The Free Market

[finehoe]

Asian Seafood Raised on Pig Feces Approved for U.S. Consumers

At Ngoc Sinh Seafoods Trading & Processing Export Enterprise, a seafood exporter on Vietnam’s southern coast, workers stand on a dirty floor sorting shrimp one hot September day. There’s trash on the floor, and flies crawl over baskets of processed shrimp stacked in an unchilled room in Ca Mau.

Elsewhere in Ca Mau, Nguyen Van Hoang packs shrimp headed for the U.S. in dirty plastic tubs. He covers them in ice made with tap water that the Vietnamese Health Ministry says should be boiled before drinking because of the risk of contamination with bacteria. Vietnam ships 100 million pounds of shrimp a year to the U.S. That’s almost 8 percent of the shrimp Americans eat.

Using ice made from tap water in Vietnam is dangerous because it can spread bacteria to the shrimp, microbiologist Mansour Samadpour says, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

“Those conditions -- ice made from dirty water, animals near the farms, pigs -- are unacceptable,” says Samadpour, whose company, IEH Laboratories & Consulting Group, specializes in testing water for shellfish farming.

Ngoc Sinh has been certified as safe by Geneva-based food auditor SGS SA, says Nguyen Trung Thanh, the company’s general director.

“We are trying to meet international standards,” Thanh says.

SGS spokeswoman Jennifer Buckley says her company has no record of auditing Ngoc Sinh.

At Chen Qiang’s tilapia farm in Yangjiang city in China’s Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, Chen feeds fish partly with feces from hundreds of pigs and geese. That practice is dangerous for American consumers, says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety.

“The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella,” says Doyle, who has studied foodborne diseases in China.

On a sweltering, overcast day in August, the smell of excrement is overpowering. After seeing dead fish on the surface, Chen, 45, wades barefoot into his murky pond to open a pipe that adds fresh water from a nearby canal. Exporters buy his fish to sell to U.S. companies.

Yang Shuiquan, chairman of a government-sponsored tilapia aquaculture association in Lianjiang, 200 kilometers from Yangjiang, says he discourages using feces as food because it contaminates water and makes fish more susceptible to diseases. He says a growing number of Guangdong farmers adopt that practice anyway because of fierce competition.

“Many farmers have switched to feces and have stopped using commercial feed,” he says.

About 27 percent of the seafood Americans eat comes from China -- and the shipments that the FDA checks are frequently contaminated, the FDA has found. The agency inspects only about 2.7 percent of imported food. Of that, FDA inspectors have rejected 1,380 loads of seafood from Vietnam since 2007 for filth and salmonella, including 81 from Ngoc Sinh, agency records show. The FDA has rejected 820 Chinese seafood shipments since 2007, including 187 that contained tilapia.

To contact the reporters for this story: Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen in Hanoi at uyen1@bloomberg.net

William Bi in Beijing at wbi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Neumann at jneumann2@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/asian-seafood-raised-on-pig-feces-approved-for-u-s-consumers.html

[Debbie Thompson]

Yikes. No more fish or shrimp for me unless I know the source.

[ben says]

Sadly, this practice (in some way, shape, or form) has been going on for decades. Heard on NPR the other day that farmers in the Cornbelt are feeding their cows candy right now because it's cheaper than grain.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/10/news/economy/farmers-cows-candy-feed/

Profit over anything else, folks.

Also, on another note, the title of this thread "The Free Market"--there is no such thing.

[finehoe]

Heard on NPR the other day that farmers in the Cornbelt are feeding their cows candy right now because it's cheaper than grain.

Worse than that:  COWS FED CHICKEN FECES, RECYCLED COW REMAINS (http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_food_safety/015272.html)

[Parag Adhyaru]

Thankfully in Jacksonville there is Mayport and thus no reason to eat shrimp that comes all the way from the far east.  Also, as far as beef goes Native Sun sells Cowboy Meats grass fed beef which is from neighboring Baker county. It is a decent option.

