Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell and three consumer-advocacy organizations on Thursday voiced their support for a measure authorizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to inspect and grade domestic and imported catfish in separate letters to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The organizations — Food & Water Watch, Consumer Federation of America and Safe Tables Our Priority — and Boswell said the standards under which foreign catfish are farmed are inferior to those under which domestic catfish are raised.
In his letter to Vilsack, Boswell referred to a December 2008 trip to Vietnam in which he witnessed catfish being raised under “putrid” conditions. “I saw raw sewage and drainage pipes leading directly into the Mekong Delta upstream from where the fish farms are located,” he said.
The Catfish Institute and Catfish Farmers of America (CFA) also back the measure.
In an open letter to newspaper and magazine editors last week, CFA President Joey Lowery brushed off allegations from catfish importers and free-trade proponents that the measure is protectionist and unnecessary. He said the measure is intended to improve food safety and protect Americans.
“U.S. consumers believe that their seafood is subject to the same rigorous inspection standards as those imposed on meat and poultry products. However, that is not the case under the existing U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards, and the domestic catfish industry is dedicated to fighting for increased food safety,” said Lowery. “To say that the FDA leaves U.S. consumers vulnerable is an understatement.”
The measure would charge the USDA with inspecting catfish under the agency’s Federal Meat Inspection Act; inspections would be mandatory. Currently, the FDA is responsible for inspecting domestic and imported seafood.
The measure was tucked away in the USD 288 billion (EUR 205 billion), five-year Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, commonly referred to as the 2008 Farm Bill, which Congress passed in June 2008. A draft recommendation of the measure is currently being circulated, and Vilsack is expected to make a final decision on the measure soon.
Whether pangasius — a catfish-like species farmed in Vietnam and marketed as basa, tra or swai — would be included in the measure is yet to be determined. A 2001 law prohibits U.S. companies from labeling pangasius as “catfish.”
In a 15 July letter to Vilsack, eight U.S. senators — including Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) — said the measure is aimed at restricting foreign competition and could ignite a trade war with Vietnam and other Asian countries, affecting U.S. seafood exports.
