025 • 49 mins
In the tenth episode of Food, Flowers, & Fun: Visits with farm women from around the world, Sarah Schumann of Fishery Friendly Climate Action Campaign talks about:
- Protecting your physical and emotional safety
- Advocating from within the industry
- Creating your own definition of success
- Managing careerism
- Much, much more!
You will love this determined and value-driven (ocean) farmer!
Connect with Sarah at:
- Website: fisheryfriendlyclimateaction.org
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-schumann-fisheries/
- Facebook: @fisheryfriendlyclimateaction
Connect with K at:
- Website: https://www.penlightfarmers.com
- YouTube: @k.castrataro3466
- Facebook and Instagram: @penlightfarmers
- Podcast (audio): https://www.penlightfarmers.com/podcast
- Podcast (video): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVBn53rrIsTwS4ag6hH4DHnxG_Lxqt7x
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
How can we make a better world for farmers on the
land and the sea? Stay tuned asK talks with commercial
fishermen and grassrootscommunity organizer Sarah
Schumann about why advocacy isso important and how producers
can get involved. K
(00:26):
if you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you
get away from the cares of theday. Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed stock. Chat withwomen around the world to raise
(00:49):
food flowers and fun with yourhost, K Castrataro, that's me.
Hello everybody, and welcomeback to Food, Flowers and Fun:
Visits with farm women fromaround the world. As always, we
are sponsored by Pen Light forFarmers, which is equipping farm
(01:10):
women to remove the barriersbetween their lives and the farm
lives that they really havealways wanted. And today, we
have a really exciting guest. Weare branching out into the world
of ocean farming, which I justthink is so great that we're
doing that. And I have SarahSchumann with us. She is a
(01:32):
commercial fisherman. She haslots of advocacy roles that
she's doing. And Sarah, welcometo our show today. How are you?
I'm good. Thank you for givingme the opportunity to join you.
Oh, I'm so excited to have you.So I you know, anybody who
watches the show regularly knowsthat I kind of just jump in and
start asking you to tell me whoyou are, how you got into doing
(01:56):
what you're doing. I love thatyou are a fisherman. You fish in
both Rhode Island and Alaska. Sowhy don't you just start there
and tell us, tell us how you gotinto being a commercial
fisherman to begin with. Sure.So I, unlike a lot of fishermen,
I did not grow up in a fishingfamily or even in a fishing
town. I grew up in Washington,DC. My parents both worked for
(02:18):
at least for a time, for thefederal government. So typical
DC kid.
And was really inspired by myfourth grade teacher. It was
1990 and it was a 20 yearanniversary of Earth Day. It was
like a big deal.
And so we learned from ourWeekly Reader exercise in fourth
(02:38):
grade about, you know, we talkedabout the, you know, greenhouse
effect, as they call it, thenclimate change, we call it now,
and, you know, air pollution andwater pollution and loss of
biodiversity and endangeredspecies. And I just felt really
called by that. It kept me up atnight for a long time thinking
(02:59):
about what I could do. And justfelt like that was my destiny,
but didn't really know how tosort of operationalize that
destiny within the structure ofa of a life.
And so
because, because, especially,especially even as a young
person, advocacy is not it's notlike a career path that people
(03:22):
are normally putting you on, youknow, it's like, are you going
to be a teacher? Are you goingto be a doctor? Are you going to
be a lawyer? You know, for us,are you going to be a farmer,
but, but not so much. Are you?Are you going to advocate for
others who can't advocate forthemselves, including the
environment? So growing up inDC, it actually is, when you
(03:44):
grow up in DC, it's very much ina career path that you are
surrounded by. I mean, a lot ofmy neighbors, parents were in
that world.
I mean, a lot of my kids,parents and neighbors were in
that world. But I think for thatreason, maybe it didn't appeal
to me as much. It's that seemedto me like the sort of, I don't
know, the path of leastresistance, in a way. And I felt
like other people are going totake that path, good, solid,
(04:07):
ethical, you know, capablepeople are going to take that
path of being a paid, you know,inside the beltway lobbyist for
the environment. The worlddoesn't need one more of those.
What the world needs more of isgrassroots environmentalists,
you know, people who are livingand working and living out there
in the rest of the world,depending on the environment,
interacting with the actualnatural environment, you know,
(04:29):
every day of their lives, andstanding up for it. So I was
trying to figure out how I couldbe something like that. And when
everything clicked for me waswhen I was on the coast of
Chile. I had
dropped out of college after twoyears. I was 20 years old. I was
kicking around on the coast ofChile and just being a bohemian
(04:49):
vagabond. But I met some smallscale commercial fishermen. They
called themselves artisanalfishermen. They went to sea in
like a 20 foot Skiff. So.
Set some gill nets, caught theirfish, brought it in, typically,
you know, the female membersthat are the family would would
help with marketing it,processing and marketing it, and
then they would, a lot of themwould go to Congress and rally
(05:12):
and advocate in their sparetime. Some of them were focused
on keeping industrial fleetsoffshore so they weren't coming
in inshore, into the near shorewaters and affecting that
habitat and the fisheries thatthese small scale fishermen
depended on. Some of them werefocused on industrial pollution
from pulp mills and how toprevent that entering and
contaminating the estuaries. AndI was just like, totally,
(05:35):
totally enamored of what theywere doing, totally inspired in
a way that I can only describeis like lust
for for what they did andwanting to be just like that.
Yeah, so that's how I endedfishing. You knew what you
wanted to be when you grew upexactly and so, so how long were
you down there with them inChile? I was there for about a
(05:59):
year and a half, and thendecided to come back. And didn't
know how I knew where I wantedto get, but I didn't know how to
get there, so I decided to goback to college at the
University of Rhode Island. Itwas at that time, may still be,
the only university in thecountry that had a Marine
Affairs program forundergraduates. So I figured,
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okay, you know, maybe if I gotake some classes, I'll figure
out how to be a fisherman.Seemed logical to me, based on
what I knew then. And so
that's what I did. And itactually worked, because there
were some other fishermen in mygraduating class, and there was
a
particular individual, Danorchard, who was getting a
master's there at the same timein the marina affairs
(06:43):
department. And he ran
a newspaper, like a very hyperlocal newspaper called The
Fisherman's call, which was juststories from, you know, what's
going on in Point Judith. And heactually had a distribution it
was a, you know, a paper newsnewspaper. This was, like,
barely, you know, on theprecipice of Internet being a
big thing, right? So he wasdoing that. So of course, he
(07:04):
knew everybody. And so I talkedto him, and it's like, well, you
know what I really want to do?Like, don't tell anybody, but my
dream is to be a commercialfisherman. Do you have any idea
how I can do that?
And so he was like, yes, youshould go talk to Andrea at the
bait shack in Point Judith. Andso I went talk to Andrea. And
Andrea knows everyone, becauseshe buys the lobster bait from
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the draggers, and then she sellsit to the lobstermen. So she
knows everyone in the fleet. Andso I went saw her, and I told
her again, kind of sheepishly,like I've never set foot on foot
on a fishing boat, but I knowthis is what I want to do with
the rest of my life.
And she connected me with richcook on the Sandra Lynn, who, at
that time was deck handless
(07:48):
and so, so he,
he hired me, and that's where Istarted out. And then since
then, I've, that was 20, morethan 20 years ago. Now
I've worked on a bunch ofdifferent boats in Point Judith,
and then started going to Alaska
in 2008 as well. Worked at acannery for nine years,
(08:09):
actually, in salmon cannery inDillingham, Alaska. So tell me
how you did that. Because, Imean, I get it that it's all
fish, but it seems to me thatthe sort of fish that you're
going to be fishing for down onRhode in Rhode Island is going
to be much different than whatyou're doing up in Alaska. And
you said your salmon fish andfishing up in in Alaska. So how
(08:32):
did you make that jump? Becauseso far now you're now you're
going from like DC down toChile, back up here to the east
coast and that, and then all theway to Alaska. So it's almost
like you're doing the wholecoast. I don't really like to
stay in one place for very long.Um, so what? Well, I went. So as
I mentioned earlier, I did adegree in Marine Affairs at URI
(08:54):
the summer after I
graduated, they kept me on as aresearch assistant for a project
in Alaska, and I so that was myfirst time in Alaska. And we
went and we interviewedfishermen, or not, fishermen
community members, I should say,in
a bunch of the teeny tinyvillages in the Norton Sound
region, so right around nome,like a bunch of teeny tiny
(09:15):
villages,
native villages, for the mostpart. And so we went and we
interviewed community members tolearn about some fisheries, some
economic development programsthat they had in that area
related to fisheries. And wewere sitting at the kitchen
table with one young man in oneof the villages, and he was
telling us about how he had beenout as one of these economic
(09:36):
development programs. There hadbeen sort of a career
development aspect to it. And hehad been given the opportunity
to go out on a Pollock processorvessel during the wintertime,
and he came home with, like,some ungodly amount of money.
And when I heard him say thedollar figure,
I was like, oh, oh, where do Isign up for that?
(09:59):
And so.
I sort of figured out, like, howto you know who the Pollock
companies were, and I went onand, like, filled out an online
application for every singleone. One of them called me back,
and they were like, you don'thave any experience processing
fish. I'm like, I know. Andthey're like, but you can get
experience processing fishduring salmon season. That's the
entry level. And if you canprove yourself there, then we
(10:21):
could consider giving you aprocessing job for Pollock
season, which is where the bigmoney is. So I did the same
thing all over again for salmonseason. And again, only one
company called me back.
But one is all it takes. What isall it takes? I think this is,
this is like such a great placeto put in one of these messages.
