February 15, 2016 — The National Marine Fisheries Service is proposing a new program meant to improve record keeping about seafood imported to the United States.
In early February, the agency announced a new traceability plan that’s meant to help combat illegal fishing and seafood fraud. NMFS Director of Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspections John Henderschedt said the federal government wants a better record of who is catching seafood and where it’s landed before it shows up in U.S. stores.
The proposed program would apply to about 13 types of fish, including Pacific cod, red king crab, shrimp, sea cucumber and others. Importers would be required to track where it was caught, who caught it, the type of gear that was used and where it was landed.
“In instances where the data is absent, or instances where there are other issues with the quality or the completeness of the data, we would then move to an investigation stage,” Henderschedt said. “As this international trade data system develops and once we’ve been able to identify what the key chain of custody data elements are, we anticipate establishing additional reporting elements associated with the chain of custody, but I’ll reiterate that for now, those are a record-keeping requirement.”
Henderschedt said that NMFS already has that information for domestic seafood, so fishermen and processors here won’t be asked to do anything differently. But it would add information that isn’t tracked right now for international imports.
“We do not have laws that allow us to gather the data to ensure that we can carefully examine the legality of catch and the chain of custody of that product as it makes its way to the U.S.,” he said.