Thursday, September 11, 2014

Sea Port attends Presidential Task Force meeting to combat IUU fishing and seafood fraud
In Washington D.C. on August 18, Sea Port attended a meeting of a newly formed Presidential Task Force in order to offer advice on combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU) and seafood fraud in the U.S. marketplace. 

Sea Port was among a small but diverse group of seafood industry stakeholders that included fishing vessel owners, processors, distributors, retailers, and import/exporters.  The task force panel consisted of federal representatives from the Departments of State, Commerce, Defense, FDA, NOAA, USDA, and several other federal agencies associated with regulating our seafood.

President Obama directed this task force to formulate recommendations within 180 days for implementing a new comprehensive framework of programs to focus on the areas of greatest concern for the IUU and fraud problems occurring in the U.S. seafood marketplace.  To assist in completing their task, the panel wanted Sea Port and the group to define both the scope and the critical control points of these two distinct issues based on the perspective of our entire seafood industry.

The major points communicated to the Presidential Task Force by Sea Port and the seafood industry group:
Concerning IUU:

  • The scope of the IUU problem is relevant for less than 5% of the wild seafood we consume and of this amount, the vast majority is associated with the wild caught seafood that we import from foreign countries that are sorely in need of more effective wild fisheries management and enforcement schemes.

·         The critical control point to eliminate IUU is at the foreign source regardless if the seafood was caught within a country’s 200 mile EEZ or attained on international high seas by their distant-water fishing fleets.

Concerning Seafood Fraud:

  • The scope of the mislabeling of species fraud issue is most relevant at the critical control points located at restaurants and retailers.  The scope of the short weight (including full ingredients disclosure) fraud issue is relevant to the entire supply chain for both wild and farmed seafood.

Group advice offered to the Task Force for addressing the separate issues of IUU & and seafood fraud:

  • Combating IUU fishing requires the U.S. to be more engaged  internationally with foreign countries, the FAO, and regional fisheries organizations so responsible wild fisheries practices and enforcement mechanisms can be agreed upon that clearly defined the pathway toward eradicating IUU on both the high-seas and within all nation’s EEZs.  However, If our actions simply redirect IUU seafood away from the U.S. marketplace to other countries that still accept IUU, then we will have done very little to solve this foreign fishing problem that truly requires a cooperative global solution.
    
  • Initiating enhanced and robust efforts to enforce existing laws will very quickly produce dramatic improvements to the economic fraud issues of short weight, ingredient mislabeling, and species substitution in the U.S. marketplace. 

Sea Port’s Opinion on the Most Important Takeaways from the Presidential Task Force:  

  1. FDA enforcement against “short weight” may soon be greatly enhanced and expanded and this may result in significant negative consequences for seafood companies that still engage in this type of seafood fraud.
  2. Success in combating IUU fishing may soon advance due to heightening levels of U.S. international cooperation and new forthcoming initiatives to share proven U.S. fisheries management and enforcement schemes with the rest of the world.
Please don't be shy about leaving comments..........Sincerely, Dave

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