That is
(10:42):
that it doesn't matter how manyrejections you get, because you
really only need one person tosay yes, and it only needs to be
that one and it's it's the samein every type of business but
agriculture, especially, youknow, if you want to get in and
you're trying something new, youonly need that one opportunity,
(11:03):
and so, so you got thisopportunity. You jumped on it.
You did. You did the legwork andand so apparently you must have
done well enough in the salmonto finally get to Pollock. Am I
right about that? No, I foundloved salmon. I didn't want to
leave
(11:26):
salmon, so the money, the moneyjust wasn't enough to drag you
away from salmon. Is that whatI'm hearing? Well, you know, I
guess what happened? I reallylove the salmon, and I wanted to
stick with that. So I worked ata cannery for nine years, and
then started on salmon fishingboats. I've done both sides of
the salmon industry. And I'mobsessed with salmon. I'm
obsessed with that whole area ofBristol Bay, Alaska, and the
industry and the community andeverything.
(11:49):
But I it also sort of becameimportant to me to spend, to
dedicate some time each year tothe advocacy that I wanted to
do. And so the winter time,which is when Pollock season is
that's really the time that I'vecarved out to focus full time on
on the advocacy work that I do.
Okay, and so why don't why don'twe talk about that? Because I
think one of the things that Ireally love about your story is
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how the advocacy and the actualwork of you know, water farming,
were so connected to you in andfrom the very beginning, like
you, you had that desire to benot just somebody who was
advocating, but also somebodywho was experiencing what it was
like to be a producer. And so Ithink this is something really
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important for all aspects ofagriculture, because farmers, I
think often will look atadvocacy as something that
either somebody else does forthem, or something that they
don't have the time or theenergy, the expertise to do and
and I think that, you know,there are places, as you said,
(12:56):
for those professionaladvocates, but I think there's
also a place For the people whoare doing the work to advocate
for themselves. So why don't youtalk to me about the difference
you see in that and and how thatplays out for you? Yeah, I think
about this a lot,
and I agree that. I also feelthat with fishermen, it's the
same thing that a lot of peopledon't want to be bothered. They
(13:18):
want somebody else to do thatfor them. You know, some sort of
paid advocate, ideally paid bysomebody else who just reads
your mind and, you know, getsyou what you want. But so much
of time there's sort of thisbifurcation right between, like,
you know, scientists andfishermen, or advocates and
fishermen, or advocates andfarmers with different skill
sets, different sort ofoccupational communities. They
wind up having different values,and they wind up having this
(13:41):
sort of siloed thing. And reallythat what that, that is all sort
of to the detriment of, like,accountability. I think that if
you really, truly want to haveagency, you have to do some
things yourself, and you have tosort of merge those, those roles
of being the farmer or being thefisherman and the advocate, I
guess I use sort of a, I guessadvocacy may not be the best
(14:03):
word I use, sort of a communityorganizing model. Because
community organizing is, youknow, at its in its purest
sense, about being, you know,organizing your peers, so being
a member of the community thatyou're seeking to empower, as
opposed to separate from it.Yep,
oh, I'm loving that. So I wasreally struck by your comment
(14:25):
about there being differentvalues between the researchers,
the the actual fishermen, thecommunity members pay, the
advocates and and I find thatreally interesting, because
I believe that
that our work should start withour values, because if we're
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meeting those values, we'regoing to have more joy and and
sense of success in the workthat we're doing. So I'd be
really interesting to have youtalk about the differences in
values between.
The fishermen and the paidadvocates, community members,
all of that kind of thing. Onewould think that a lot of those
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values would align for this,these different groups. And so
can you talk about some of theways that you see the values
being the same, and some of theways that they're different, and
how that plays out in
in the work, one of the thingsthat really jumps out to me,
working, you know, with bothcommunities at different times,
(15:28):
both sort of the professionals,whether they're scientists,
advocates, NGOs, consultants,whatever, and fishermen who are
catching fish and thenvolunteering their time as
advocates, is, I guess, how wedefine sort of merit. And
there's sort of an implicithierarchy. Involved in each
community that doesn't alwaysalign,
I guess, with with professionalwith professionals in general,
(15:52):
there's a sort of like,careerism that kind of takes
hold. And of course, there islike, you know, in fishing, you
also want to achieve success,right by working your way up
from deckhand to captain, byhaving a nice boat that's well
maintained, by catching a lot offish. You know, everybody has
sort of their metrics ofsuccess,
(16:12):
but sometimes, you know, theprofessional metrics of success,
I think, get in the way of canget in the way of like
can clash with some, sometimeswith the
ability of, you know, of thefishing community, or whatever
other community we're talkingabout, to fully have, sort of,
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to fully, sort of have controlof the situation, or have a
voice, or have agency. I'm notsure what I'm trying to get. No,
no, no, that's okay,
talking through it and thencoming up, like kind of batting
the ideas around as we figureit, figure it out. And this
careerism is something that's, Ilike that word because, you
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know, with the land farmers, Ibring up this concept of what a
good farmer is like, what doesit mean to be how do you have to
work a certain number of hours?Do you have to get a certain
percentage of your income? Like,do you you know, what style of
farming do you do? And so I'mcurious as to how that works,
also in the fishing industry,whether they're those same
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kinds, like certain types offishermen are more fishermen
than others.
I mean, you're talking about,yeah, yeah, yeah.
It doesn't talk there's totally,of course, there's hierarchies
in any occupational community,including fishing.
So where do you, where do yousee that playing out? Like,
(17:44):
where do you see some of themaybe, if there's stigma, or,
like,
people who are not considered tobe quite as
legitimate in the fishingcommunity, or, and how does that
play out in advocacy as well?Like, how does, how does that
disconnect between differentgroups of fishermen translate
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into advocacy? Does thatquestion? Yeah, in fishing, I
think that, you know, to achievesort of status as a fisherman,
you you want to, you know, notbe a deckhand, like I am, right.
You want to work your way up to,you know, either a very
respected captain of a largervessel or an owner operator
by a certain point in yourcareer, right? You want to be in
the wheelhouse. And you don'twant to be impoverished, right?
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You want to catch enough fish toto have a boat that looks well
maintained, to pay your, youknow, to pay everyone you're
supposed to pay, and then, youknow, support your family,
right? Like,
if you're a Highliner, evenbetter, right? If you're, if
you're one of the people who'sreally pioneered a new fishery.
Veterans use status. In my case,I haven't achieved any of those
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things. So I have found, andthis is, I think, particularly,
this may have a little bit of agendered element to it, but I
feel I've achieved some statusin the fishing industry through
my advocacy, sort of by being acommunity builder and a bridge
builder, and earning that trustand that respect from the rest
of my community that way,because I sure haven't really
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earned it in the traditional,the conventional way, like I'm
still a decade after 20 years inthe industry, and that's because
these other things matter moreto me. I define status
differently, I guess then. Sothat's a matter of choice. Like
i think that i i Love Again,that it's going back to your
values, that in order to
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end up in the wheelhouse, thereare other things that you might
have to give up and and you'renot willing to do that, because
those other things matter a lotto you. Okay, so one of the
other things that is a bigpassion for me in the farming
community is working on thingslike mental health and that work
life balance and
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good communication with people,and you being an advocate and
all.
So a woman in a predominantlymale job, which I noticed that
you call yourself a fisherman,which I love that, because, you
know, we have gone to all ofthese gendered terms, but it
seems like, it seems like thefishing industry has not gone
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that way. So
but no
so far better or for or forworse. But I just I love that
there is a culture around that.And so I'm wondering how you
manage to stay
kind of grounded, and how youtake care of yourself in an
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occupation that is veryphysical, it's got to be
emotionally stressful. Requiresa lot of communication, and
you're dealing you're dealingwith a gender who definitely has
its own set of views of women,excuse me, in certain
industries. So how do you takecare of yourself in that
context? What do you do foryourself? I could
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probably do better at that. I'mtrying to, trying to spend more
time thinking about work lifebalance.
I am lucky, though. I mean, Isort of,
I achieve balance through thetwo aspects of my work, like I
find the advocacy to be attimes, very stress inducing and
very heartbreaking, especially
(21:26):
right now,
the fishing is sort of alleviatethat, because being a deckhand,
especially, I don't have anyresponsibility. I just get to do
what I'm told. I have. I havethe great privilege of working
for two captains, one in Alaskaand one on Rhode Island, who are
dear friends,
and that is my happy place,right on the boat. That is where
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I go to relax. I work hard, Isweat, I get exhausted, I sleep
hard,
but that sort of recharges me tothen come back to my computer
and get online and read aboutwhat's going on in the world and
figure out how I can try to makeit better. That's the hard part.
Sometimes it's inspiring too,and sometimes it's devastating.
Yeah, no, well, I can empathizewith that because I, I had that
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experience when I was incollege, actually, because I
would, I would be at school andworking so hard mentally, like
just I always had, like, 17 to19 credit hours, like I was
always just a full, full courseload, and worked really hard,
and then I would come home tothe farm, and it's like I would
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shut my brain off. And you know,not to say that farming doesn't
require brain power. But as yousaid at that point, I was a
field hand, which is is thefarming equivalent of being a
deck hand. You do what you'retold. You're doing all the
physical stuff. And it was sotherapeutic for me to be able to
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just go and work hard, beexhausted, sleep hard and not
and kind of give my brain abreak. So I definitely see how
those two aspects of your lifecan be mutually reinforcing. You
know that you can kind of restfrom one while doing the other.
(23:19):
What do you find to be some ofthe most challenging aspects of
the advocacy work right now.
Well, it's all people. Workpeople. It's always harder to
work with people than with fishor vegetables or farm animals.
It's just more complex. And evenpeople who you think are your
(23:40):
you know, closest, most trustedcollaborators can turn out not
to be that's happened to memultiple times, and that sucks.
