The resumption of catfish exports from Guyana to the United States is on the list of top priorities for newly sworn-in Minis-ter of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha, who plans to engage US Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch to iron out longstanding regulations.
Mustapha, responding to questions on the three year-long cat fish ban, said, “I want to assure you that it is on the list of priorities for the ministry.”
He added, “I am hoping very shortly I can engage the US embassy and the US Ambassador for us to work out a system to move forward and have the ban lifted on the cat fish trade.”
Mustapha noted that it is important for the ban to be removed as it will help fisher folks to generate much need revenue for their survival.
Recently, Chief Fisheries Officer Denzel Roberts told Stabroek News that some progress has been made as the Fisheries Department was engaged in discussion with US personnel. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed some work.
“The finalisation of the regulations will depend on this having a conclusion,” Roberts said, while noting that local fishermen and traders will have to implement post-harvest measures.
Stabroek News understands that the regulations imposed by the US targets farm-raised catfish and it has been somewhat difficult to adopt since fish caught here are regarded as wild caught fish.
Nonetheless, Roberts explained that while it is quite a bit of work they have to do, they are working to get it done to have the ban lifted.
The Chief Fisheries Officer noted, too, that restarting the trade would be a lengthy process “as the US authorities told us after this part is resolved, it has to go over to another agency to be finalized.”
The United States imposed a ban on catfish (siluriformes) imports from Guyana and other non-compliant countries in September of 2017. The exporters from the various countries were required by the US Food and Safety Inspection Services (FSIS) to provide documentation to verify that their inspection system was equivalent to US standards.
This has led to fishing businesses having to downscale or export to Canada while they await the reopening of the lucrative New York market.
Guyana has fallen short of the US standards in three areas: the presence of inspectors; insufficient documentation detailing verification of each step in the sanitation and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP); and insufficient documentation specifying how the industry manages adulterated (tainted) catfish products.
With the ban on the trade, the price for catfish species, specifically Gilbacker, dropped significantly to $200 to $300 per pound in contrast to the $800 to $1000 it fetched when it was being exported to the United States.
In 2015, FSIS amended its regulations to establish a mandatory inspection programme for fish of the order Siluriformes and products derived from these species.
The amendment was the result of a 15-year battle by the Catfish Farmers of America (CFA) to curtail catfish imports from Vietnam. The US government had previously passed the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills, which amended the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), to make ‘‘catfish’’ a species amenable to the FMIA, and therefore, subject to FSIS inspection, before removing the term ‘‘catfish,’’ so as to make ‘‘all fish of the order Siluriformes’’ subject to FSIS jurisdiction and inspection.
The 2015 standards, which became effective on March 1st, 2016, demand the presence of inspectors in (processing) plants for one-hour during an eight hour shift. According to the USDA website, though the standards became effective in 2016, a transitional period was granted before full enforcement commenced on September 1st, 2017.
The US Embassy here had said that Guyana was notified since November 2015 of the steps that needed to be taken to avoid a ban on the export of catfish to the United States.
