Don’t let anyone else lead you blindly to the trough. Instead do your homework, shop around, and make better choices. For example, the vast majority of cod in local groceries comes from Alaska- this is a MUCH better choice than what the Gloucester draggers pound off the ocean’s floor . There are other options as well- stripped bass, bluefish, talapia, trout, herring, black sea bass, mussels, oysters, and so on. Much of this is local, some of it farmed inland, at infinitely more sustainable.

Come on people- don’t take a handout of some slimy basket of scrod and feel good about it because it comes to you by means of some co-op. If you’ve ever seen these draggers out pounding on our environment, you wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.

And by the way- our local cod is infested with worms. It is pretty gross.

I agree that we should petition the CSF to act more sustainably. Perhaps we could even contact Mr. Grescoe who might be interested in joining this dialogue and supporting our cause. I’d love to see this become a truly sustainable program. If not, I won’t be renewing my membership.

I subscribed to the CSF with the hope that we would be receiving more sustainable fish - the non-stop delivery of cod has been, in my mind, a tremendous disappointment.

I joined for the same reasons you did. But at this point I’m nothing short of frustrated and fed up.

With that endorsement, and with our own thinking brains, we decided that supporting a nascent CSF was an important step to reconnecting eaters with their fish, developing accountability with fisherman and practices, etc.

I completely agree with Kristi - this CSF is not perfect. And we could not have known ahead of time that we’d be seeing undersized, overfished cod so much. Grescoe certainly advocates eating lower on the food chain, and we hoped that this CSF would subscribe to that philosophy.

Long story short, we agree and are considering, as the result of this dialogue, petitioning the Gloucester CSF to fish less stressed species and buy from ships using more sustainable methods. But we can only do this because we are members. It’s not perfect, but it’s something.

I want to make it clear that I have my own serious concerns about our oceans. To be blunt, they’re fucked beyond any point of return. The same is, more or less, true about our agriculture. This is also to say, I’m not sure the CSF is perfect. Or that any CSA is, particularly the meat CSAs. (They’re still producing more than we need,
per person.)

We are deeply entrenched in a system that actively hurts the environment and us. Maybe so entrenched that we can never get out of it.

However, I’m standing by my local is sustainable, pretty much always, statement. It’s *more* sustainable, that’s for sure. And in the context of the last 50 years of corporate industrial food, it’s our only hope. If a food system is small and managed within proximity to where we live and if consumers are seen as necessary partners to its success , we can ask questions, make demands and see results. But we need to dramatically alter the scale before we can seriously alter the practices.