And then you go through timeswhen you invest, you know, like
two and a half less the last twoand a half years I invested,
didn't have grant money, youknow, a little bit here and
there, not enough to pay me orto really pay most of the
expenses to work on this report,where we interviewed 150
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fishermen across eight statesand 30 key informants, Port
managers, policymakers, etc, toproduce an 18 volume set of
reports on how to transition toa low carbon fishing fleet and
how to put fishermen themselves
at the helm of that energytransition. You know, January
20, Donald Trump and JD Vancesweep into office, we're not
(24:23):
doing an energy transitionanymore. We're not doing federal
funding that would definitely berequired to support fishing
vessels in making that energytransition. You know, fishermen
who I knew, who had receivedsmall grants to reduce their
carbon footprint make theirvessels more energy efficient.
You know, got those grantsclawed back.
We're pulling out of the ParisAgreement. We're reversing the
(24:43):
EPA engagement finding
we repealed the IRA inflationReduction Act. Like, um, yeah. I
mean, this has been devastating.This has just been totally,
totally heartbreaking. Andthat's just, I'm just talking
about the climate, you know,related piece of it, right?
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, I sank that everything Ihad the last four years into
(25:05):
trying to ensure that the energytransition didn't happen in a
way in which the fishingcommunity got left out or got
rolled over,
but instead could be part of theenergy transition, part of
creating a better, cleaner,greener world. And now
it just feels like it was suchan important, like, really such
(25:26):
an important thing, because,
because we're we are trying tolook at the whole system and to
say, like we, we are a system,like people and the environment
have to work together, becausewe depend upon each other, and
different industries depend oneach other, and so I think what
(25:50):
what you're pointing to,
is really critical that you youdid the work to get people's
voices heard, And so thatpolicies weren't made that would
be detrimental to the peoplestill doing their work. Because,
let's face it, I mean, how manyfishing vessels are you Kristen?
Carbon Neutral even? Like, it'skind of like big rigs, you know.
(26:15):
Like, how long did it take to beable to get emissions and all of
that kind of stuff down likethat's a long process, and it's
an expensive process, especiallyfor the producers and the owner
operators, all of those peoplewho are actually trying to make
a living. And so I think that'salways been one of the tensions
(26:36):
with the climate issue, is thatwe want to take care of the
environment, and we want to makesure that people can can
continue to make a living whilewe're making these changes. And
so, you know, four years like, Ithink it's important for people
to realize that four years ofresearch goes into how to do
this well, and then when all ofthat funding suddenly gets cut,
(27:00):
there's
like, then what do you do? Like,it can't go forward.
Does it go backwards? Like, doit, you know? Yeah, leave
people. So I'm curious. Like,Have you, have you talked to any
of the actual fishermen sincethe funding got got cut, like
(27:23):
did, have you gone back to themto see how that
resonates with them or doesn'tresonate with them, you know,
were they in favor of doing thetransition, you know, What?
What? What was that like foryou, working with them? Was it
an uphill battle to get them tosay, Oh, this might be a good
idea. Or were they saying, no,we want this. It's just really
(27:44):
expensive. How do we make ithappen?
I don't I mean for one thing,that the fishing industry has a
relatively low carbon footprintas food in terms of compared to
other protein sources.
Fish, wild harvest fish, areactually among the very lowest
on a per pound basis.
(28:05):
So we don't feel like we'remajor contributors in the
scheme, in the grand scheme ofthings, to the problem of
climate change.
That said, We're directlyimpacted by climate change
ourselves. So it's in ourinterest to see it addressed,
and if it's going to beaddressed. You know, if
petroleum is going to stay inthe ground, which is where we
need to eventually go to a placewhere it stays in the ground,
(28:27):
then what are we going to runour vessels on? Like we have
very limited options.
You know, diesel has been therefor us for 100 years, and we
trust it. There is no sort ofequivalent substitute out there,
yet, certainly not one thatcosts the same or that feels
reliable. You know, as reliable.It's a much harder equation than
(28:49):
an on road vehicle a pass an onroad passenger vehicle. So,
and at the same time we weresort of, you know, there was
some excitement among amongespecially the younger members
of the fleet that we interviewedin just innovating and
pioneering new things, because alot of the a lot of the fishing
fleet is old. We have olderboats, we have older people, we
(29:11):
have older port infrastructure.And there's an interest in sort
of modernizing the fleet,rejuvenating, rejuvenating the,
you know, the people involved abit, you know, generational
continuity. So
there's a little bit of appealthere too, with just trying to
sort of be at the forefront ofof innovation. But none of it's
remotely possible withoutwithout federal subsidies. It's
(29:32):
just not. It's also becomes lesscompelling without sort of an
economy wide decarbonizationplan, because we certainly
don't. The point of thisresearch was that we don't want
to be the last ones todecarbonize, but we also don't
want to be the first. We want tobe in the middle of the pack,
and we need help to do it. Andif the economy as a whole is not
(29:53):
moving that way for a while,we're not going to be the first
movers. It's just not in ourinterests. I.
Oh, that's, that's a reallyinteresting, you know, you don't
want to be the last, but youdon't want to be the first. And
so that puts you in in a reallyinteresting position and kind of
(30:14):
a holding pattern, yes, yeah,yeah. So this is the danger of
being sort of a grassrootsadvocate, writer, activist, is
all the time you
sink into something as a passionproject. It all comes from the
heart. It's on top of whatyou're trying to do to make a
living. And when it doesn't panout, I think it'd be crushing
for a professional as well,emotionally crushing, but it
(30:35):
wouldn't be financiallycrushing. So like, that's sort
of a lesson learned, I guess, ofwhy it is so hard. You know, the
more time I spend trying to be afisherman activist in this
world, you know, a grassrootsenvironmental activist, the role
I have wanted for myself since Iwas nine years old, the more I
realized why there aren't morepeople out there doing it,
(30:56):
unfortunately,
because it's a hard job. It's asuper hard job. And so, you
know, I think this is a reallycommon issue across the board,
where, you know, a lot of thefarmers that I talked to, the
ones who are advocates,
(31:18):
they do have to make it almost apart of their their business
plan, like it's, it's part ofhow they structure their work,
it's how they structure theirfarm business. And so, you know,
I hear that that's part of whatyou do. You know, with making
the balance that the winter timeis, is your predominantly
(31:40):
advocacy time,
and how does that work with howthe rest of the government
functions and and all that kindof thing. Do you Do you feel
like you can take a few monthsoff from advocacy and still and
still have the impact that youwant to or do you need to have a
group around you, where you'recontinuing the work. Well, the
(32:04):
group is continuing the work,but you you can do other things.
How do you experience thatthat's also challenged just the
scheduling?
And yeah, it's exactly the samefor farmers, like for fishermen,
even more so perhaps because ourschedules are a little less
predictable because of weather.You know, we look at the weather
the night before and decidewhether to go. And sometimes we
(32:26):
have a longer day than we'veexpected because of weather, or,
you know, unexpected things,like seals. Seals eating all our
fish, so we have to haul thegear twice in one day so the
seals don't get to it first.Like, I think there's even an
increased element ofunpredictability compared to
farming, but what is the samefor both of us is we have really
intense work work cycles duringthe growing months or the
(32:48):
fishing months,
and it's so hard for other toexplain that to other people,
even my parents. But you know,when they want me to do
something with them, it's like,well, can you be around certain
date? I'm like, I don't know. Icould tell you the day before
and planning meetings, answeringemails, you know, with with
professional collaborators, isalso, I mean, I feel like half
(33:09):
the time I appear like I'mdropping the ball, or I'm, you
know, ghosting people
because I don't show up. I have,at times, actually run zoom
meetings on my earbuds whilepicking fish with my hands. It's
not a good way to run a meeting,
but once while they find herselfin that situation, you got to do
what you got to do. I will. Iwill tell you I was on a phone
(33:34):
call with a flower grower nottoo long ago, and she was
cutting sunflowers whilebalancing the phone and like,
and I kept saying, Are you surethis is a good time? And she was
like, this is actually very,very therapeutic for me to talk
to you while I'm doing this. AndI've got 400 stems, and they're
(33:57):
gonna go much faster talking toyou. Yeah, okay, if it's working
for you, I'm okay with that, but
yeah, so again, really, reallychallenging, and something that
that not everybody is willing toput the the effort into doing.
(34:18):
And so talk to me about how thatcommunication works, because I
can imagine that would be reallychallenging when you
when you know that you're notghosting somebody, you know that
you're actually just doing yourjob, and that your job really is
not schedule driven.
(34:39):
It doesn't, it doesn't follow,it doesn't follow your Google
Calendar.
So how have you learned tocommunicate about that with
people who might not understandthat very well? Because one
would think that in phishingadvocacy, people would
understand that a little bit,but it sounds like maybe not so
much. I mean.
(35:00):
Just takes a while for for it tosink in, because it's so
different from the work a dayworld that most professionals
find themselves in. So
I just have to kind of keepharping on it and, like, make it
a little bit of a thing, like, Idon't know, like an interest
point, a curiosity or somethingto
remind people, oh, you know,it's, you know, there's, you
(35:22):
know, it's looking good fortomorrow, or, you know, we've
got to go tomorrow because it'sgale warning on Friday, or
whatever, like, I don't know,just let people in a little bit
to the experience.
