July 27, 2016 — The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced it will develop voluntary standards for catfish grading, a statement that came under immediate scrutiny from the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), which described the step as unnecessary bureaucracy that will encumber U.S. catfish producers.
In a 14 July press release, USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service said it is developing voluntary standards for grading catfish and catfish products, which it was directed to do by the 2014 Farm Bill.
“The USDA grade shields assure consumers that products have gone through a rigorous review process by highly-skilled graders that follow the official grade standards,” the agency said in a statement. “These standards provide a common language for buyers and sellers of commodities and are widely used by the agricultural industry in domestic and international trading, futures market contracts, and as a benchmark for purchase specifications in most private contracts.”
However, while USDA oversees grading standards for meat products, it has no business getting into catfish grading, said Gavin Gibbons, vice president of communications at National Fisheries Institute, the U.S. seafood trade association.