The Agriculture Department will take over responsibility from the Food and Drug Administration for inspection of catfish slaughter and processing plants in March 2016, ending years of pressure by domestic growers for a new regulator. The Food Safety and Inspection Service, in releasing a final version of inspection rules, set an 18-month transition period. Beginning in March, FSIS said catfish plants would face the same level of inspection as livestock plants – inspectors full-time on the slaughter line and at least once per shift at processing plants. During the transition, it will conduct species and residue testing at least once every three months at import establishments. Countries that wish to continue exporting catfish to the United States must submit an application during the transition period.
“The rules come seven years after lawmakers from the South, at the request of catfish farmers in states like Mississippi and Alabama, secured legislation in the 2008 farm law that moved inspections of catfish from the Food and Drug Administration to a more rigorous program at a new office within the Agriculture Department,” said the New York Times. “Domestic producers of catfish called it a safety measure but opponents said it was a veiled trade barrier intended to limit imports.”