Saving Seafood

US seafood associations respond to human trafficking task force recommendations

February 9, 2021 โ€” Commercial seafood organizations have begun responding to a U.S. Justice Department task force report on human trafficking in international waters.

The report, nearly three years in the making, included 27 recommendations for the federal government to eliminate loopholes or strengthen policies. Some of those recommendations include the need for congressional legislation. Among this is a recommendation to create a temporary worker visa program that would ban โ€œrecruitment feesโ€ paid by workers on American vessels that fish in international waters but deliver products in U.S. ports.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

FDA rejects historically low seafood imports in July

August 25, 2020 โ€” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused only 37 seafood entry lines in July, continuing a trend where federal officials were rejecting a historically low number of products.

According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, that amount is by far a record low for the month. Itโ€™s only 21.3 percent of this historical average the alliance has tracked since 2002. Itโ€™s also significantly lower than the previous record low of 91 entry lines, which occurred last year.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US State Department bars import of wild-caught shrimp from China, Venezuela

April 30, 2020 โ€” In a public notice posted to the Federal Register on 30 April, the U.S. Department of State announced that it is suspending the certification of wild-caught shrimp from China and Venezuela, making it ineligible to enter the U.S. for sale.

The suspension was in accordance with Section 609 of Public Law 101-162, which requires countries harvesting wild-caught shrimp in areas that contain sea turtles prove they have adequate laws regarding turtle excluding devices (TEDs). Chinaโ€™s certification was suspended due to โ€œthe use of methods of harvesting shrimp that may adversely affect sea turtles,โ€ while Venezuela was suspended โ€œdue to the inability to confirm whether methods of harvesting shrimp may adversely affect sea turtles.โ€

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Stimulus funding process proving tricky to navigate for smaller seafood operators

April 14, 2020 โ€” The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the U.S. seafood industry being upended as restaurant closures drive down the prices of seafood, leading a number of food organizations to request relief from the government.

The U.S. government launched a relief package in late March consisting of USD 2 trillion (EUR 1.8 trillion) in aid for businesses in the U.S., including USD 300 million (EUR 273.5 million) earmarked specifically for the seafood industry. That package includes incentives to encourage employers to keep people on their payrolls, direct payments to low- to middle-income families, and aid to seafood companies that have lost revenue due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Southern Shrimp Alliance wants Labor Department agency to close slave labor loophole

January 16, 2020 โ€” The Southern Shrimp Alliance is requesting the U.S. Department of Labor to revise policies the trade group claims allow certain seafood imports to avoid being associated with child and forced labor practices.

SSA Executive Director John Williams sent the letter to the departmentโ€™s Bureau of International Labor Affairs on Monday 13 January. For more than a decade, the bureau has been responsible for producing a list of products that are produced through exploitative labor practices. That does include some seafood products, like shrimp harvested in such countries as Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Thailand.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NMFS, SSA Report Poor Gulf of Mexico Shrimp Landings in July

August 29, 2019 โ€” SEAFOOD NEWS โ€” Shrimp landings in the Gulf of Mexico have been some of the worst in recent history, according to the Fishery Monitoring Branch of the NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center and the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

NMFS reported shrimp landings in the Gulf for July were only 7 million pounds, well below the 7.9 million pounds in July 2018 and the 8 million pounds in July 2017. The July commercial shrimp landings were 37.8 percent below the prior 17-year historic average of 11.3 million pounds for July.

Only 1.6 million pounds of shrimp were reported as landed in Louisiana โ€” the third lowest volume for the state for a July in the last 18 years. All told, Louisiana landings were 62.1 percent below the prior 17-year historic average of 4.2 million pounds in July.

In Mississippi, only 415,000 pounds of shrimp were reported as landed, the second lowest total reported for any July from that state in the last 18 years, according to a Southern Shrimp Alliance press release.

For the year, landings of shrimp in Louisiana and the west coast of Florida are at the lowest levels they have ever been through the first seven months. Outside of 2010, the landings reported in Mississippi for the year are the lowest they have been in the past 18 years.

Shrimp harvests at historical levels in Texas and significantly above historical levels in Alabama have somewhat offset the low numbers from the rest of the Gulf, but landings in the region, at 35.6 million pounds, are the second lowest volume reported in the last 18 years.

Last month, NMFS reported ex-vessel prices for four of six count sizes of shrimp landed in the eastern Gulf (west coast of Florida) and five of six count sizes of shrimp landed in the northern Gulf (Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi). In the northern Gulf and western Gulf, the ex-vessel prices showed a large divergence between prices for large shrimp, U15, and all other shrimp. In the western Gulf, prices for U15 size shrimp were the highest reported for any July (not adjusting for inflation) in the 19-year database maintained by the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

US shrimp industry advocate Elaine Walker Knight passes away

July 23, 2019 โ€” Elaine Walker Knight, founding director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance and founding director of Wild American Shrimp Inc., passed away on 15 July.

Knight, 79, was the first president and founding director of Wild American Shrimp, Inc., the United States shrimp industryโ€™s first national marketing initiative.

Knight was also founding director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance and served two terms as president.

โ€œSeventeen years ago, leaders of the shrimp industry from across the countryโ€™s southern coastline came together in response to what they saw as an immediate threat to the continued existence of the commercial fishery. Volunteering their time, their money, and their reputations, these industry veterans built a national response to the challenges facing shrimpers throughout the South Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico,โ€ the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Gulf Shrimp Landings Fall Below 2017 Average for Second Month in a Row

February 7, 2019 โ€” SEAFOOD NEWS โ€” Gulf shrimp landings have fallen below both the 2017 figure and the prior eight-year average for the second month in a row. According to seafood market reporter Jim Kenny, the drop below the eight-year average has actually occurred 8 out of 11 months this year.

Due to the government shutdown, the National Marine Fisheries Service just released numbers for November 2018 and landings for all species, headless came in at 8.207 million lbs. To compare, landings in November 2017 hit 8.898 million lbs. The cumulative total now stands at 89.971 million lbs.; 3.7 million pounds or four percent below the January โ€“ November 2017 total of 93.681 million lbs. Compared to the prior eight-year average, November 2018 landings are 10 percent lower.

Novemberโ€™s low Gulf shrimp landings come after the lowest reported commercial shrimp harvest in the Gulf of Mexico for any October. The Southern Shrimp Alliance reported that only 10.4 million pounds were harvested in October 2018, a 30% drop from the 16-year historical average for October landings. In October low volumes were being blamed on a lack of reporting of any shrimp landings from the West Coast of Florida, as well as the reporting of only 3.6 million pounds of shrimp from Louisiana. For comparison, the 16-year-historical average for Louisiana landings in October is 7.7 million pounds.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.