Saving Seafood

SIMP helping to drive seafood’s blockchain moment

June 24, 2019 — It’s not your imagination. The seafood industry is talking a lot more than usual about Bitcoin these days.

But don’t worry. There’s no effort afoot to launch a new form of seafood-themed cryptocurrency — though “Fishscales” would have a nice ring to it.

Rather, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s implementation of its new Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) requirements is helping to drive a great deal of interest in blockchain, the digital technology that underlies Bitcoin, Sean O’Scannlain, the president and CEO of Fortune Fish & Gourmet, told Undercurrent News in a telephone interview this week.

Besides running one of the US’ largest seafood wholesalers, O’Scannlain is also chairman of the Seafood Industry Research Fund (SIRF), a 55-year-old group that has provided almost $4 million in grants to help create about 400 research papers, all publicly available. Roughly a week ago, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI) announced that SIRF would be launching a pilot aimed at enabling the industry to better use blockchain, increasing transparency, optimizing supply chain processes and combating fraud.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Your sea bass might be tilapia, report warns

March 8, 2019 — The incidence of seafood fraud still remains high despite more consumer awareness about the issue.

A report released Thursday morning from a nonprofit group finds that roughly 20 percent of seafood products it tested were mislabeled, deceiving customers about everything from where the fish was caught to the type of fish they are eating.

Oceana, an international organization focused on ocean restoration, started investigating the issue in 2010, testing almost 2,000 samples from 30 states for DNA identification and finding that around one-third of the samples tested were mislabeled.

“It never ceases to astonish me that we continue to uncover troubling levels of deception in the seafood we feed our families,” said Kimberly Warner, one of report’s authors.

The discovery comes at a time when seafood consumption among Americans is at a high and the U.S. is importing approximately 90 percent of the seafood it consumes.

Read the full story at Politico

What is seafood fraud? Dangerous and running rampant, report finds

March 7, 2019 — If you order a filet of snapper at a restaurant, you probably expect to be served snapper. But a new report suggests there’s a strong chance you’ll be getting something else.

Oceana, a marine conservation nonprofit with a recent history of studying seafood mislabeling, today published a new report on the state of seafood fraud in the U.S.

They found that 20 percent of the 449 fish they tested were incorrectly labeled. Orders of sea bass were often replaced by giant perch, Alaskan halibut by Greenland turbot, and Florida snapper by lavender jobfish, to name a few.

Oceana made headlines in 2016 by publishing a report finding massive seafood fraud on a global scale. Since then, NOAA created the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), to track 13 species deemed at high risk of being fraudulently sold or sourced illegally.

None of the 13 SIMP monitored species were sampled.

“We wanted to highlight that there are other species other than the high-risk species,” says Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana and one of the report’s authors.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Blockchain could open markets

May 11, 2018 — Consumers are demanding transparency regarding their food. One survey of 1,522 consumers found that as they have become accustomed to getting more information via their phones, their demand for transparency as to all types of products — from medicine to sports to food — has increased. Consumers are not alone. Changes to laws governing supply chain transparency and documentation have imposed considerable obligations on companies to not only know their supplier, but to know their supplier’s supplier, and so forth.

The Obama-era Action Plan for combatting IUU fishing and seafood fraud requires the development of a program to track fishery products along the supply chain. Beginning January 1, 2018, NOAA rolled out its Seafood Import Monitoring Program, which establishes reporting and recordkeeping requirements for fish importers. For 10 groups of species — including cod, red snapper, and tunas — it requires importers provide and report certain records along the entire chain of custody, from harvest to entry into the United States. Information will be entered into the confidential International Trade Data System — not reported to the public or on a label. NOAA has also proposed a voluntary Commerce Trusted Trader Program, which would qualify importers to achieve streamlined entry requirements under the monitoring program. These programs are expected to be expanded to cover all imported fish products in coming years.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Sustainable Shark Trade Bill Offers Science-Based Solution for Overfishing, Finning

March 26, 2018 — A new bipartisan bill introduced in U.S. Congress this month encourages a science-based approach to significantly reduce the overfishing and unsustainable trade of sharks, rays and skates around the world and prevent shark finning.

The Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act of 2018 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Daniel Webster, R-FL, and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-CA, along with co-sponsors Rep. Bill Posey, R-FL, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-MO, and Rep. Walter Jones, R-NC.

The Act would require that shark, ray and skate parts and products imported into the U.S. be permitted only from countries certified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as having in place and enforcing management and conservation policies for these species comparable to the U.S., including science-based measures to prevent overfishing and provide for recovery of shark stocks. A comparable prohibition on shark finning — the wasteful and inhumane practice of cutting off a shark’s fins and discarding the carcass at sea — would also be required.

