Last week, I attended the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference in Las Vegas.
Also this year, for the second time, I participated as an analyst on the Value Shellfish Panel, together with Richard Stavis, president and CEO of Stavis Seafoods, and a five-man panel.
As usual, the conversation was lively and interesting, but in doing the prep work leading up to the conference I ran into some problems that served as a reminder of how fragmented the seafood industry still is.
Last year, we examined trends in foreign markets, whereas this year we focused more on the domestic side, which meant we needed more data on domestic shellfish production. That proved to be a lot harder than one would think in the United States.
To begin with, the way volumes are reported — or not reported — varies widely from region to region. There is no national standard, so for the most part anyone looking to learn the current state of things, let alone historical trends, needs to turn to informal associations and regional industry groups. Among the largest are two shellfish growers associations, one for the east and west coasts of the country, but individual growers are under no obligation to report anything to them, so there’s a chance a number — great or small — of shellfish are not being recorded by the associations.
This is not an indictment of those associations; their main focus is on the welfare of their member growers, just as it should be. It’s up to the government to set requirements for reporting. Some states do keep track, as does the National Marine Fisheries Service, but the figures we pulled from those departments clashed with our panelists’ experience working in the industry, forcing us to consider that data suspect.
Using data from multiple sources that don’t necessarily talk to each other results in a lack of uniformity with units of measure. Some report weight in metric tons, others in pounds, still others in kilograms. Some report gross weight, others report weight of meats and some don’t make it clear which metric they are using. Some measure by the bushel, leading to a series of conversions that make for a somewhat unreliable final figure.
Rumor has it the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the nation’s leading regulatory authority on seafood, is considering an update to rules on reporting harvests. At minimum, the government should take a good look at how it gathers its own data, and look for holes in the process.
While I don’t think average shellfish growers or harvesters will relish the government sticking its nose into their businesses, and I don’t blame them, some form of regulation is a good idea. We need to know what’s happening with clams, oysters, mussels and other shellfish, especially with new threats such as ocean acidification lurking in the not-too-distant future. Without proper reporting, both before and after the problems emerge, we can’t know who’s being threatened, and we can’t help.
Most important of all, the industry as a whole, not just shellfish, needs to get over this idea that seafood is a collection of little pocket industries that work in silos. I’m convinced this is part of the reason Americans don’t eat nearly as much seafood as we should. The beef, pork and dairy industries seem to have no trouble gathering resources together to educate the public with national campaigns. If the various sectors of the seafood industry would stop fighting with each other, seafood might just rise to a more prominent place on our dinner plates.
