International Law

Avoid Chinese Farmed Seafood Products

Having observed several fish farms in China -- shockingly unclean conditions -- I have always avoided the purchase of farmed fish and fish products originating anywhere in Asia, except for Japan. David Barboza's article strongly suggests that you do, too:

?Our waters here are filthy,? said Ye Chao, an eel and shrimp farmer who has 20 giant ponds in western Fuqing. ?There are simply too many aquaculture farms in this area. They?re all discharging water here, fouling up other farms.?

One nervously laughs, hearing of outlandish harvesting methods illiterate peasants use on fish they themselves consume. Thai farmers using cheap pesticides to kill whole schools of fish for easy netting; Cambodians using grenades.

We absolutely can not trust the safety of seafood raised on farms in China. Regulatory schema adopted by the U.S. can not possibly be adequate protection. The FDA has been as ineffective over the past 10 years as any branch of the federal government, having been completely aware of the breadth of this problem, with evidently little movement. Only 210 import refusals for illegal drugs for the entire U.S.? (However, the FDA appears to be pleased to announce its advice on the safe sources of puffer fish.)

The Wall Street Journal reports:

A Chinese seafood company exempted from U.S. safety inspections under a pilot project has been cited by Canada after a cancer-causing antibiotic was detected in a shipment of frozen shrimp.

Wonder how that one got by us?

Only about 1% of most imports are subject to FDA inspections. But the FDA blocks all imports of five types of farm-raised seafood from China -- shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace -- until they are proved to be free or contaminants. Importers pay for the tests, which run up to $3,000 a shipment.

But tilapia, monkfish and pollock from China appear on our grocery shelves more often than any of these, except for shrimp. And shippers can become expertly creative at misnaming their exports. As Mr. Barboza writes, farmers are not about to give up on their livelihoods simply for the sake of the health of those who buy from them:

Farmers have coped with the toxic waters by mixing illegal veterinary drugs and pesticides into fish feed, which helps keep their stocks alive yet leaves poisonous and carcinogenic residues in seafood, posing health threats to consumers.

Close your wallet to these products. You can have no idea what you might ingest. On the other hand, I know what I am eating when I fry up the bluefish I caught as they ran the waters off Montauk in late summer.

Full post as published by Asia Business Intelligence on December 15, 2007 (boomark / email).