Ed Rhodes is the executive director of the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) Crab Council. The NFI is a non-profit organization dedicated to education about seafood safety, sustainability and nutrition. The NFI Crab Council was founded in 2009 and funds blue swimming crab sustainability projects through contributions from participating companies and grants from the World Bank and the Walton Family Foundation.
SeafoodSource: Talk a little bit about the NFI Crab Council and its mission.
Rhodes: The Crab Council began as an industry initiative at a Boston Seafood Show side meeting in 2008. Most of the important crab importing companies were represented and agreed that something needed to be done to improve the source crab fisheries in Asia. We left the room that day with signed pledges to form a consortium to address the sustainability issues of blue swimming crab fisheries. Since then we have grown to 29 member companies that, combined, import about 85 percent of the blue swimming crab sent to the U.S. market. Crab Council member companies pay a quarterly assessment, currently 2 cents per pound, for crab imported into the United States and this is the primary funding source for the fisheries improvement projects (FIPs) that we fund in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. Our overall goal is to ensure that crab populations, the ecosystems they depend on and the communities that fish them remain viable and productive.
SeafoodSource: Since becoming NFI's Crab Council executive director in 2013, how have you shaped the role of executive director?
Rhodes: I’m the first executive director, so, for better or worse, whatever the shape, it is mine. I come from a fisheries science background and my primary role is to help guide the technical aspects of the blue swimming crab FIPs in our six focus countries and to help our member companies understand the FIP process. I am also involved in identifying and securing additional funding for our projects from outside sources.
SeafoodSource: What characteristic/traits are needed to be successful in your job?
Rhodes: Patience is important in dealing with what are primarily artisanal fisheries in countries where fisheries management is not always particularly well advanced. Our FIPs are making progress, but we’d always like to see more, faster, so while persistence is important, patience is a necessity. Also the ability to look at the challenge of sustainability from a perspective that keeps in mind more than just the health of the species. If we are successful in bringing sustainability to the Asian crab fisheries we will be securing the future of more than 400,000 fishermen and 200,000 processing plant workers as well as ensuring a steadier source of crab meat for our member companies.
SeafoodSource: What do you see as the top issue or issues the Crab Council is facing and what are some of the strategies being deployed to address these issues?
Rhodes: We believe that the most important piece, for effective management of crab fisheries in Asia, will be adherence to a minimum catch size. The council, along with our in-country processing associations has been able to get a minimum catch size established in most of our source countries, including in Indonesia, which is our largest supplier. That’s a great first step, but on-going compliance on the ground is critical. We’ve been working hard on that, both through encouragement of better enforcement and through establishment of a monitoring system that will serve to track product in the supply chain and ensure compliance to rules on minimum catch size.
SeafoodSource: What do you see as the biggest challenges with your job specifically and/or the Crab Council?
Rhodes: I currently see two major challenges. The first is to keep our six FIPs on track.This is a challenge given the differences we see in the various countries, especially in the way fisheries governance works. One solution will not fit all. Fortunately, we have a full-time representative in Asia who does a lot of the boots-on-the-ground coordination.
Second, we need to keep working with our customers and with the NGOs that advise them on seafood purchases to make sure they understand the challenges associated with improving the Asian crab fisheries. It's important for the customers of the companies that support the NFI Crab Council to understand that crab sustainability is a long-term process. One seal or endorsement isn’t going to magically address the complications these fisheries have faced. The challenges weren’t created in a day and they won’t be alleviated in a day. Our company supporters are in this for the long haul.
In addition, we have had the pleasure of working with the folks at the Walton Family Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and even the World Bank and we’ve found some very bright people who see the investment the industry has been willing to make, not just in money but in time and commitment, and have said that’s a long-term project worth getting behind.
SeafoodSource: What do you count as your greatest business success thus far?
Rhodes: As far as the Crab Council goes, the greatest success has been in getting nearly 30 companies to rally around the idea of improving our source fisheries and to agree to fund that endeavor. It is a quintessential example of precompetitive collaboration working.
SeafoodSource: You're given the chance for a do-over: Anything you'd like to change regarding your life or career?
Rhodes: Well, if not too impertinent on the life question I wish I had found my second wife first! As far as career goes I’ve spent more than 50 productive years doing what I wanted to do, half in the private sector and half with NOAA Fisheries. If we get to come back again—and some say we might—I’d just do it all over again!
SeafoodSource: What is the best piece of business and/or life advice you've been given and from whom did it come?
Rhodes: Delegate. When a task appears spend some time figuring out if it’s something you should do alone, involve others as well. or identify a better person or group to handle it. The right person or group will have the best chance at success. I learned this especially working in government, but find it applies everywhere.
