News: China's Seafood Industry Must Up Safety Standards

TAOYU, China -- This tiny village near the Great Wall is crowded with 20 household trout farms, which have cropped up in less than a decade to join China's booming seafood trade.

Yet, in a tale mirrored across the industry, the local water supply could not keep pace and fish began dying from contamination, said fish farmer Liu Yanyan. She turned to traditional Chinese medicine to save her trout, she said, while some neighbors resorted to antibiotics and other chemicals.

In trying to protect their business, China's fish farmers may have fueled a far larger problem: China's seafood industry, the world's largest source of farmed fish, is the latest casualty in a wave of scrutiny that threatens to undermine the nation's reputation as the superstore to the world. The case highlights a vulnerability in China's economy: the government's challenge to keep pace with growth to ensure that exporters meet health and safety standards in markets around the globe.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday moved to block the sale of five types of Chinese farm-raised seafood found to be contaminated by unapproved drugs and additives. China did not hide its displeasure, calling the move "indiscriminate" and "unacceptable."

The partial food ban came after a string of reports in recent months about Chinese exports failing to meet safety standards on pet food additives, toothpaste, toy trains and tires.

But the seafood crackdown could be particularly troublesome for China, experts say. Not only is China the largest foreign source of U.S. seafood -- contributing more than a fifth of imports -- but seafood is a particularly vivid new reason for U.S. consumers to take notice.

"There will be significant damage in terms of American consumers' willingness to experiment with Chinese products," predicted Tom Doctoroff, chief executive of greater China for advertising agency JWT.

"If people are starting to ask, 'I don't know how they make products in China. I'm concerned about what goes into them,' that could be a big blow," Doctoroff said.

The drumbeat of import actions has become a problem larger than it seemed in April, when U.S. regulators first suspected that two Chinese companies intentionally mixed an industrial chemical, melamine, with wheat flour in order to boost protein readings in a pet food additive.

Less than 90 days later, an economy that ships more than $30 billion a year in food and drugs to Asia, North America and Europe is facing a potential crisis of confidence that could stretch beyond consumable products and begin to hit the few branded goods that China offers, whether appliances from Haier or personal computers from Lenovo.

"China's climb up the branded-products ladder is not going to be smooth," Doctoroff said. "They've just been brought down one rung."

Public-relations offensive

China has adopted an increasingly vigorous defense. After responding coolly to earlier import actions, Li Changjiang, director of the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine was quoted by state media as saying, "China cannot accept the indiscriminate and automatic detention of four kinds of Chinese seafood by the United States."

In a phone call Friday with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, Li reportedly said that China has detected a range of tainted products from the U.S. as well but has not imposed broad restrictions. Li, head of China's food safety agency, also said China has already taken unspecified steps to address U.S. concerns on seafood, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Indeed, China is working to restore confidence. The Chinese Embassy in Washington last week released a flood of statistics designed to convey that, despite the latest incidents, "99 percent of Chinese food exports meet applicable standards" in more than 200 countries.

The head of the Chinese food and drug regulator has been sentenced to death for accepting bribes and failing to curb fake and unsafe medicines. And state media revealed last week that authorities have closed 180 foodmakers found to be mixing additives such as mineral oils, paraffin wax, industrial dyes, formaldehyde and the cancer-causing agent malachite green into the production of biscuits, melon seeds, bean curd, seafood, flour, candy and pickles, according to a report in the state-run China Daily newspaper.

Thursday's import alert affecting Chinese catfish, shrimp, dace, eel and a catfish-related fish called basa comes after investigators and U.S. lobbyists raised questions about Chinese seafood. The FDA began scrutinizing Chinese imports soon after European and Chinese regulators in 2002 found residues of the antibiotic chloramphenicol in shrimp exports. Since then the FDA and Canadian authorities have raised occasional alarms about banned substances in Chinese seafood.

In repeated tests over the past seven months, the FDA found residues of unapproved drugs and food additives in Chinese seafood exports. Thursday's order was issued, the FDA said, because the agency found that the problem "is endemic throughout a country."

