U.S. President Barack Obama on 7 February approved the 2014 Farm Bill which says that Vietnamese catfish (tra and basa) will be put under the U.S. monitoring.
The most noteworthy thing of the farm bill is that the function of monitoring the catfish imports will be handed over to the Department of Agriculture (USDA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to Le Chi Binh, Deputy Chair of the An Giang Provincial Fisheries Association, the FDA now only takes control over the imports’ hygiene, while it does not monitor the farming process. Vietnamese have to manage the farming themselves, or the farming quality is certified by the third parties.
