New seafood import fees would fund testing of foreign shrimp and crawfish
11th December 2023 · 0 Comments
By Wesley Muller
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) – Additional testing for foreign-caught shrimp and crawfish, which Louisiana fisherfolk say undercuts their local product, could come at the expense of the wholesalers who are importing the seafood to the state.
The state’s Imported Seafood Safety Task Force met on last Wednesday (Dec. 6) and proposed new licensing requirements and an increase in fees charged to seafood distributors and processors. They will be part of a recommendations report the task force will submit to the Louisiana Legislature, which has authority to make the changes.
Greater testing scrutiny is the route officials here and in Washington, D.C., are taking to stem the overwhelming flow of imported seafood into the United States. The foreign catch is usually far cheaper than shrimp and crawfish from Louisiana waters, and visitors and some local consumers aren’t always able to tell the difference because of deceptive marketing.
The task force, which is similar to but separate from a panel that met recently, agreed on two recommendations at Wednesday’s meeting. The first one calls for the increase of an existing $100 permit fee the Louisiana Department of Health collects from distributors and processors that import foreign seafood and sell it to other businesses within the state.
Lawmakers established the fee in 2021 as part of state efforts to begin testing foreign seafood. Revenue from the fee goes into a special fund used solely for testing imported seafood for harmful contaminants.
The fee hasn’t generated enough money to meet testing needs. The state health department had enough to test samples from just 14 facilities this year and wasn’t able to screen for many of the most common contaminants, officials said.
The task force proposal does not specify an amount for the fee increase, although the resolution that created the panel requires it to do so.
“The whole purpose of collecting this fee has to do with food safety,” said Kim Chauvin, a shrimp exporter and president of the Women’s Southern Fisheries Alliance.
The second recommendation from the task force calls for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) to establish an importer endorsement on existing wholesale seafood dealer licenses. Dealers who buy and sell imported catch would be able to obtain the license endorsement at no extra cost – for now.
The idea is to allow LDWF to establish a framework for the importer endorsement, collect basic data on the imported seafood industry and later determine a fee amount that would provide enough revenue for the agency to enforce laws and regulations related to imported shrimp and crawfish.
The initial endorsement process would allow the state “to start to identify the universe of dealers out there that operate with imported seafood,” LDWF Assistant Secretary of Fisheries Patrick Banks said.
Currently, LDWF charges the same fee for wholesale and retail seafood dealer licenses, regardless of whether they deal in domestic or foreign catch.
The task force has another meeting scheduled for Jan. 10, and its final report is due before the 2024 legislative session, which begins March 11.
This article originally published in the December 11, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
