TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — October 25, 2017 — The following was released by the Southeastern Fisheries Association:
Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA) members have joined catfish fishermen and dealers across the country opposing a new catfish inspection program recently launched by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The new program imposes rules designed for fish farms and imports on wild caught fisheries, creating impossible compliance situations. The wild-caught catfish industry maintains the program is unnecessary, inefficient, and would needlessly harm dealers, processers and harvesters of wild-caught domestic catfish.
The new inspection program, to be conducted by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), was initially intended to provide additional inspections to farm-raised foreign catfish in competition with domestic farmed catfish. However, the new inspection program unnecessarily includes domestic wild-caught catfish.
“Wild-caught catfish harvesters and dealers will have extreme difficulty complying,” said Bob Jones, Executive Director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association. “These new regulations are onerous and unnecessary.
SFA members testified at a public hearing in August before the regulations went into effect in Webster, Florida, where representatives of the USDA and FSIS invited fishing industry stakeholders. SFA voiced its position that fishermen and fish houses that sell wild-caught catfish must be exempt from the FSIS program that will cost hundreds of jobs because the small fish houses that only buy smaller quantities of saltwater and freshwater catfish cannot meet the requirements of a plan designed for factory farms.
Unlike seafood farms, and imports where fish can be harvested or defrosted on a specific schedule, fresh wild-caught seafood is often landed in large quantities when the boats come back to the dock. “How can you clean 10,000 pounds of fish in an eight-hour day?” voiced Okeechobee catfish fishermen Tommy Ayers. His concerns were echoed by Ted Brozanski, President and COO of Stokes Fish Company.
“Tommy has been fishing for 58 years and you guys have cut his income by 38 percent because he can no longer fish on weekends or holidays,” Mr. Brozanski said.
He raised other issues with the new inspection program, including the fact that limited inspection hours can reduce the quality and value of product for fishermen and fish houses. For example, fishermen will not be able bring in fish that have to be cleaned over the weekend or outside normal hours, as many fish houses will be unable to afford the cost $70-per-hour overtime pay that FSIS inspectors are paid for working weekends and holidays.
FSIS representatives at the hearing indicated that a potential exception from the program was possible for wild-caught, domestic catfish. SFA urges FSIS to implement this exception.
About the Southeastern Fisheries Association
The SFA has served the commercial fishing industry for 65 years. SFA’s mission is to defend, protect and enhance the commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States for present participants as well as future generations through all legal means while maintaining healthy and sustainable stocks of fish. SFA is headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida.