Catfish farmers oppose shift in inspection procedures

John McCain favors inadequate food safety requirements and ignores findings of banned substances in imported catfish products.

"It is stunning that Senator McCain has chosen to protect importers and Vietnamese farmers over the health and safety of American citizens," said Butch Wilson, newly elected president of the Catfish Farmers of America.

Congress voted to move catfish inspections and regulation from the Food and Drug Administration to the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of the 2008 Farm Bill. However, legislation proposed by McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., would repeal the 2008 law.

The USDA has greater authority to conduct on-site safety inspections of production facilities, guarantee accurate labeling and enforce requirements that imported meat, poultry and catfish meet the same health and safety standards as American products," the CFA said. The USDA's inspection requirements and regulations are well-known to U.S. trading partners.

"If you're concerned about food safety in America, you want the USDA label," said Wilson, a catfish producer in Dallas County. "Now, only about 2 percent is inspected by the FDA."

The Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries issued a halt on the sale of imported Asian catfish and related fish in November 2009 after the fish tested positive for the antibiotic Fluoroquinolones. The antibiotic is banned for use in fish or other seafood products sold in the United States because of the health and safety danger to consumers.

Also, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last month a case of mislabeling and hazardous contaminants found in Vietnamese frozen catfish fillets imported by a seafood import company in McCain's home state of Arizona.

NOAA's criminal investigation discovered that the Arizona company "bought Vietnamese catfish illegally imported into the U.S. labeled as sole" which was then sold to approximately 65 different wholesale customers, including supermarkets and restaurants.

Last week, in a report on redundancy in the government, the Government Accounting Office gave the USDA-FDA inspection duties as an example - the FDA is charged with oversight of the seafood industry while the Farm Bill gives the USDA authority to inspect catfish.

"If you say 'catfish,' people assume it's from this area," Wilson said. "If you have bad catfish, they assume all are bad.

"We just want a level playing field."

Mitt Walker, director of Alabama Catfish Producers, told The Times last month that moving fish inspection duties from the FDA to the Department of Agriculture "makes sense."

"The USDA inspects beef and poultry," he said. "The catfish producers consider themselves farmers and not fishermen."

He also said the USDA has the ability to "impose equivalency standards on imports, comparing them to domestic fish. The FDA doesn't."

Wilson said there is a big reason for the USDA to have the authority: "There is one agency that can do a job and one that can't do it. They have the people to do it.

"There could be no better advertising for catfish than to have the USDA seal of approval stamped on the package."

He also said the law would apply to all U.S. farm-raised catfish as well as imported catfish.

"We welcome the USDA oversight on our U.S. farm-raised catfish," Wilson said. "Whether a food safety incident results from domestic or foreign fish, the impact is the same: Consumer confidence in all catfish will evaporate."