Yes, I love that, because Ithink it is true for all types
of farming, that
sometimes, because we're in it,we
(35:45):
think that everybody should justget it, they should understand
it, which, you know, nobodyreally understands anybody
else's life unless we let themin. I love how you use that. So
there is a sense in which wemight feel like explaining
sounds like defending ourselvesor justifying ourselves, which I
(36:10):
suspect fishermen are the same,but we don't like to do that
like farmers. Don't like to sitthere and have to explain to you
why we're doing what we're doinglike you should just kind of
figure
it. And yet, there's a realbeauty when we're able to to
bring that to the table and tosay, No, I really want to do
(36:30):
this work, and I want to make iteasy for you, and I'm dealing
with constraints that I have nocontrol over, so unfortunately,
I have to wait to see what theweather looks like. I can give
you a tentative, but it mightchange. And I know we had, we
had a call that, that we had todo that, because you were like,
(36:52):
Oh, I have to go out on theboat. And I'm like, Okay, you
gotta go out on the boat. Like,for me, totally makes sense. I
have a friend who's who's alobsterman, so I'm like, yeah,
when the lobster there, you gotto go get the lobster.
You kind of just can't, youcan't just sit around. So
so I love that idea of tellingpeople, letting them in,
(37:14):
explaining and making it athing, as you said, like just
making it part of the everydayconversation, as opposed to sure
we'll schedule this meeting, andthen right before the meeting,
or the day before the meeting,having to cancel it or
reschedule it, you know if, asyou're scheduling it, you can
put some of those caveats inplace. I think, I think that's
(37:38):
very helpful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.And do you find that the more
you let people in, the moreflexible they are with you, or
the more tolerant they are?Yeah, but it's still hard. I
mean, it's just not like,practically speaking, if you're
trying to, you know, especiallyif you're in a leadership role,
(37:58):
like in a group,
if you're trying to lead a groupof
it's really across time zones.It's really hard to reschedule
because you had to go fishing.So it's not just a matter of
people understanding sometimesit's just logistically hard.
There's just a certainincompatibility there between
the lifestyle,
(38:20):
right? So, so talk to me aboutsome of the other ways you
navigate that. Because, youknow, I see a lot of issues come
up. You know, even in RhodeIsland, things come up during
the growing season. And, youknow, Farm Bureau, for example,
will be like, hey, we need toget all the farmers up to the
State House. And the farmers arelike, Are you kidding me? It's
(38:43):
the middle of August, and I'mlike, harvesting,
you know, 19 hours a day, like,Are you kidding me? And, and,
how does that work? So, so howdo you manage that when you're
the one leading these meetingsand and the fishing is not
cooperating.
(39:06):
Yeah, I mean,
just figure out. I mean, I have,like I said, I have run zoom
meetings while fishing, whileI've got my gloves on.
Sometimes, you know, you have tofind a backup. You have to make
sure somebody else can step upif you're not there.
So I'm hearing building a team,yeah, is a really important
(39:28):
aspect of this. So yeah, whenyou're not able to do some of
those things, somebody else canstep in. Do you feel like you've
been able to create a good teamwho can support you in that way?
Or is that a Yeah, I mean,there's, there's a lot of
different collaborativeactivities that I've been
engaged in, so it's not alwaysthe same team. But
(39:49):
yeah, yeah.
I mean, definitely, I've hadtimes where I suddenly couldn't
show up, and my collaboratorjust stepped up and ran with it,
and
no issues. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's soimportant. So if there were
something that you would like,what are some of the big key
issues that you see confrontingfishermen right now, and
(40:14):
especially women fishermen likemaybe, let's talk a little bit
about that, that gender, genderthing. What is it like being a
woman in this industry,
it's pretty much a non issue.
When I got into it, it felt Iwas more conscious of it 20
years ago, partly because I was
(40:36):
just new to the industry. AndI'm not only a woman, I'm also
just like, you know, I stick outlike a story at that time, at
that time, at least, I felt likeI stuck out like sore thumb in
the industry, just because Iwasn't from it. But
now it doesn't feel now I'm noteven aware of it. And
there are more. There seem to bemore women than there used to be
(40:57):
in Rhode Island, in Alaska,where I fish in the summer,
there are tons of women. It'sjust completely normal. It's a
total non issue. I don't, Iwouldn't say it's like 5050,
maybe 30% are women this justoff the top of my head. But it's
very, very normal, and not justfor decades. Around here, there
are not a lot of female owneroperators or captains in Alaska.
(41:18):
It's totally normal for a womanto own and run the boat, or for
there to be an all woman boat,you know, where the captain and
the crew are all females, yeah.So I think that sort of partly
because of the Alaska experiencetoo.
The gender issue has justtotally evaporated for me as an
issue since I started fishing.
Yeah, and I think that's abeautiful thing to hear, do you,
(41:41):
do you feel like,
like the culture has shiftedover the past 20 years? Or do
you think it's more your comfortlevel? Because, as you say,
you're you were from theoutside, and so all of us know
that anytime you walk into anindustry that is also a
lifestyle and you're like, notfrom that lifestyle.
(42:04):
We all know that that can bequite the challenge. So do you?
Do you think it's more one ofthe other, like, more your
familiarity, or more the cultureshifting, or a little bit of
both? It's so hard to say. Youknow when something is internal,
when it's in your head, versusexternal, you know, societal,
(42:24):
it's really hard to tell.Sometimes,
there have been
efforts like by women fishermen,especially when social media was
kind of, you know, new andexciting, and before it became
just like a toxic waste dump.
Like there were some efforts ledby women, a fisherwoman in Maine
and a fisherwoman in from whoworked in Alaska, from
(42:45):
Washington
to sort of cultivate camaraderieand networking among women
fishermen on both coasts.
And in addition to camaraderie,it also called it also led to
some of the gear, the
you know, the wearable gearmanufacturers like grundens
coming out with women's lines ofclothing that actually were fit
(43:07):
for the contour of woman's body,
and extra tough now has women'sboots designed by the salmon
sisters with not just designedfor the fit of a woman's foot,
but also embellished withgorgeous Pictures, because women
like that, I guess. I mean,they're beautiful. I'm not
making I'm not mocking them. Butyeah, so there has been, I would
(43:28):
say those are sort of points ofevidence that there has been
sort of a rising consciousnessof women in the fishing
industry. Yeah, yeah. And again,one of those things that that
you don't think about, but it'sthe same in agriculture as well,
like lighter chainsaws, smaller,lighter chainsaws so that women
who aren't six feet tall canactually handle them and not be
(43:51):
hurting themselves, or, youknow, cutting a leg off or
something because it slips outof their hands. Or tractors, you
know, designing the tractors sothat they adjust better, like
you can actually move the seatsand instead of, like, kind of
scooch into the end of the seat,hoping that your feet can hit
(44:13):
the clutch at the same time. Andso, yeah, I think that's really
interesting. And I'm thinkingabout rain gear because,
because, growing up, you know,we had just rain gear, and it
was all men size rain gear, andit was over sized and it smelled
because it's got, like, I don'tknow, it's just not, not nice.
(44:35):
I'm not a big fan of rain gear,but you have to use it,
but to have to have it designedfor a woman is actually
something that would be reallyhelpful, because then it's not
so big and bulky. It's notYou're not swimming in it and
having all this extra egg. Wouldimagine. It'd be safer, because
you don't have all that extrastuff that you know, for a man,
(44:58):
they need it, but for a woman,it.
Just something that's going toget caught in the equipment. So
exactly. So I yeah, oh, totallyfascinating. So I love, I love
hearing about that.
And do you engage in these, inthese more women, women centered
groups, or do you feel like it'skind of not, not really
(45:20):
necessary for you, to someextent, they sort of faded faded
out. They were hot for a while,and then they kind of faded out.
I'm not sure why. Maybe they'vesort of accomplished their
mission, but it was nice becauseit was just a generally more
upbeat place than a lot of themore general fishermen's groups
on social media, which can bepretty
embittered a lot of the times.And the women's groups were just
(45:43):
all really mutually supportiveand positive. It was nice.
Well, well, you are totallywelcome to be in the pen light
for farmers Facebook group,which, yes, it is, it is social
media, I will agree. And I'vecome into social media kicking
and screaming, but, but again,it's a tool. We can use the tool
(46:06):
for good, or we can use it forevil. And I am definitely a
person who wants to use it forgood. So, so you can come and
hang out with the cheerful womenfarmers, and we can all talk
about fun farming stuff and andbringing in the whole notion of,
like, I think this advocacy. SoI'm going to ask you the same
question that I ask everybody atthe end of my episode, if there
(46:29):
were one thing that you felt allfarmers or fishermen in this in
this case, should know. Whatwould that be? One thing I
thought all farmers or fishermenshould know, yeah, yeah. Like,
if there were one message youcould give to your peeps, what
would that be?
I guess, just to work together,you know, to try to find
(46:50):
solutions.
I mean, a lot of the times we asa community, and I don't know
that this is unique to us, butwe let ourselves get down and
sort of let ourselves getcaptured by hopelessness
and frustration and grievance,and
(47:10):
I don't know, not only is thatnot fun, you know, not helpful
to one's mental health,
but it doesn't solve any youknow, It doesn't, it doesn't
solve problems or lead to abetter world. And I don't think
it's impossible to strive to abetter world. I think it's
within our reach. But you know,we have to work together and
believe in ourselves and believein each other.
(47:35):
Don't put that look at the end,because I have 110%
in that accord with you. So no,I love that. And the truth is
that when we focus on the thingsthat can embitter us, we lose
the ability to see potential,and we lose the ability to solve
(47:56):
problems creatively. And so wenot only are making ourselves
feel bad, but we're actuallykeeping ourselves stuck in a
place that we don't really wantto be. And so when we can, as
you said, work together, lifteach other up, you know, support
one another and encourage oneanother to find hope.
(48:17):
Absolutely, we can change theworld, and we do it, one
fisherman, one farmer, oneconsumer, one
Congress person, one at a time,like, that's how we do it. And,
oh, I love it. So thank you somuch, Sarah for joining us on
Food, Flowers and Fun. And thankyou all out there for for coming
(48:43):
back for another episode, and wehope to have you on again soon.
Thank you. It was great to behere. Excellent. Bye
farmers, calling our show is alldone, goodbye, farewell. So long
Adieu, see you next week, sametime, same place for Food,
(49:05):
Flowers and Fun. Go in peace.
Visit us atwww.penlightfarmers.com
How can we make a better world for farmers on the
land and the sea? Stay tuned asK talks with commercial
fishermen and grassrootscommunity organizer Sarah
Schumann about why advocacy isso important and how producers
can get involved. K
(00:26):
if you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you
get away from the cares of theday. Restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed stock. Chat withwomen around the world to raise
(00:49):
food flowers and fun with yourhost, K Castrataro, that's me.
Hello everybody, and welcomeback to Food, Flowers and Fun:
Visits with farm women fromaround the world. As always, we
are sponsored by Pen Light forFarmers, which is equipping farm
(01:10):
women to remove the barriersbetween their lives and the farm
lives that they really havealways wanted. And today, we
have a really exciting guest. Weare branching out into the world
of ocean farming, which I justthink is so great that we're
doing that. And I have SarahSchumann with us. She is a
(01:32):
commercial fisherman. She haslots of advocacy roles that
she's doing. And Sarah, welcometo our show today. How are you?
I'm good. Thank you for givingme the opportunity to join you.
Oh, I'm so excited to have you.So I you know, anybody who
watches the show regularly knowsthat I kind of just jump in and
start asking you to tell me whoyou are, how you got into doing
(01:56):
what you're doing. I love thatyou are a fisherman. You fish in
both Rhode Island and Alaska. Sowhy don't you just start there
and tell us, tell us how you gotinto being a commercial
fisherman to begin with. Sure.So I, unlike a lot of fishermen,
I did not grow up in a fishingfamily or even in a fishing
town. I grew up in Washington,DC. My parents both worked for
(02:18):
at least for a time, for thefederal government. So typical
DC kid.
And was really inspired by myfourth grade teacher. It was
1990 and it was a 20 yearanniversary of Earth Day. It was
like a big deal.
And so we learned from ourWeekly Reader exercise in fourth
(02:38):
grade about, you know, we talkedabout the, you know, greenhouse
effect, as they call it, thenclimate change, we call it now,
and, you know, air pollution andwater pollution and loss of
biodiversity and endangeredspecies. And I just felt really
called by that. It kept me up atnight for a long time thinking
(02:59):
about what I could do. And justfelt like that was my destiny,
but didn't really know how tosort of operationalize that
destiny within the structure ofa of a life.
And so
because, because, especially,especially even as a young
person, advocacy is not it's notlike a career path that people
(03:22):
are normally putting you on, youknow, it's like, are you going
to be a teacher? Are you goingto be a doctor? Are you going to
be a lawyer? You know, for us,are you going to be a farmer,
but, but not so much. Are you?Are you going to advocate for
others who can't advocate forthemselves, including the
environment? So growing up inDC, it actually is, when you
(03:44):
grow up in DC, it's very much ina career path that you are
surrounded by. I mean, a lot ofmy neighbors, parents were in
that world.
I mean, a lot of my kids,parents and neighbors were in
that world. But I think for thatreason, maybe it didn't appeal
to me as much. It's that seemedto me like the sort of, I don't
know, the path of leastresistance, in a way. And I felt
like other people are going totake that path, good, solid,
(04:07):
ethical, you know, capablepeople are going to take that
path of being a paid, you know,inside the beltway lobbyist for
the environment. The worlddoesn't need one more of those.
What the world needs more of isgrassroots environmentalists,
you know, people who are livingand working and living out there
in the rest of the world,depending on the environment,
interacting with the actualnatural environment, you know,
(04:29):
every day of their lives, andstanding up for it. So I was
trying to figure out how I couldbe something like that. And when
everything clicked for me waswhen I was on the coast of
Chile. I had
dropped out of college after twoyears. I was 20 years old. I was
kicking around on the coast ofChile and just being a bohemian
(04:49):
vagabond. But I met some smallscale commercial fishermen. They
called themselves artisanalfishermen. They went to sea in
like a 20 foot Skiff. So.
Set some gill nets, caught theirfish, brought it in, typically,
you know, the female membersthat are the family would would
help with marketing it,processing and marketing it, and
then they would, a lot of themwould go to Congress and rally
(05:12):
and advocate in their sparetime. Some of them were focused
on keeping industrial fleetsoffshore so they weren't coming
in inshore, into the near shorewaters and affecting that
habitat and the fisheries thatthese small scale fishermen
depended on. Some of them werefocused on industrial pollution
from pulp mills and how toprevent that entering and
contaminating the estuaries. AndI was just like, totally,
(05:35):
totally enamored of what theywere doing, totally inspired in
a way that I can only describeis like lust
for for what they did andwanting to be just like that.
Yeah, so that's how I endedfishing. You knew what you
wanted to be when you grew upexactly and so, so how long were
you down there with them inChile? I was there for about a
(05:59):
year and a half, and thendecided to come back. And didn't
know how I knew where I wantedto get, but I didn't know how to
get there, so I decided to goback to college at the
University of Rhode Island. Itwas at that time, may still be,
the only university in thecountry that had a Marine
Affairs program forundergraduates. So I figured,
(06:22):
okay, you know, maybe if I gotake some classes, I'll figure
out how to be a fisherman.Seemed logical to me, based on
what I knew then. And so
that's what I did. And itactually worked, because there
were some other fishermen in mygraduating class, and there was
a
particular individual, Danorchard, who was getting a
master's there at the same timein the marina affairs
(06:43):
department. And he ran
a newspaper, like a very hyperlocal newspaper called The
Fisherman's call, which was juststories from, you know, what's
going on in Point Judith. And heactually had a distribution it
was a, you know, a paper newsnewspaper. This was, like,
barely, you know, on theprecipice of Internet being a
big thing, right? So he wasdoing that. So of course, he
(07:04):
knew everybody. And so I talkedto him, and it's like, well, you
know what I really want to do?Like, don't tell anybody, but my
dream is to be a commercialfisherman. Do you have any idea
how I can do that?
And so he was like, yes, youshould go talk to Andrea at the
bait shack in Point Judith. Andso I went talk to Andrea. And
Andrea knows everyone, becauseshe buys the lobster bait from
(07:25):
the draggers, and then she sellsit to the lobstermen. So she
knows everyone in the fleet. Andso I went saw her, and I told
her again, kind of sheepishly,like I've never set foot on foot
on a fishing boat, but I knowthis is what I want to do with
the rest of my life.
And she connected me with richcook on the Sandra Lynn, who, at
that time was deck handless
(07:48):
and so, so he,
he hired me, and that's where Istarted out. And then since
then, I've, that was 20, morethan 20 years ago. Now
I've worked on a bunch ofdifferent boats in Point Judith,
and then started going to Alaska
in 2008 as well. Worked at acannery for nine years,
(08:09):
actually, in salmon cannery inDillingham, Alaska. So tell me
how you did that. Because, Imean, I get it that it's all
fish, but it seems to me thatthe sort of fish that you're
going to be fishing for down onRhode in Rhode Island is going
to be much different than whatyou're doing up in Alaska. And
you said your salmon fish andfishing up in in Alaska. So how
(08:32):
did you make that jump? Becauseso far now you're now you're
going from like DC down toChile, back up here to the east
coast and that, and then all theway to Alaska. So it's almost
like you're doing the wholecoast. I don't really like to
stay in one place for very long.Um, so what? Well, I went. So as
I mentioned earlier, I did adegree in Marine Affairs at URI
(08:54):
the summer after I
graduated, they kept me on as aresearch assistant for a project
in Alaska, and I so that was myfirst time in Alaska. And we
went and we interviewedfishermen, or not, fishermen
community members, I should say,in
a bunch of the teeny tinyvillages in the Norton Sound
region, so right around nome,like a bunch of teeny tiny
(09:15):
villages,
native villages, for the mostpart. And so we went and we
interviewed community members tolearn about some fisheries, some
economic development programsthat they had in that area
related to fisheries. And wewere sitting at the kitchen
table with one young man in oneof the villages, and he was
telling us about how he had beenout as one of these economic
(09:36):
development programs. There hadbeen sort of a career
development aspect to it. And hehad been given the opportunity
to go out on a Pollock processorvessel during the wintertime,
and he came home with, like,some ungodly amount of money.
And when I heard him say thedollar figure,
I was like, oh, oh, where do Isign up for that?
(09:59):
And so.
I sort of figured out, like, howto you know who the Pollock
companies were, and I went onand, like, filled out an online
application for every singleone. One of them called me back,
and they were like, you don'thave any experience processing
fish. I'm like, I know. Andthey're like, but you can get
experience processing fishduring salmon season. That's the
entry level. And if you canprove yourself there, then we
(10:21):
could consider giving you aprocessing job for Pollock
season, which is where the bigmoney is. So I did the same
thing all over again for salmonseason. And again, only one
company called me back.
But one is all it takes. What isall it takes? I think this is,
this is like such a great placeto put in one of these messages.
That is
(10:42):
that it doesn't matter how manyrejections you get, because you
really only need one person tosay yes, and it only needs to be
that one and it's it's the samein every type of business but
agriculture, especially, youknow, if you want to get in and
you're trying something new, youonly need that one opportunity,
(11:03):
and so, so you got thisopportunity. You jumped on it.
You did. You did the legwork andand so apparently you must have
done well enough in the salmonto finally get to Pollock. Am I
right about that? No, I foundloved salmon. I didn't want to
leave
(11:26):
salmon, so the money, the moneyjust wasn't enough to drag you
away from salmon. Is that whatI'm hearing? Well, you know, I
guess what happened? I reallylove the salmon, and I wanted to
stick with that. So I worked ata cannery for nine years, and
then started on salmon fishingboats. I've done both sides of
the salmon industry. And I'mobsessed with salmon. I'm
obsessed with that whole area ofBristol Bay, Alaska, and the
industry and the community andeverything.
(11:49):
But I it also sort of becameimportant to me to spend, to
dedicate some time each year tothe advocacy that I wanted to
do. And so the winter time,which is when Pollock season is
that's really the time that I'vecarved out to focus full time on
on the advocacy work that I do.
Okay, and so why don't why don'twe talk about that? Because I
think one of the things that Ireally love about your story is
(12:11):
how the advocacy and the actualwork of you know, water farming,
were so connected to you in andfrom the very beginning, like
you, you had that desire to benot just somebody who was
advocating, but also somebodywho was experiencing what it was
like to be a producer. And so Ithink this is something really
(12:34):
important for all aspects ofagriculture, because farmers, I
think often will look atadvocacy as something that
either somebody else does forthem, or something that they
don't have the time or theenergy, the expertise to do and
and I think that, you know,there are places, as you said,
(12:56):
for those professionaladvocates, but I think there's
also a place For the people whoare doing the work to advocate
for themselves. So why don't youtalk to me about the difference
you see in that and and how thatplays out for you? Yeah, I think
about this a lot,
and I agree that. I also feelthat with fishermen, it's the
same thing that a lot of peopledon't want to be bothered. They
(13:18):
want somebody else to do thatfor them. You know, some sort of
paid advocate, ideally paid bysomebody else who just reads
your mind and, you know, getsyou what you want. But so much
of time there's sort of thisbifurcation right between, like,
you know, scientists andfishermen, or advocates and
fishermen, or advocates andfarmers with different skill
sets, different sort ofoccupational communities. They
wind up having different values,and they wind up having this
(13:41):
sort of siloed thing. And reallythat what that, that is all sort
of to the detriment of, like,accountability. I think that if
you really, truly want to haveagency, you have to do some
things yourself, and you have tosort of merge those, those roles
of being the farmer or being thefisherman and the advocate, I
guess I use sort of a, I guessadvocacy may not be the best
(14:03):
word I use, sort of a communityorganizing model. Because
community organizing is, youknow, at its in its purest
sense, about being, you know,organizing your peers, so being
a member of the community thatyou're seeking to empower, as
opposed to separate from it.Yep,
oh, I'm loving that. So I wasreally struck by your comment
(14:25):
about there being differentvalues between the researchers,
the the actual fishermen, thecommunity members pay, the
advocates and and I find thatreally interesting, because
I believe that
that our work should start withour values, because if we're
(14:46):
meeting those values, we'regoing to have more joy and and
sense of success in the workthat we're doing. So I'd be
really interesting to have youtalk about the differences in
values between.
The fishermen and the paidadvocates, community members,
all of that kind of thing. Onewould think that a lot of those
(15:08):
values would align for this,these different groups. And so
can you talk about some of theways that you see the values
being the same, and some of theways that they're different, and
how that plays out in
in the work, one of the thingsthat really jumps out to me,
working, you know, with bothcommunities at different times,
(15:28):
both sort of the professionals,whether they're scientists,
advocates, NGOs, consultants,whatever, and fishermen who are
catching fish and thenvolunteering their time as
advocates, is, I guess, how wedefine sort of merit. And
there's sort of an implicithierarchy. Involved in each
community that doesn't alwaysalign,
I guess, with with professionalwith professionals in general,
(15:52):
there's a sort of like,careerism that kind of takes
hold. And of course, there islike, you know, in fishing, you
also want to achieve success,right by working your way up
from deckhand to captain, byhaving a nice boat that's well
maintained, by catching a lot offish. You know, everybody has
sort of their metrics ofsuccess,
(16:12):
but sometimes, you know, theprofessional metrics of success,
I think, get in the way of canget in the way of like
can clash with some, sometimeswith the
ability of, you know, of thefishing community, or whatever
other community we're talkingabout, to fully have, sort of,
(16:37):
to fully, sort of have controlof the situation, or have a
voice, or have agency. I'm notsure what I'm trying to get. No,
no, no, that's okay,
talking through it and thencoming up, like kind of batting
the ideas around as we figureit, figure it out. And this
careerism is something that's, Ilike that word because, you
(16:59):
know, with the land farmers, Ibring up this concept of what a
good farmer is like, what doesit mean to be how do you have to
work a certain number of hours?Do you have to get a certain
percentage of your income? Like,do you you know, what style of
farming do you do? And so I'mcurious as to how that works,
also in the fishing industry,whether they're those same
(17:22):
kinds, like certain types offishermen are more fishermen
than others.
I mean, you're talking about,yeah, yeah, yeah.
It doesn't talk there's totally,of course, there's hierarchies
in any occupational community,including fishing.
So where do you, where do yousee that playing out? Like,
(17:44):
where do you see some of themaybe, if there's stigma, or,
like,
people who are not considered tobe quite as
legitimate in the fishingcommunity, or, and how does that
play out in advocacy as well?Like, how does, how does that
disconnect between differentgroups of fishermen translate
(18:06):
into advocacy? Does thatquestion? Yeah, in fishing, I
think that, you know, to achievesort of status as a fisherman,
you you want to, you know, notbe a deckhand, like I am, right.
You want to work your way up to,you know, either a very
respected captain of a largervessel or an owner operator
by a certain point in yourcareer, right? You want to be in
the wheelhouse. And you don'twant to be impoverished, right?
(18:29):
You want to catch enough fish toto have a boat that looks well
maintained, to pay your, youknow, to pay everyone you're
supposed to pay, and then, youknow, support your family,
right? Like,
if you're a Highliner, evenbetter, right? If you're, if
you're one of the people who'sreally pioneered a new fishery.
Veterans use status. In my case,I haven't achieved any of those
(18:49):
things. So I have found, andthis is, I think, particularly,
this may have a little bit of agendered element to it, but I
feel I've achieved some statusin the fishing industry through
my advocacy, sort of by being acommunity builder and a bridge
builder, and earning that trustand that respect from the rest
of my community that way,because I sure haven't really
(19:13):
earned it in the traditional,the conventional way, like I'm
still a decade after 20 years inthe industry, and that's because
these other things matter moreto me. I define status
differently, I guess then. Sothat's a matter of choice. Like
i think that i i Love Again,that it's going back to your
values, that in order to
(19:33):
end up in the wheelhouse, thereare other things that you might
have to give up and and you'renot willing to do that, because
those other things matter a lotto you. Okay, so one of the
other things that is a bigpassion for me in the farming
community is working on thingslike mental health and that work
life balance and
(19:54):
good communication with people,and you being an advocate and
all.
So a woman in a predominantlymale job, which I noticed that
you call yourself a fisherman,which I love that, because, you
know, we have gone to all ofthese gendered terms, but it
seems like, it seems like thefishing industry has not gone
(20:18):
that way. So
but no
so far better or for or forworse. But I just I love that
there is a culture around that.And so I'm wondering how you
manage to stay
kind of grounded, and how youtake care of yourself in an
(20:39):
occupation that is veryphysical, it's got to be
emotionally stressful. Requiresa lot of communication, and
you're dealing you're dealingwith a gender who definitely has
its own set of views of women,excuse me, in certain
industries. So how do you takecare of yourself in that
context? What do you do foryourself? I could
(21:05):
probably do better at that. I'mtrying to, trying to spend more
time thinking about work lifebalance.
I am lucky, though. I mean, Isort of,
I achieve balance through thetwo aspects of my work, like I
find the advocacy to be attimes, very stress inducing and
very heartbreaking, especially
(21:26):
right now,
the fishing is sort of alleviatethat, because being a deckhand,
especially, I don't have anyresponsibility. I just get to do
what I'm told. I have. I havethe great privilege of working
for two captains, one in Alaskaand one on Rhode Island, who are
dear friends,
and that is my happy place,right on the boat. That is where
(21:47):
I go to relax. I work hard, Isweat, I get exhausted, I sleep
hard,
but that sort of recharges me tothen come back to my computer
and get online and read aboutwhat's going on in the world and
figure out how I can try to makeit better. That's the hard part.
Sometimes it's inspiring too,and sometimes it's devastating.
Yeah, no, well, I can empathizewith that because I, I had that
(22:13):
experience when I was incollege, actually, because I
would, I would be at school andworking so hard mentally, like
just I always had, like, 17 to19 credit hours, like I was
always just a full, full courseload, and worked really hard,
and then I would come home tothe farm, and it's like I would
(22:36):
shut my brain off. And you know,not to say that farming doesn't
require brain power. But as yousaid at that point, I was a
field hand, which is is thefarming equivalent of being a
deck hand. You do what you'retold. You're doing all the
physical stuff. And it was sotherapeutic for me to be able to
(22:58):
just go and work hard, beexhausted, sleep hard and not
and kind of give my brain abreak. So I definitely see how
those two aspects of your lifecan be mutually reinforcing. You
know that you can kind of restfrom one while doing the other.
(23:19):
What do you find to be some ofthe most challenging aspects of
the advocacy work right now.
Well, it's all people. Workpeople. It's always harder to
work with people than with fishor vegetables or farm animals.
It's just more complex. And evenpeople who you think are your
(23:40):
you know, closest, most trustedcollaborators can turn out not
to be that's happened to memultiple times, and that sucks.
And then you go through timeswhen you invest, you know, like
two and a half less the last twoand a half years I invested,
didn't have grant money, youknow, a little bit here and
there, not enough to pay me orto really pay most of the
expenses to work on this report,where we interviewed 150
(24:01):
fishermen across eight statesand 30 key informants, Port
managers, policymakers, etc, toproduce an 18 volume set of
reports on how to transition toa low carbon fishing fleet and
how to put fishermen themselves
at the helm of that energytransition. You know, January
20, Donald Trump and JD Vancesweep into office, we're not
(24:23):
doing an energy transitionanymore. We're not doing federal
funding that would definitely berequired to support fishing
vessels in making that energytransition. You know, fishermen
who I knew, who had receivedsmall grants to reduce their
carbon footprint make theirvessels more energy efficient.
You know, got those grantsclawed back.
We're pulling out of the ParisAgreement. We're reversing the
(24:43):
EPA engagement finding
we repealed the IRA inflationReduction Act. Like, um, yeah. I
mean, this has been devastating.This has just been totally,
totally heartbreaking. Andthat's just, I'm just talking
about the climate, you know,related piece of it, right?
Sure. Yeah.
I mean, I sank that everything Ihad the last four years into
(25:05):
trying to ensure that the energytransition didn't happen in a
way in which the fishingcommunity got left out or got
rolled over,
but instead could be part of theenergy transition, part of
creating a better, cleaner,greener world. And now
it just feels like it was suchan important, like, really such
(25:26):
an important thing, because,
because we're we are trying tolook at the whole system and to
say, like we, we are a system,like people and the environment
have to work together, becausewe depend upon each other, and
different industries depend oneach other, and so I think what
(25:50):
what you're pointing to,
is really critical that you youdid the work to get people's
voices heard, And so thatpolicies weren't made that would
be detrimental to the peoplestill doing their work. Because,
let's face it, I mean, how manyfishing vessels are you Kristen?
Carbon Neutral even? Like, it'skind of like big rigs, you know.
(26:15):
Like, how long did it take to beable to get emissions and all of
that kind of stuff down likethat's a long process, and it's
an expensive process, especiallyfor the producers and the owner
operators, all of those peoplewho are actually trying to make
a living. And so I think that'salways been one of the tensions
(26:36):
with the climate issue, is thatwe want to take care of the
environment, and we want to makesure that people can can
continue to make a living whilewe're making these changes. And
so, you know, four years like, Ithink it's important for people
to realize that four years ofresearch goes into how to do
this well, and then when all ofthat funding suddenly gets cut,
(27:00):
there's
like, then what do you do? Like,it can't go forward.
Does it go backwards? Like, doit, you know? Yeah, leave
people. So I'm curious. Like,Have you, have you talked to any
of the actual fishermen sincethe funding got got cut, like
(27:23):
did, have you gone back to themto see how that
resonates with them or doesn'tresonate with them, you know,
were they in favor of doing thetransition, you know, What?
What? What was that like foryou, working with them? Was it
an uphill battle to get them tosay, Oh, this might be a good
idea. Or were they saying, no,we want this. It's just really
(27:44):
expensive. How do we make ithappen?
I don't I mean for one thing,that the fishing industry has a
relatively low carbon footprintas food in terms of compared to
other protein sources.
Fish, wild harvest fish, areactually among the very lowest
on a per pound basis.
(28:05):
So we don't feel like we'remajor contributors in the
scheme, in the grand scheme ofthings, to the problem of
climate change.
That said, We're directlyimpacted by climate change
ourselves. So it's in ourinterest to see it addressed,
and if it's going to beaddressed. You know, if
petroleum is going to stay inthe ground, which is where we
need to eventually go to a placewhere it stays in the ground,
(28:27):
then what are we going to runour vessels on? Like we have
very limited options.
You know, diesel has been therefor us for 100 years, and we
trust it. There is no sort ofequivalent substitute out there,
yet, certainly not one thatcosts the same or that feels
reliable. You know, as reliable.It's a much harder equation than
(28:49):
an on road vehicle a pass an onroad passenger vehicle. So,
and at the same time we weresort of, you know, there was
some excitement among amongespecially the younger members
of the fleet that we interviewedin just innovating and
pioneering new things, because alot of the a lot of the fishing
fleet is old. We have olderboats, we have older people, we
(29:11):
have older port infrastructure.And there's an interest in sort
of modernizing the fleet,rejuvenating, rejuvenating the,
you know, the people involved abit, you know, generational
continuity. So
there's a little bit of appealthere too, with just trying to
sort of be at the forefront ofof innovation. But none of it's
remotely possible withoutwithout federal subsidies. It's
(29:32):
just not. It's also becomes lesscompelling without sort of an
economy wide decarbonizationplan, because we certainly
don't. The point of thisresearch was that we don't want
to be the last ones todecarbonize, but we also don't
want to be the first. We want tobe in the middle of the pack,
and we need help to do it. Andif the economy as a whole is not
(29:53):
moving that way for a while,we're not going to be the first
movers. It's just not in ourinterests. I.
Oh, that's, that's a reallyinteresting, you know, you don't
want to be the last, but youdon't want to be the first. And
so that puts you in in a reallyinteresting position and kind of
(30:14):
a holding pattern, yes, yeah,yeah. So this is the danger of
being sort of a grassrootsadvocate, writer, activist, is
all the time you
sink into something as a passionproject. It all comes from the
heart. It's on top of whatyou're trying to do to make a
living. And when it doesn't panout, I think it'd be crushing
for a professional as well,emotionally crushing, but it
(30:35):
wouldn't be financiallycrushing. So like, that's sort
of a lesson learned, I guess, ofwhy it is so hard. You know, the
more time I spend trying to be afisherman activist in this
world, you know, a grassrootsenvironmental activist, the role
I have wanted for myself since Iwas nine years old, the more I
realized why there aren't morepeople out there doing it,
(30:56):
unfortunately,
because it's a hard job. It's asuper hard job. And so, you
know, I think this is a reallycommon issue across the board,
where, you know, a lot of thefarmers that I talked to, the
ones who are advocates,
(31:18):
they do have to make it almost apart of their their business
plan, like it's, it's part ofhow they structure their work,
it's how they structure theirfarm business. And so, you know,
I hear that that's part of whatyou do. You know, with making
the balance that the winter timeis, is your predominantly
(31:40):
advocacy time,
and how does that work with howthe rest of the government
functions and and all that kindof thing. Do you Do you feel
like you can take a few monthsoff from advocacy and still and
still have the impact that youwant to or do you need to have a
group around you, where you'recontinuing the work. Well, the
(32:04):
group is continuing the work,but you you can do other things.
How do you experience thatthat's also challenged just the
scheduling?
And yeah, it's exactly the samefor farmers, like for fishermen,
even more so perhaps because ourschedules are a little less
predictable because of weather.You know, we look at the weather
the night before and decidewhether to go. And sometimes we
(32:26):
have a longer day than we'veexpected because of weather, or,
you know, unexpected things,like seals. Seals eating all our
fish, so we have to haul thegear twice in one day so the
seals don't get to it first.Like, I think there's even an
increased element ofunpredictability compared to
farming, but what is the samefor both of us is we have really
intense work work cycles duringthe growing months or the
(32:48):
fishing months,
and it's so hard for other toexplain that to other people,
even my parents. But you know,when they want me to do
something with them, it's like,well, can you be around certain
date? I'm like, I don't know. Icould tell you the day before
and planning meetings, answeringemails, you know, with with
professional collaborators, isalso, I mean, I feel like half
(33:09):
the time I appear like I'mdropping the ball, or I'm, you
know, ghosting people
because I don't show up. I have,at times, actually run zoom
meetings on my earbuds whilepicking fish with my hands. It's
not a good way to run a meeting,
but once while they find herselfin that situation, you got to do
what you got to do. I will. Iwill tell you I was on a phone
(33:34):
call with a flower grower nottoo long ago, and she was
cutting sunflowers whilebalancing the phone and like,
and I kept saying, Are you surethis is a good time? And she was
like, this is actually very,very therapeutic for me to talk
to you while I'm doing this. AndI've got 400 stems, and they're
(33:57):
gonna go much faster talking toyou. Yeah, okay, if it's working
for you, I'm okay with that, but
yeah, so again, really, reallychallenging, and something that
that not everybody is willing toput the the effort into doing.
(34:18):
And so talk to me about how thatcommunication works, because I
can imagine that would be reallychallenging when you
when you know that you're notghosting somebody, you know that
you're actually just doing yourjob, and that your job really is
not schedule driven.
(34:39):
It doesn't, it doesn't follow,it doesn't follow your Google
Calendar.
So how have you learned tocommunicate about that with
people who might not understandthat very well? Because one
would think that in phishingadvocacy, people would
understand that a little bit,but it sounds like maybe not so
much. I mean.
(35:00):
Just takes a while for for it tosink in, because it's so
different from the work a dayworld that most professionals
find themselves in. So
I just have to kind of keepharping on it and, like, make it
a little bit of a thing, like, Idon't know, like an interest
point, a curiosity or somethingto
remind people, oh, you know,it's, you know, there's, you
(35:22):
know, it's looking good fortomorrow, or, you know, we've
got to go tomorrow because it'sgale warning on Friday, or
whatever, like, I don't know,just let people in a little bit
to the experience.
Yes, I love that, because Ithink it is true for all types
of farming, that
sometimes, because we're in it,we
(35:45):
think that everybody should justget it, they should understand
it, which, you know, nobodyreally understands anybody
else's life unless we let themin. I love how you use that. So
there is a sense in which wemight feel like explaining
sounds like defending ourselvesor justifying ourselves, which I
(36:10):
suspect fishermen are the same,but we don't like to do that
like farmers. Don't like to sitthere and have to explain to you
why we're doing what we're doinglike you should just kind of
figure
it. And yet, there's a realbeauty when we're able to to
bring that to the table and tosay, No, I really want to do
(36:30):
this work, and I want to make iteasy for you, and I'm dealing
with constraints that I have nocontrol over, so unfortunately,
I have to wait to see what theweather looks like. I can give
you a tentative, but it mightchange. And I know we had, we
had a call that, that we had todo that, because you were like,
(36:52):
Oh, I have to go out on theboat. And I'm like, Okay, you
gotta go out on the boat. Like,for me, totally makes sense. I
have a friend who's who's alobsterman, so I'm like, yeah,
when the lobster there, you gotto go get the lobster.