The contaminants -- including malachite green, fluoroquinolones, nitrofurans and gentian violet, which are used to inhibit parasite or fungus growth -- are below levels that could cause immediate harm to consumers, the FDA said, but long-term exposure could cause cancer. Fluoroquinolones in food animals also can increase antibiotic resistance, the agency said.

The seafood ban has long been sought after by the U.S. shrimp and catfish industries. Both groups have complained bitterly about the rising shipments of cheaper shrimp and catfish from China and other Asian countries, such as Thailand and Vietnam.

Imports up sharply

Seafood consumption has jumped dramatically in the U.S., rising from about 3.5 billion pounds in 1995 to more than 4.5 billion pounds in 2006. Imported seafood makes up about 80 percent of the U.S. supply, and most of that comes from Asia.

Shrimp is the most popular seafood in America, with imports in 2006 reaching 1.3 billion pounds.

Despite obvious food safety concerns, it is difficult to ignore the protectionist nature of the FDA seafood ban. The shrimp industry, in particular, has been hard hit by cheaper imports.

The U.S. shrimp industry has begun an advertising campaign that promotes the wild shrimp captured in southern U.S. waters, hoping to cast it in a favorable light against the pond-raised shrimp from Asia.

Eddie Gordon, executive director of the Wild American Shrimp campaign, said while sales are a primary concern, his group's members also are worried that an illness from foreign shrimp will leave consumers leery of all shrimp, domestic or imported.

"It's going to protect not only our consumers' health, which is primary, but also it's protecting our seafood industry," Gordon said of the FDA move.

The catfish industry, which is centered in Mississippi and Alabama, had turned to its state governments for help. Agriculture officials in both states have launched aggressive campaigns to test frozen catfish from China.

There is no evidence that the potential for food-borne illness was behind the FDA's decision. Instead, agency officials said tests showed that a quarter of the shrimp imported from China contained antibiotics not allowed in U.S. food production.

"We're taking this strong step because of current and continuing evidence that certain Chinese aquaculture products imported into the United States contain illegal substances that are not permitted in seafood sold in the United States," said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection.

The FDA's order, which is effective immediately, allows companies importing seafood to conduct tests to show the FDA that its seafood is clean of the banned substances.

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said that aspect of the FDA's ban is troublesome, as tests could be conducted in China. The agency's food safety standards, she said, are well behind those of the European Union, which inspects more imported seafood.

"The EU has very strict regulations," Hauter said. "They inspect 20 to 50 percent of seafood, depending on the species. ... The FDA is very far behind."

Currently, the FDA inspects about 1 percent of all imported food as it arrives.

Peril of furious growth

The addition of seafood to the list of affected products has exacerbated the perception that China's fast-growing economy is outpacing regulators and safe ingredients. And like any brand, China will have to repair public confidence.

"These issues are endemic of the fast growth of China," said Scott Kronick, president of Ogilvy PR China. "Things are getting through the system that normally they would have control over."

In the mountains outside Beijing, the rapid rise of aquaculture is unmistakable. The first tiny fish farms, each composed of a dozen or so cascading concrete pools, appeared in 2001, fed by the pure waters of what locals call Pearl Spring.

But by today, so many households had joined the business that water was being diverted into pipes and canals, warming in the sun and making the area's rainbow and brook trout more vulnerable to infection. Producers in that area do not yet have licenses to export to the United States, so the fish is sold on domestic markets.

Liu, the 52-year-old owner of Zhongjia Brook Trout Breeding Ground, has urged authorities to help small-scale fish farmers finance filter systems that would prevent further contamination without using drugs.

"Individual fisherman don't have enough money for facilities such as water treatment," she said. The farm, which she operates with her brother Liu Jianping, has been chosen to host a filtering pilot project this fall. In the meantime, they say they use only traditional herbal remedies, though they routinely see other operators beef up fish feed with agents such as ciprofloxacin, fluoroquinolones and malachite green.

"The government has banned some drugs, but there are no good drugs," said Liu Jianping. "So the farmers have no choice. They can't just watch the fish die."

– Chicago Tribune