Ben Martens is the executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

Maine’s working waterfront is more than just a pretty picture for a postcard.

When you walk down a pier in Portland, Cundy’s Harbor or Stonington, each fishing vessel you see represents producers who have been isolated from our national food system. Instead of being recognized as a pillar of that system, fishing businesses are often seen as a relic to be quaintly preserved or an industry to be heavily regulated.

The reality is that fishing is food production, and what fishermen produce is some of the best food you can eat. Yet, while our neighbors in the heartland have long benefited from the robust support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, our fishermen have been left to navigate a different, often more precarious, path.

Now is the time to bridge that gap and fully integrate seafood into our national food framework.

Thanks to two significant federal actions resulting from years of advocacy work, this shift is finally within reach. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins recently announced the creation of a first-of-its-kind Office of Seafood, housed under the USDA.

This exciting announcement dovetails with the introduction of the American Seafood Competitiveness Act of 2026, drafted by the Fishing Communities Coalition (FCC), a
group of community-based fishing organizations from around the nation, including the
Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association (MCFA).

The FCC worked closely with the offices of Maine Sen. Angus King and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska on this bill to address real-world hurdles facing our fishing families, who were joined by co-sponsors Sens. Collins of Maine, Merkley of Oregon and Sullivan of Alaska.

These bipartisan efforts recognize a truth Mainers have championed for years: seafood deserves a much larger place on the American plate, and we need to invest in the people who produce it.

At MCFA, we’ve already seen what happens when seafood is treated as a critical element of the food system. Through our Fishermen Feeding Mainers program, we purchase fresh, local landings for a fair price, pay local processors to cut the fish and donate the fillets to food pantries and schools across the state, supporting both small fishing businesses and Mainers facing food insecurity.

We’ve also seen the impact of our Seafood in Schools initiative, which gets healthy products like fish cakes, soups and “fish tots” onto the plates of Maine students. When we see a kid in a Maine cafeteria reaching for a fish tot made from local flounder, we aren’t just providing a healthy meal— we’re creating a new market for fishermen and a more resilient food system for all of us.

Though these programs show us a hopeful future for fishermen as members of a robust food system, the need for broader, systemic changes remain. Rising costs of bait, fuel, labor and insurance, decreased waterfront access due to coastal gentrification and increased permit prices have made it increasingly hard to make a living as a fisherman.

That is why FCC advocated on a national level for new tools to address these complicated problems.

The American Seafood Competitiveness Act, in tandem with the Office of Seafood, will open up new opportunities for fishermen by amending the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act (“the Farm Bill”) to include commercial fishing and fish processing as “eligible activities.” This will finally allow seafood producers access to the same USDA loans and credit programs that have supported American farmers, and the aquaculture industry, for decades.

When we build a stronger supply chain here at home, we aren’t just helping fishermen, we’re making sure Maine and the rest of the country can feed itself. We are grateful to Sens. King and Collins for their leadership in introducing this legislation, and to Secretary Lutnick, Secretary Burgum and Sen. Collins for their work in the creation of the Office of Seafood.

Now, I urge Congress to move this work forward. It’s time we stopped treating our fishermen like a heritage act and started treating them like the essential food producers they’ve always been.