You kind of just can't, youcan't just sit around. So
so I love that idea of tellingpeople, letting them in,
(37:14):
explaining and making it athing, as you said, like just
making it part of the everydayconversation, as opposed to sure
we'll schedule this meeting, andthen right before the meeting,
or the day before the meeting,having to cancel it or
reschedule it, you know if, asyou're scheduling it, you can
put some of those caveats inplace. I think, I think that's
(37:38):
very helpful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.And do you find that the more
you let people in, the moreflexible they are with you, or
the more tolerant they are?Yeah, but it's still hard. I
mean, it's just not like,practically speaking, if you're
trying to, you know, especiallyif you're in a leadership role,
(37:58):
like in a group,
if you're trying to lead a groupof
it's really across time zones.It's really hard to reschedule
because you had to go fishing.So it's not just a matter of
people understanding sometimesit's just logistically hard.
There's just a certainincompatibility there between
the lifestyle,
(38:20):
right? So, so talk to me aboutsome of the other ways you
navigate that. Because, youknow, I see a lot of issues come
up. You know, even in RhodeIsland, things come up during
the growing season. And, youknow, Farm Bureau, for example,
will be like, hey, we need toget all the farmers up to the
State House. And the farmers arelike, Are you kidding me? It's
(38:43):
the middle of August, and I'mlike, harvesting,
you know, 19 hours a day, like,Are you kidding me? And, and,
how does that work? So, so howdo you manage that when you're
the one leading these meetingsand and the fishing is not
cooperating.
(39:06):
Yeah, I mean,
just figure out. I mean, I have,like I said, I have run zoom
meetings while fishing, whileI've got my gloves on.
Sometimes, you know, you have tofind a backup. You have to make
sure somebody else can step upif you're not there.
So I'm hearing building a team,yeah, is a really important
(39:28):
aspect of this. So yeah, whenyou're not able to do some of
those things, somebody else canstep in. Do you feel like you've
been able to create a good teamwho can support you in that way?
Or is that a Yeah, I mean,there's, there's a lot of
different collaborativeactivities that I've been
engaged in, so it's not alwaysthe same team. But
(39:49):
yeah, yeah.
I mean, definitely, I've hadtimes where I suddenly couldn't
show up, and my collaboratorjust stepped up and ran with it,
and
no issues. Yeah.
Yeah, that's that's soimportant. So if there were
something that you would like,what are some of the big key
issues that you see confrontingfishermen right now, and
(40:14):
especially women fishermen likemaybe, let's talk a little bit
about that, that gender, genderthing. What is it like being a
woman in this industry,
it's pretty much a non issue.
When I got into it, it felt Iwas more conscious of it 20
years ago, partly because I was
(40:36):
just new to the industry. AndI'm not only a woman, I'm also
just like, you know, I stick outlike a story at that time, at
that time, at least, I felt likeI stuck out like sore thumb in
the industry, just because Iwasn't from it. But
now it doesn't feel now I'm noteven aware of it. And
there are more. There seem to bemore women than there used to be
(40:57):
in Rhode Island, in Alaska,where I fish in the summer,
there are tons of women. It'sjust completely normal. It's a
total non issue. I don't, Iwouldn't say it's like 5050,
maybe 30% are women this justoff the top of my head. But it's
very, very normal, and not justfor decades. Around here, there
are not a lot of female owneroperators or captains in Alaska.
(41:18):
It's totally normal for a womanto own and run the boat, or for
there to be an all woman boat,you know, where the captain and
the crew are all females, yeah.So I think that sort of partly
because of the Alaska experiencetoo.
The gender issue has justtotally evaporated for me as an
issue since I started fishing.
Yeah, and I think that's abeautiful thing to hear, do you,
(41:41):
do you feel like,
like the culture has shiftedover the past 20 years? Or do
you think it's more your comfortlevel? Because, as you say,
you're you were from theoutside, and so all of us know
that anytime you walk into anindustry that is also a
lifestyle and you're like, notfrom that lifestyle.
(42:04):
We all know that that can bequite the challenge. So do you?
Do you think it's more one ofthe other, like, more your
familiarity, or more the cultureshifting, or a little bit of
both? It's so hard to say. Youknow when something is internal,
when it's in your head, versusexternal, you know, societal,
(42:24):
it's really hard to tell.Sometimes,
there have been
efforts like by women fishermen,especially when social media was
kind of, you know, new andexciting, and before it became
just like a toxic waste dump.
Like there were some efforts ledby women, a fisherwoman in Maine
and a fisherwoman in from whoworked in Alaska, from
(42:45):
Washington
to sort of cultivate camaraderieand networking among women
fishermen on both coasts.
And in addition to camaraderie,it also called it also led to
some of the gear, the
you know, the wearable gearmanufacturers like grundens
coming out with women's lines ofclothing that actually were fit
(43:07):
for the contour of woman's body,
and extra tough now has women'sboots designed by the salmon
sisters with not just designedfor the fit of a woman's foot,
but also embellished withgorgeous Pictures, because women
like that, I guess. I mean,they're beautiful. I'm not
making I'm not mocking them. Butyeah, so there has been, I would
(43:28):
say those are sort of points ofevidence that there has been
sort of a rising consciousnessof women in the fishing
industry. Yeah, yeah. And again,one of those things that that
you don't think about, but it'sthe same in agriculture as well,
like lighter chainsaws, smaller,lighter chainsaws so that women
who aren't six feet tall canactually handle them and not be
(43:51):
hurting themselves, or, youknow, cutting a leg off or
something because it slips outof their hands. Or tractors, you
know, designing the tractors sothat they adjust better, like
you can actually move the seatsand instead of, like, kind of
scooch into the end of the seat,hoping that your feet can hit
(44:13):
the clutch at the same time. Andso, yeah, I think that's really
interesting. And I'm thinkingabout rain gear because,
because, growing up, you know,we had just rain gear, and it
was all men size rain gear, andit was over sized and it smelled
because it's got, like, I don'tknow, it's just not, not nice.
(44:35):
I'm not a big fan of rain gear,but you have to use it,
but to have to have it designedfor a woman is actually
something that would be reallyhelpful, because then it's not
so big and bulky. It's notYou're not swimming in it and
having all this extra egg. Wouldimagine. It'd be safer, because
you don't have all that extrastuff that you know, for a man,
(44:58):
they need it, but for a woman,it.
Just something that's going toget caught in the equipment. So
exactly. So I yeah, oh, totallyfascinating. So I love, I love
hearing about that.
And do you engage in these, inthese more women, women centered
groups, or do you feel like it'skind of not, not really
(45:20):
necessary for you, to someextent, they sort of faded faded
out. They were hot for a while,and then they kind of faded out.
I'm not sure why. Maybe they'vesort of accomplished their
mission, but it was nice becauseit was just a generally more
upbeat place than a lot of themore general fishermen's groups
on social media, which can bepretty
embittered a lot of the times.And the women's groups were just
(45:43):
all really mutually supportiveand positive. It was nice.
Well, well, you are totallywelcome to be in the pen light
for farmers Facebook group,which, yes, it is, it is social
media, I will agree. And I'vecome into social media kicking
and screaming, but, but again,it's a tool. We can use the tool
(46:06):
for good, or we can use it forevil. And I am definitely a
person who wants to use it forgood. So, so you can come and
hang out with the cheerful womenfarmers, and we can all talk
about fun farming stuff and andbringing in the whole notion of,
like, I think this advocacy. SoI'm going to ask you the same
question that I ask everybody atthe end of my episode, if there
(46:29):
were one thing that you felt allfarmers or fishermen in this in
this case, should know. Whatwould that be? One thing I
thought all farmers or fishermenshould know, yeah, yeah. Like,
if there were one message youcould give to your peeps, what
would that be?
I guess, just to work together,you know, to try to find
(46:50):
solutions.
I mean, a lot of the times we asa community, and I don't know
that this is unique to us, butwe let ourselves get down and
sort of let ourselves getcaptured by hopelessness
and frustration and grievance,and
(47:10):
I don't know, not only is thatnot fun, you know, not helpful
to one's mental health,
but it doesn't solve any youknow, It doesn't, it doesn't
solve problems or lead to abetter world. And I don't think
it's impossible to strive to abetter world. I think it's
within our reach. But you know,we have to work together and
believe in ourselves and believein each other.
(47:35):
Don't put that look at the end,because I have 110%
in that accord with you. So no,I love that. And the truth is
that when we focus on the thingsthat can embitter us, we lose
the ability to see potential,and we lose the ability to solve
(47:56):
problems creatively. And so wenot only are making ourselves
feel bad, but we're actuallykeeping ourselves stuck in a
place that we don't really wantto be. And so when we can, as
you said, work together, lifteach other up, you know, support
one another and encourage oneanother to find hope.
(48:17):
Absolutely, we can change theworld, and we do it, one
fisherman, one farmer, oneconsumer, one
Congress person, one at a time,like, that's how we do it. And,
oh, I love it. So thank you somuch, Sarah for joining us on
Food, Flowers and Fun. And thankyou all out there for for coming
(48:43):
back for another episode, and wehope to have you on again soon.
Thank you. It was great to behere. Excellent. Bye
farmers, calling our show is alldone, goodbye, farewell. So long
Adieu, see you next week, sametime, same place for Food,
(49:05):
Flowers and Fun. Go in peace.
Visit us atwww.penlightfarmers.com
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