Scientists recognize more than 1,250 species of cartilaginous fishes — sharks and related skates and rays. Of these, as many as one-quarter are estimated to be threatened with extinction, and the conservation status of nearly half is poorly known. These fishes play important ecological roles in their marine and freshwater ecosystems, and many species are culturally and economically important. These fishes are particularly vulnerable to over-exploitation — most grow slowly, mature late and produce few young. Overfishing, through targeted fisheries and incidental catch, is the primary threat to sharks and their relatives, which are harvested for fins, meat, oil, cartilage and other products.

Mote Marine Laboratory Senior Scientist Dr. Robert Hueter served as a scientific reviewer for the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act text, providing feedback based on published research and his decades of experience as a shark scientist to inform policymakers who ultimately determined the content of the legislation.

The new Act is supported by more than 40 organizations involved in conservation and science as well as commercial fishing.

Mote — an independent, nonprofit research institution that shares its scientific data with societal decision makers at all levels — provided a letter of support for the Act, encouraging the use of science-based sustainability goals for all imported shark, skate and ray products.

“The U.S. has a Seafood Import Monitoring Program and other measures to screen out shark products imported from illegal, unregulated or unreported international fisheries, but that does not guarantee those fisheries are sustainable,” Hueter said. “For instance, a fishery could be regulated but deficient in law enforcement or scientific monitoring. As a researcher, I see the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act as an opportunity for the U.S. to help incentivize the international community towards sustainable shark fisheries, and to reward those already demonstrating sustainability. We at Mote look forward to continued, independent fisheries research with international partners to inform such progress.”

Hueter noted that the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act was inspired by years of international public outcry to stop shark finning. Finning is banned in the U.S., where shark fisheries management is generally deemed strong by the research community.

A separate bill introduced in 2017, the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, sought to ban all shark fin trade within the U.S., including fins obtained legally and sustainably from the U.S. fishery.

“The earlier bill fueled a productive conversation about the threats to sharks worldwide in directed and bycatch fisheries,” Hueter said. “The new bill, the Sustainable Shark Fisheries and Trade Act, builds upon that conversation and broadens protection to the sharks’ relatives, the skates and rays, and also includes restrictions on the trade of all shark and ray products, not just the fins.”

Global trade in shark and ray parts and products is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, approaching $1 billion today, the Wildlife Conservation Society reports. Those estimates are likely under-reported and don’t include domestic use of shark and ray products. Shark-focused tourism is also estimated to value $314 million annually.

Read the full story at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium

 

US SIMP for shrimp, catfish advocates to lose champion in Cochran

March 6, 2018 — The US lawmaker who is one of the biggest forces behind an effort to make imported shrimp comply with new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) record keeping rules for imports is calling it quits.

Mississippi Republican senator Thad Cochran, the 81-year-old chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and the longest current serving member of Congress, cited health issues on Monday in confirming that he will leave his seat, effective April 1.

He also noted his determination to help reach a long sought after conclusion in efforts to pass final budget legislation before he steps down. The latest continuing resolution, a stopgap spending measure for fiscal 2018, expires on March 23.

I regret my health has become an ongoing challenge,” Cochran said in a statement. “I intend to fulfill my responsibilities and commitments to the people of Mississippi and the Senate through the completion of the 2018 appropriations cycle, after which I will formally retire from the US Senate.”

Cochran, who began his nearly 35-year stay in Congress in the House of Representatives, will be forever remembered as the domestic catfish industry’s best friend on Capitol Hill.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

NOAA unveils details of Trusted Trader Program

February 27, 2018 — The public has less than a month to supply comments on U.S. government proposal to streamline the reporting process for participants in the Seafood Import Monitoring Program.

Last month, NOAA Fisheries unveiled a draft rule regarding the creation of a Commerce Trusted Trader Program, a voluntary effort that seeks to reduce costs for both industry and the government. The first public meeting regarding the proposal took place on 15 February.

Public comments, which can be submitted at the Regulations.gov website, must be submitted by 19 March.

John Henderschedt, director of NOAA Fisheries Office of International Affairs and Seafood Inspection, said the public comment period also gives key stakeholders an opportunity to learn more about the proposed rule.

Henderschedt said NOAA officials planned for a Trusted Trader concept when SIMP was first announced. However, the agency needed to develop the SIMP framework first before delving into the specifics of the Trusted Trader program.

Companies that participate in the Trusted Trader Program still would be required to maintain the traceability records – from the time of harvest to the time it reaches the U.S. – on all seafood products listed under SIMP.

In general terms, the Trusted Trader Program will run similar to the PreCheck initiative offered to frequent travelers by the Transportation Security Administration, with a couple of exceptions. First, seafood importers will have to adhere to the SIMP regulations and incorporate them into their standard operating procedures.

Second, the participating companies will be required to hire a third-party firm to audit their records annually to ensure they’re maintaining compliance with SIMP. If the Trusted Trader Program becomes reality, companies could lose their status if audits indicate they’re not abiding by the regulations.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

NOAA Fisheries Seeking Comment on Commerce Trusted Trader Program For U.S. Importers

February 26, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — NOAA Fisheries is seeking public comment on a proposed rule to establish a voluntary Commerce Trusted Trade Program for U.S. importers.

The Commerce Trusted Trade Program would “maintain the effectiveness” of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) by streamlining the reporting and record keeping requirements of U.S. importers who “commit to establishing internal traceability and auditing measures.” The goal of the program would be to not only streamline processing of import entries, but reduce costs for the government and industry.

SIMP became mandatory for importers on January 1, but NOAA has so far been lenient. The organization has allowed a temporary ease on entry rules to prevent disruption,  giving brokers a chance to clear shipments with incomplete or missing data. However, beginning April 7, all filings that are covered by SIMP regulations will have to comply with the electronic filing in order to receive a “may proceed” on an entry.

NOAA has scheduled public listening sessions for the proposed rule. A webinar will be held on February 28 at 3 p.m. Eastern, and a meeting will also take place at Seafood Expo North America in Boston on March 12.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

More US Senators push for shrimp to be added to SIMP

February 13, 2018 — A bipartisan group of 11 U.S. Senators have signed on to a plan that would require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to add shrimp to the Seafood Import Monitoring Program.

In a letter addressed to Sens. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the senators expressed their support for language in the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, which mandates the inclusion of shrimp in the monitoring program within 30 days of the spending bill’s enactment.

SIMP, which officially took effect last month, requires imported seafood to be traced from the time it was caught or harvested to the time it reaches the United States. The program was created to crack down the sale of counterfeit or illegally caught seafood products to consumers.

Most of the seafood Americans consume is imported and shrimp makes up nearly two-thirds of those imports. Shrimp was one of the species included in the program. However, federal officials have waived it from compliance at this point until similar recordkeeping requirements are also in effect for domestic producers. That, however, has not stopped U.S. commercial fishing groups from pushing NOAA add shrimp to the program.

“The domestic, wild-caught shrimp industry has been in a state of decline for decades due to the flood of cheap, imported shrimp from countries such as India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam,” said Ryan Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United. “This bill is a beacon of hope for our coastal communities that greatly rely on domestic shrimp production – the largest commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States.”

In their letter, the senators expressed concerns over the use of unapproved antibiotics in foreign farmed shrimp and cited reports of human rights abuses by processors in Thailand, one of the world’s largest shrimp providers.

“We believe that SIMP is a key step to restoring a level playing field for the U.S. shrimp industry,” the senators wrote.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Chesapeake crab caper results in felony charges

January 23, 2018 — More than three years after federal fish fraud investigators were tipped off that a Virginian seafood company was selling foreign crabmeat labeled as more expensive domestic crabmeat, federal prosecutors filed felony charges against Casey’s Seafood owner, James R. Casey, 74, of Poquoson, Va.

At the time of the tip in 2014, The Baltimore Sun had begun following special agents tracking crab fraud among other kinds of seafood fraud.

The Sun found that, despite increased concerns about such fraud, the number of enforcement cases brought by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency had plummeted after the agency began cutting the “special agents” who investigate fish fraud in 2010.

As the world’s seafood resources decline, substituting other species of seafood for rarer and more expensive ones has become a lucrative business as well as a growing concern for governments and health officials.

Jack Brooks, co-owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood in Cambridge, described how easy it is to commit fraud with crabmeat in a 2014 letter he wrote to the federal task force establishing the new rules to mitigate seafood fraud. It happens, he wrote, when “unscrupulous domestic companies, seeing a quick and profitable opportunity” simply put imported crabmeat into a domestic container.

Brooks, who processes crab, added that there is “no or very limited enforcement” of such fraud, which can net businesses an extra $4 to $9 per pound. That leaves domestic competitors with higher costs and puts seafood-related jobs in jeopardy.

During their investigation, NOAA agents sent eight containers of Casey’s Seafood crabmeat bought at stores in Delaware and Virginia to a laboratory in College Park for DNA testing. The results confirmed the tip: seven of the eight Casey’s containers labeled as “Product of the USA” contained swimming crab found only outside U.S. waters, according to court documents.

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun