Mekong River Catfish

Health risks threaten the nation’s catfish consumers, while a 2008 bill for regulation of the industry sits unimplemented. The United States imported 85 million pounds of catfish last year from farms in the Mekong river, and only 2% of the fish were examined by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Those that were examined tested positive for carcinogens, veterinary drugs, and salmonella because of unsafe farming.

Every year, 22,000 tons of industrial waste are dumped into the Mekong river, which runs through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The river’s banks are lined with cement and beer manufacturing plants as well as houses and toilets, and residents wash their clothing in the water. The catfish farms functioning in this river process 100 tons of fish for export per day. The Vietnamese government has warned the farms that their practices are unsafe and do not meet the health and safety standards of just about every country.

If implemented, the 2008 farm bill will switch responsibility for regulating imported catfish from the FDA to the better equipped US Department of Agriculture.

For those who crave catfish, there are options. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch site recommends looking “for the country-of-origin label to ensure you’re purchasing U.S. farm-raised catfish instead of imported catfish, like basa and swai, which are sometimes sold simply as ‘catfish.’”

Catfish farms in the U.S. are mostly located in Arkansas. They use fresh water and ecologically responsible and sustainable farming practices, but feed the fish a diet of corn and soybeans that Michael Pollan fans may find objectionable.

For more information on the conditions in the Mekong river, check out this Australian news segment on the subject:

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