Deborah Koff Ross: “the farm-raised catfish industry is an important part of the economy in my congressional district that covers the…”

“the farm-raised catfish industry is an important part of the economy in my congressional district that covers the southern third of Arkansas. In fact, Arkansas is third in catfish sales in the Nation, behind only Mississippi and Alabama, with nearly $66 million, or 13 percent, of the total U.S. sales. I recently met with catfish farmers in southeast Arkansas, and I can tell my colleagues that catfish producers in my district are upset that so-called catfish are being dumped into our markets from Vietnam and sold as farm-raised catfish. The truth is that it is not farm raised, and I am not even sure it is catfish. Last year, imports of Vietnamese catfish totaled 7 million pounds, more than triple the 2 million pounds imported in 1999 and more than 12 times the 575,000 pounds imported in 1998. In Vietnam, these so-called catfish, also known as basa, can be produced at a much lower cost, due to cheap labor and less stringent environmental regulations. In fact, many of these fish are grown in floating cages in the Mekong River, exposing the fish to pollutants and other conditions. They are then dumped into American markets and often marketed as farm-raised catfish. Many catfish producers believe that these imports have taken away as much as 10 percent of our markets here at home. It is really quite simple. Farmers do not mind competition, but they do mind when the competition is unfair and untruthful.”