Abstract
Community supported fishery (CSF) programs are emerging as appealing alternatives to large-scale industrial fisheries for some seafood consumers and commercial fishers. While CSFs provide many social, economic, and environmental benefits to their local communities, the associated financial costs can make it difficult for such programs to remain solvent. The goal of this research was to identify specific features that influence the financial performance of CSF programs. Using data collected online and from surveys of past and current North American CSFs, this research identified a combination of three key features associated with positive profit margins: engaging in social media, offering a retail option, and having a fisher as a founding member. The potential reasons behind the influence of these features on financial performance is explored, and recommendations for how they can be incorporated into CSF programs are presented. It is hoped that through integrating these features, prospective and currently operating CSFs could potentially improve their long-term financial performance, enabling them to focus on their non-financial goals and increase their overall economic viability.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 375-380 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Marine Policy |
Volume | 81 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Jul 1 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are extremely grateful to the 24 CSFs that responded to our survey and provided us with the data for this study. We thank J. Stoll for his insight during the development of this work. During this research, authors were funded by Simon Fraser University (to S. Godwin, F. Francis, B. Howard, L. Malpica-Cruz), and the University of British Columbia (to A. Witter).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- Aquatic Science
- General Environmental Science
- Economics and Econometrics
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
- Law