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Business & Economics
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The Fishy Politics of Catfish: Why a Single Seafood Answers to the USDA, Not the FDA
In a unique quirk of American law, catfish is the only seafood not regulated by the FDA. Instead, it falls under the USDA's purview, just like meat and poultry. This isn't due to biology, but a fascinating history of economic protectionism and powerful lobbying from the U.S. catfish industry.
Wander through the seafood aisle of any American grocery store and you'll find a vast array of fish and shellfish, all residing under the watchful eye of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). From salmon to shrimp, the FDA is the gatekeeper of seafood safety. All, that is, except for one notable outlier: the humble catfish. In a regulatory anomaly that baffles many, catfish is the only seafood in the United States inspected not by the FDA, but by the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the same agency that oversees beef, pork, and poultry. This isn't because of some unique biological trait, but rather a story steeped in politics, international trade, and a powerful domestic lobby.
A Fish Out of Water: The FDA/USDA Divide
To understand how odd this is, one has to know the basic division of labor. The FDA is responsible for the safety of about 80% of the U.S. food supply, which includes all other seafood, both wild-caught and farm-raised. Their inspection method typically involves spot checks at processing facilities and ports of entry. The USDA, on the other hand, handles meat, poultry, and processed egg products. Its inspection regime is famously more intensive, often requiring a federal inspector to be continuously present in processing plants. So why was one specific type of fish plucked from the FDA's vast ocean of responsibility and dropped into the USDA's barnyard?
How a Trade War Reclassified a Fish
The story begins in the early 2000s, when American catfish farmers, primarily located in Southern states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, faced a rising tide of competition. Cheaper, similar-tasting fish like basa and tra, species of pangasius catfish, were being imported in massive quantities from Vietnam. Unable to compete on price, the U.S. catfish industry turned to Washington D.C. for help.
Their first victory came in 2002, when a new law mandated that only fish from the family Ictaluridae could be legally labeled and sold as "catfish." This forced the Vietnamese imports to be sold under their own names, like swai or basa. But the real masterstroke came in the 2008 Farm Bill. Led by powerful senators from catfish-farming states, the industry successfully argued that catfish inspection should be moved from the FDA to the USDA.
Protectionism or Public Safety?
The official argument was one of food safety. Proponents claimed that the USDA's more rigorous, continuous inspection process would better protect American consumers from potentially contaminated foreign fish. They raised concerns about the use of antibiotics and other chemicals in overseas aquaculture.
However, critics immediately decried the move as a thinly veiled act of economic protectionism. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has repeatedly criticized the program, calling it duplicative and wasteful. Forcing foreign producers to meet the USDA's complex and costly requirements, which were designed for meat and poultry, effectively creates a significant trade barrier. As food politics expert Marion Nestle told Atlas Obscura:
The catfish lobby is brilliant... They managed to get the USDA to inspect them by defining catfish as not-a-fish.
The move essentially created a separate, more challenging regulatory system for a single type of fish, which many saw as a deliberate attempt to price foreign competitors out of the market. It meant that a Vietnamese processing plant exporting both tilapia and swai to the U.S. would have to deal with two different American agencies—the FDA for the tilapia and the USDA for the swai—an inefficient and costly proposition.
The Cost of a Catfish
For over a decade, this regulatory carve-out has remained a contentious issue. The GAO has estimated that the program costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year to run a separate inspection system for a product that was already being monitored by the FDA. Despite multiple attempts to repeal the law and return catfish inspection to the FDA, the powerful catfish lobby has ensured it remains in place.
So, the next time you see catfish on a menu, remember that it's more than just a Southern delicacy. It's a testament to how food, economics, and politics can create a regulatory reality that is truly a fish out of water.