8/29 Maryland Aquaculture Association reorganizing

The Maryland Aquaculture Association is a non-profit group dedicated to furthering Maryland aquaculture, by way of helping those who comprise the field. The MAA provides information, resources, and a unified voice of Maryland Aquaculture to legislators.
The association is being reorganized. In 1998 the MAA sent out a questionnaire to its members in an effort to gauge their attitudes and desires regarding the direction the MAA was taking. The next step was performance. MAA members started heading out to conferences and meetings. A new newsletter started going out.
New officers were elected. They are: president, Dr. Steven Hughes, assistant unit leader, Maryland Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research, University of Maryland Eastern Shore at Princess Anne; vice president, Chip Crum of Koi Unlimited, Frederick; secretary-treasurer, Dr. David Scarfe of Chesapeake Shellfish Aquaculture Inc., Ocean City, Md. Former president Tom Hopkins has resigned due to other personal commitments. Carol Kinsley, editor of the Mid-Atlantic Aquafarmer, agreed to serve as news and information coordinator. Items of interest to be shared may be sent to her at P.O. Box 2026, Easton, Md. 21601, or by fax at (410) 822-5068.
Dues have been reduced to $15 for full membership; $5 for student members; and $100 for sustaining members. A membership campaign is under way, with offers of reduced rate for popular aquaculture publications for members.
Crum recapped recent association activities. In January, the MAA was invited to attend the Maryland Watermen’s Association Conference in Ocean City.
Crum said, “It was quite an honor to be invited by the watermen. Aquaculture types have always feared that watermen might mistake our position of farming the water as hostile to harvesting wild crops. That’s not the case at all. Aquaculture is the farming of the water, promoting growth of needed species as one alternative to harvesting species from the wild. Now the watermen want to dialogue and talk to groups like ours to see how we can help each other — a prospect of great opportunity for all.”
When the Maryland Aquaculture Advisory Committee asked for help writing and researching a new aquaculture protocol for the state, MAA members helped.
The tilapia crash of 1998 left plenty to do on the agenda for 1999. Apparently a batch of particularly badly flavored tilipia landed in New York City. Complaints ran high. Individual members worked with researchers as they gathered information on the problem and assisted with financing requests to banks as well as generating political knowledge of the problems and the greater potential of this growing market.
The single biggest concern by MAA members was the need for a cohesive voice with which to talk to government.
Crum said Maryland Department of Agriculture has increased its interest in aquaculture and has found ways to help find answers to questions, ways to try to cut through red tape and “a truce on the seeming war of regulation from some other branches of government that were doing their jobs in a way that was really detrimental to our efforts.
“Right now we have a chance to make real and lasting progress, Crum said. “Maryland can start to take her place as a national leader in aquaculture. And we can have a voice in the way things will go. But, that voice won’t be heard if we shout all over each other, or if we just plain don’t speak up. We have the right people asking questions now, we have only ourselves to blame if we don’t answer.
“The MAA can be a powerful, united voice: to get the legislators and bureaucrats the answers to what we need to take Maryland forward (and help ourselves in the process). We will definitley have a stronger voice if we speak together. We can get legislation that lets us do our jobs. We can get programs that help us do our jobs. We can grow more mainstream and get investors and loans that allow us to do our jobs. And we can get regulation that makes sense.
“Politicians listen to large groups of voices. One of our founding fathers said, ‘If we do not hang together now, we shall surely hang later.’ For aquaculturists, the MAA is the logical device to spearhead what’s going to happen next.”