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Farmed in China's Foul Waters, Imported Fish Treated With Drugs
Zhu Zhiqiu, left, and a worker at his catfish farm in southern China prepare to feed the fish.
(By Ariana Eunjung Cha -- The Washington Post)
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"It is related to the dirty water from the factories," Tingting said. "So they use drugs to try to kill algae, to change the water quality."
The Chinese catfish industry was born in the late 1980s after government researchers acquired fingerlings of U.S. catfish and began promoting it as a possible export industry. Catfish breeding centers were set up in a half-dozen provinces along the eastern shore. In Jiangxi province where Zhu lives, familiar fisheries were bought out and consolidated to focus on catfish exports back in 2005.
Zhu's is one of eight fisheries in the area that sells to the Xiajiang Agricultural Industry Development, a processing company that fillets and freezes the fish. It is a high-risk but lucrative industry for the region, with a profit margin that can be as much as 40 percent for farmers and 30 percent for processors.
Liu Tianyuan, factory manager for the processing company, said profit would be even greater, even 20 percent more, if the plants were not so concerned about quality. He said the company spends a lot of money each year training its farmers on how to best use drugs safely and tests each batch of fish for illegal contaminants three times during its seven- to eight-month growing cycle.
Xiajiang sells the fish to Icelandic USA, which breads the fillets and sells them to food-service companies or through its own retail brand as "Southern-Style Biscuit Battered Catfish Fillets" at grocery stores.
In a statement, Icelandic said it supports the FDA restrictions and that it ensures quality by boarding vessels with its seafood, and checking the farms and production facilities. All of its suppliers are "required to test their products for all banned substances by an official certified laboratory," it said.
Meanwhile, catfish farmers like Zhu remain anxious. He has invested his life savings, about $650,000, in the fishery and is not sure what he would do if his catfish were blocked by the United States. All he can do, he said, is wait and hope the United States will "be fair."
Zhu should know soon. The ships carrying the next batch of catfish from Wugong are scheduled to arrive in Norfolk on July 18.
Staff researcher Crissie Ding contributed to this report.
