Fishery Leaders Participate in Cabinet-Level Roundtable Ahead of Historic Announcement
Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the launch of the USDA Office of Seafood, a priority objective that the Southern Shrimp Alliance and dozens of organizations representing U.S. fisheries have collaborated to pursue for multiple years.
The Chair of the North Carolina Fisheries Association and SSA Board member Brent Fulcher joined Kyle and Tricia Kimball of the Port Arthur Area Shrimpers Association at a roundtable meeting this afternoon in Washington D.C. with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Representative Nick Begich (R-AK), Representative Kat Cammack (R-FL), and approximately ten fisheries leaders from across the country ahead of the announcement.
“This is a landmark day for U.S. shrimpers. Like our nation’s farmers, American commercial fishermen are food producers,” said Blake Price, director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. “Nevertheless, while the USDA offers loans, grants, and marketing programs to food producers, this support is generally not available to fishermen. An Office of Seafood within the USDA is an essential first step in bringing shrimpers into the fold.”
Today’s announcement is the culmination of years of combined fishery advocacy for dedicated USDA coordination for the seafood sector — a position in the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture whose sole responsibility would be to integrate seafood into USDA programs and align seafood policy across agencies.
SSA thanks the Senators from our shrimping states who championed this effort: Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kennedy (R-LA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Jon Ossoff (D-GA).
What the USDA Office of Seafood Will Do
The new Office is responsible for providing leadership, expertise, and advice to the Secretary of Agriculture on matters affecting the seafood industry. It will coordinate across USDA agencies to ensure fishermen are integrated into USDA programs, and it will work alongside the Department of Commerce and other federal partners to revitalize the American seafood industry.
It will also play a central role in implementing President Trump’s Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, including the development of an American First Seafood Strategy to promote the production, marketing, sale, and export of U.S. fishery and aquaculture products and strengthen domestic processing capacity.
Concretely, this means the Office of Seafood will be working to connect fishermen to programs that were previously difficult or impossible to access, including:
- Rural Development grants and loans — Programs like the Value Added Producer Grant and Rural Business-Cooperative Services can support infrastructure, processing upgrades, and business development in our coastal fishing communities.
- Export and marketing programs — USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service Market Access and Foreign Market Development programs are now open to seafood, creating new tools to promote domestic shrimp in both domestic and export markets.
- The USDA Process Verified Program — This verification program offers fishing and seafood industry participants a powerful way to market their products to customers using clearly defined, transparent process points — a potential tool for reliably distinguishing premium American wild-caught shrimp from foreign imports.
- Disaster assistance — Risk management and disaster assistance programs are especially important, and SSA will work to expand crop insurance coverage to include shrimp, which is currently not among the covered species.
- USDA procurement — The Commodity Procurement Program purchases $2–5 billion in domestic food annually for schools, food banks, and humanitarian aid. Seafood is eligible, and SSA wants more domestic shrimp on those contracts.
- School meals — SSA has long advocated for more domestic shrimp in USDA nutrition programs, and the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program has already demonstrated that seafood can successfully be incorporated into school cafeterias. The Office of Seafood will help push that further.
- Farm Service Agency loans — Operating loans, ownership loans, storage facility loans, and microloans are now available to domestic aquaculture operations. SSA, in collaboration with other fisheries, will be working with the Office of Seafood to advocate for expanded access for wild-capture operations as well.
What Comes Next
SSA will be working directly with the USDA Office of Seafood to help the U.S. shrimp industry access these resources and to advocate for program expansions where gaps remain. Look for more information on these individual programs and how they might apply to your operation. The Office of Seafood can be contacted directly at seafood@usda.gov.