Enjoying The Benefits of Local Fish

For the last 20 years or so, the idea of community supported agriculture has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from farmers. The farmer offers for sale to the public "shares" of his bounty in advance of the harvest, then delivers to the consumer a certain amount of pre-paid product on a weekly or monthly basis as the fields mature.

It's a concept that works well for both farmer and consumer: the farmer has income prior to the intensive growing season to accomplish his or her goals, the consumer is guaranteed fresh produce for a certain number of weeks or months.

Now, in Half Moon Bay, a new program has been put together that substitutes fish for fennel, salmon for salad, rock cod for rutabaga.

The new Community Supported Fishery of Half Moon Bay, a group of Pillar Point fishermen, offers shares of fish caught right off our own coastline. 

A $26 share gets a subscriber one pound of a more expensive fish, like salmon, to two pounds of a less expensive one such as petrale sole on a weekly basis.

Currently, the program is only open to workers at Google, who pick up their shares at a warehouse each Friday on their Mountain View campus. But a CSF may soon be opening for residents of the coast. There is hope for an August opening, and a pickup location has already been secured.

Read the full story of the Half Moon Bay CSF, and of the collaboration that made the idea a reality, in Kristine Wong's article now posted on today's Half Moon Bay Patch.