Saving Seafood

International & Trade

AP finds grueling conditions in Indian shrimp industry that report calls ‘dangerous and abusive’

March 21, 2024 — Noriko Kuwabara was excited to try a new recipe she’d seen on social media for crispy shrimp spring rolls, so she and her husband headed to Costco’s frozen foods aisle. But when she grabbed a bag of farm-raised shrimp from the freezer and saw “Product of India,” she wrinkled her nose.

“I actually try to avoid shrimp from India,” said Kuwabara, an artist. “I hear some bad things about how it’s grown there.”

She sighed and tossed the bag in her cart anyway.

Kuwabara’s dilemma is one an increasing number of American consumers face: With shrimp the leading seafood eaten in the United States, the largest supplier in this country is India, where the industry struggles with labor and environmental problems.

The Associated Press traveled in February to the state of Andhra Pradesh in southeast India to document working conditions in the booming industry, after obtaining an advance copy of an investigation released Wednesday by the Chicago-based Corporate Accountability Lab, a human rights legal group, that found workers face “dangerous and abusive conditions.”

Read the full story at the AP

Corporate Accountability Lab, AP, Outlaw Ocean reports allege forced labor, antibiotics used in Indian shrimp production

March 21, 2024 — Separate reports from the Corporate Accountability Lab, the Associated Press, and the Outlaw Ocean Project published on 20 March have painted a grim portrait of India’s shrimp industry.

The report from the Corporate Accountability Lab (CAL), a nongovernmental organization dedicated to addressing “the failure of domestic and international legal regimes to hold companies accountable for abuses in their global supply chains,” presents evidence of forced labor, child labor, and environmental problems in India’s shrimp sector.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US commission urges action on alleged North Korean labor in China fishing

March 13, 2024 — A U.S. congressional commission has called on the Biden administration to act against alleged forced labor involving North Korean workers in China’s fishing industry, saying seafood sales to U.S. consumers could be helping finance North Korea’s weapons programs.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

North Korea is under U.S.-led international sanctions, to which China is a party, aimed at reining in ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs that threaten the United States and its allies.

The sanctions include prohibition of the use of North Korean labor in third countries, and as the Congressional Executive Commission on China letter states, U.S. law prohibits imports of any goods made with North Korean labor.

CONTEXT

The concerns were highlighted in a letter dated on Monday and made available on Wednesday sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Alejandro Mayorkas, head of the Department of Homeland Security, from Republican Representative Chris Smith and Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, co-chairs of the commission.

Read the full article at Reuters

US commission pushing Biden administration to halt imports of Chinese seafood linked to North Korean labor

March 13, 2024 — The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calling on the officials’ two departments to collaborate in determining whether seafood processed in China using North Korean labor is making its way into the U.S. supply chain.

The letter adds to earlier calls from the commission for federal action against Chinese companies credibly accused of using forced labor in seafood processing. In December, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party issued its own report recommending special trade status for the country.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Bipartisan group of lawmakers push Biden to do more on IUU fishing

March 12, 2024 –A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives has sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him and the administration to take increased action against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The letter, sent by House Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries Subcommittee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-California) and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Arizona), was signed by 26 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. It calls for the Biden administration to use new authorities granted it by the National Defense Authorization Act. and the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

“Big plans” for seafood industry expansion announced at National People’s Congress

March 9, 2024 — China’s seafood industry has the government’s full backing to expand, judging from comments made at China’s annual National People’s Congress.

In remarks at the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing on 5 March, Chinese Premier Li Qiang spoke of strengthening China’s food security, including continuing a policy of backing the country’s distant-water fishing sector, which the government supports with generous subsidies.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Stalemate: WTO talks again fail to end overfishing subsidies

March 6, 2024 — Ambitions to finalize a two-part treaty to equitably stop governments from funding overfishing were dashed again at the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi, which ended in the early hours of March 2.

“This outcome is not just disappointing; it’s a dire blow to global marine biodiversity,” Daniel Skerritt, a senior analyst at U.S.-based conservation NGO Oceana, said in a statement. “The WTO’s continued failure to prohibit subsidy-driven overcapacity and overfishing jeopardizes the lives of millions of people who depend on healthy fish populations for their livelihoods and food security.”

Governments around the world pump an estimated $22 billion annually into so-called “harmful” fisheries subsidies, blamed for depletion of global fish stocks and distorted market dynamics. WTO member states have been trying to negotiate a deal to end them for 22 years.

Read the full article at Mongabay

WTO fails to reach deal on fishing subsidies

March 4, 2024 — World Trade Organization negotiators are regrouping after failing to reach an agreement on a treaty curbing harmful fishery subsidies at the 13th Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

Despite optimism for a deal prior to the meeting, several developing nations, including India, rejected the proposed text in the final hours of the meeting on Saturday, 2 March, in opposition to what they described as “loopholes” for big fishing nations.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

WTO meeting begins with presentation of draft of agreement to curb fishing subsidies

February 27, 2024 — An updated draft text of an agreement to end harmful fishing subsidies has been presented for ministerial approval at the WTO’s Thirteenth Ministerial Conference (MC13), which opened Monday, 26 February in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

WTO negotiators are seeking to build on a 2022 agreement that forbade the subsidization of illegal fishing by expanding the ban to subsidies that contribute to overfishing and fishing sector overcapacity at large. On 26 February, a further eight countries submitted their acceptance of the treaty, bringing the total to 70, with 110 needed for it to enter into force.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

North Korean workers used by Chinese seafood suppliers, Outlaw Ocean Project finds

February 26, 2024 —  Seafood processed by Chinese companies using labor from North Korea has made its way into international seafood supply chains, according to a new Outlaw Ocean report published in The New Yorker magazine.

The latest story builds on previous work by the Outlaw Ocean Project which discovered evidence of Uyghur labor in the supply chains of prominent seafood companies, retailers, and distributors. The new report details evidence gathered over several months which suggests Chinese seafood processing companies providing seafood for companies in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are using North Korean labor to cut costs – violating United Nations sanctions and laws in the respective countries.

Outlaw Ocean said its team of researchers partnered with investigators and advocates in South Korea and China to obtain evidence of North Korean workers being forced to work long hours for little pay in long-term contracts. Interviews with North Koreans, kept anonymous out of fear of persecution, detail work conditions wherein the laborers – mainly North Korean women – were often held inside fenced-in worker compounds and compelled to work via coercion and threats against family members.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource