The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has said it would collectmore opinions until June 24, 2011, before determining which species mustundergo the “catfish” inspection programme.

USDAsaid in a press release on Feb. 18 that the Food, Conservation andEnergy Act of 2008, known as the 2008 Farm Bill, requires the departmentto define the term “catfish” for this new inspection programme.

Hence, USDA provided two options for the definition of “catfish” andseeks public comment on the issue. One option is the current labellingdefinition in the 2002 Farm Bill, which includes all species in thefamily “Ictaluridae”. The other option is to define “catfish” as allspecies in the order “Siluriformes”, including the three familiestypically found in human food channels, including “Ictaluridae”,“Pangsiidae”and “Clariidae”.

USDA also set out thenew requirements that will apply to “catfish” produced in or imported tothe US . Among these requirements is that products labelled as“catfish” must bear either a mark of inspection of USDA’s Food Safetyand Inspection Service (FSIS) or a mark of inspection from the countryfrom which they were exported.

During the inspectionprogramme, FSIS will focus on factors affecting the safety of theproduct being produced, such as water quality and feed.

The 2008 Farm Bill expanded the definition of “catfish”, includingVietnam’s tra fish, and brought “catfish” into the list of speciesunder management of USDA instead of the US Food and Drug Administration.

The move went counter to the previous regulationsunder which USDA had not considered Vietnam's tra fish as “catfish”and Vietnam’s tra fish were not permitted to be labelled as “catfish”when being exported to the US.

Industry insiderssaid the US’s new bill aims to protect the domestic “catfish”industry and hamper Vietnam’s tra fish exports. It also threatens toderail US-Vietnam trade relations./.