In this episode of Hands in the Soil, we venture into new waters and explore the seafood industry. Our guest is Emily Soye Miller, seafood system educator, commercial fisheries consultant, and the managing force behind Fishful Future, a San Diego-based initiative for greater consumer awareness of local seafood that she ran from 2021 through 2025. Emily recently co-curated San Diego Seafood: Then & Now, a community cookbook that traces the history and future of San Diego's seafood culture.

Emily grew up recreationally fishing with her father in Southern California, processing squid bait at the kitchen table with her Korean immigrant mother, and navigating the early tension of what counts as "normal" food and for whom. That upbringing gave way to an ecology degree, a stint at a fisheries processor in Kodiak, Alaska, six years as a commercial fisheries observer on boats ranging from single-day trips to month-long offshore voyages, and eventually, a deep commitment to making local seafood legible, accessible, and culturally meaningful to everyday people.

Tune in to learn more about:

• San Diego's history as the tuna capital of the world, and how dramatically things have changed since the post-WWII era
• The Magnuson-Stevens Act and how US fisheries became some of the most well-managed in the world, and why that matters when people claim all commercial fishing is inherently harmful
• The "graying of the fleet": why commercial fishing communities are aging out, shrinking, and struggling to attract the next generation
• Why imports make it nearly impossible for small-scale artisanal US fishers to compete on price, and what that means for the future of local seafood
• The seafood system as a "mysterious black box" and why most people have far less understanding of it than they do of agriculture

• What responsible seafood consumerism actually looks like in San Diego

• The gentrification of wild seafood, and why Emily refuses to call it a win if local seafood only ends up on luxury menus
• How stewardship of the ocean arises naturally from place-based diets

Connect with Emily:

Website: fishfulfuture.com

Instagram: @fishfulfuture

TikTok: @fishful.future

Connect with Hannah:

Instagram: @hannahkeitel