Best,
Parag

[Adam W]

Thankfully in Jacksonville there is Mayport and thus no reason to eat shrimp that comes all the way from the far east.  Also, as far as beef goes Native Sun sells Cowboy Meats grass fed beef which is from neighboring Baker county. It is a decent option.

Best,
Parag

Assuming, of course, that you know where the shrimp is coming from. A bit of due diligence goes a long way when choosing a restaurant.

[If_I_Loved_you]

Thankfully in Jacksonville there is Mayport and thus no reason to eat shrimp that comes all the way from the far east.  Also, as far as beef goes Native Sun sells Cowboy Meats grass fed beef which is from neighboring Baker county. It is a decent option.

Best,
Parag

Yesterday while I waited for my crablegs to be steamed at Publix. I was near the meat case and I saw a package of hamburger meat that said it was grass fed beef. But I put it down after seeing the cost for the little package of meat. I believe it was $10.49 and it wasn't very heavy?

[buckethead]

I agree the title is a misnomer. This has apparently been approved by a government regulatory agency. What is being outlawed (gradually, but effectively) is the growing and sale of food by small farmers and individuals.

Is it corporations or is it government to blame?

The answer is yes.

[ben says]

Thankfully in Jacksonville there is Mayport and thus no reason to eat shrimp that comes all the way from the far east.  Also, as far as beef goes Native Sun sells Cowboy Meats grass fed beef which is from neighboring Baker county. It is a decent option.

Best,
Parag

Yesterday while I waited for my crablegs to be steamed at Publix. I was near the meat case and I saw a package of hamburger meat that said it was grass fed beef. But I put it down after seeing the cost for the little package of meat. I believe it was $10.49 and it wasn't very heavy?

Odd....1 lb of real, grassfed beef coming out of Southern GA is less than $7 from Publix.

Is it corporations or is it government to blame?

Corporations and government: one and the same!

[If_I_Loved_you]

I agree the title is a misnomer. This has apparently been approved by a government regulatory agency. What is being outlawed (gradually, but effectively) is the growing and sale of food by small farmers and individuals.

Is it corporations or is it government to blame?

The answer is yes.

It's both! But while we still can we need to fight and buy from the small farmer. If you're a vegan you could grow your own. But that's not me I like meat so when it comes to buying meat it may say Winn Dixie or Publix on it but they are buying their meat from the large corporation farmers.

[If_I_Loved_you]

Thankfully in Jacksonville there is Mayport and thus no reason to eat shrimp that comes all the way from the far east.  Also, as far as beef goes Native Sun sells Cowboy Meats grass fed beef which is from neighboring Baker county. It is a decent option.

Best,
Parag

Yesterday while I waited for my crablegs to be steamed at Publix. I was near the meat case and I saw a package of hamburger meat that said it was grass fed beef. But I put it down after seeing the cost for the little package of meat. I believe it was $10.49 and it wasn't very heavy?

Odd....1 lb of real, grassfed beef coming out of Southern GA is less than $7 from Publix.

Is it corporations or is it government to blame?

Corporations and government: one and the same!

I was at the Riverside Publix I will recheck that price I could have read it wrong?

[If_I_Loved_you]

Thankfully in Jacksonville there is Mayport and thus no reason to eat shrimp that comes all the way from the far east.  Also, as far as beef goes Native Sun sells Cowboy Meats grass fed beef which is from neighboring Baker county. It is a decent option.

Best,
Parag

Yesterday while I waited for my crablegs to be steamed at Publix. I was near the meat case and I saw a package of hamburger meat that said it was grass fed beef. But I put it down after seeing the cost for the little package of meat. I believe it was $10.49 and it wasn't very heavy?

Odd....1 lb of real, grassfed beef coming out of Southern GA is less than $7 from Publix.

Is it corporations or is it government to blame?

Corporations and government: one and the same!

I was at the Riverside Publix I will recheck that price I could have read it wrong?

I checked with Publix it wasn't $10.49 it was ($7.29 for a one pound package.)