China and the economics of seafood
When we moved to New England last year, I looked forward to eating more seafood, locally sourced. The first clue I had that my expectations were not grounded in reality was when I discovered that the cod in grocery stores was Alaskan/Pacific cod. Turns out, a lot of the seafood on your plate was likely sourced through Chinese fishing fleets whose crews are suffering from problematic labor practices.
“Fishermen, in particular, are falling sick with and dying from beriberi because they’re being compelled to spend longer and longer periods of time — often years — at sea in illegal and intolerable conditions.
“There is absolutely no reason people should be getting, much less dying from, this disease,” says Nicola Pocock, who teaches at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “Beriberi fatality at sea is a red flag for severe neglect or captivity.”
“Much of this story concerns China and the labor practices of its distant-water fishing fleet, which are deeply problematic. But just about any American who eats seafood may also be implicated. More than 80 percent of the seafood eaten by Americans, including most likely the fish sticks, calamari, and tuna served at your favorite New England restaurant, is imported. Much of that has been either caught by Chinese ships — ships that are regularly engaging in the appalling practices that can cause beriberi to occur — or processed in China before it is sold in this country.”
Chinese outlaw fishing practices
From the Globe story …
I lived in the Boston area, out in Lexington, from the 70s through the 90s, and it was nearly impossible to get fresh seafood. There were one or two stores, where if you were careful, you might be able to get something fresh, but it was iffy. There was a brief period of about two years when a Japanese restaurant was closed for remodeling and they opened a small fish store with other Japanese groceries. That was the only time we had a reliable supplier of fresh fish. We’d even buy fish on trips to NYC or DC and haul them back on ice because getting fresh fish was nearly impossible at home.
We used to wonder at this. Supposedly, Boston is associated with seafood, but despite this, good seafood was hard to find. Our theory was that the good seafood was sold in NYC. It made sense. Even if your boat was based in the Boston area, you could sell your fish in NYC thanks to refrigerated trucks. Odds are, the prices were better and you could get a premium for something special. Boston was a rotten food town when we were there, so there wasn’t even much of a high end restaurant market as there was in the metropolis to the southwest.
Now, we live in the Seattle area, and we can buy fresh local fish. We include fish caught in Alaskan waters as local. I’m sure we can get a good supply of Chinese processed heaven knows what in the middle aisles of our supermarket, but a lot of locals fish, so they can tell farmed Atlantic salmon from local Pacific salmon by look and taste.
@Kaleberg,
We live in Rumford RI, about an hour south of Boston. Certainly no shortage of seafood here, both in groceries and restaurants. However, I cannot say whether it is local or flown in.
Of course, we lived in St. Louis MO for 40 years and never had a problem getting fresh seafood and sushi/sashimi. I’m quite certain it wasn’t locally sourced.
Food sources of thiamin include whole grains, meat, and fish [2]. Breads, cereals, and infant formulas in the United States and many other countries are fortified with thiamin [2]. The most common sources of thiamin in the U.S. diet are cereals and bread.
People suffering from beriberi fish for fish and do not eat fish to gain thiamin? Kind of strange. Unless you are a slave.
It happens I don’t much care for seafood (other than chowdah & shrimp), but Mrs Fred sure does. Since reading this piece in the Globe, I poked around to try to understand where our seafood is coming from. The factory fishing ships may be off our coasts, but local restaurants (Legal Seafoods?) insist their goods are freshly caught. Hard to believe really that our local scrod went to China before it returned here. Is that a point this article is trying to make?
I certainly commiserate with anybody who has to spend three straight years on a ship, under such miserable conditions.
From Legal’s website …
(Where does it come from? They don’t say, that I could find. I assume it’s local.)
@Fred,
“Hard to believe really that our local scrod went to China before it returned here. Is that a point this article is trying to make?”
The point the article is trying to make is that Chinese fishing practices are leading to human rights abuses among the crew, and that much of the seafood in the US is the result of these practices.
Those would be two quite separate problems, alas.
By ‘article’ I was referring to the one in the Globe, which didn’t seem to say much of anything about whether Legal’s was selling fish that started near here and was routed back to us through China. Not your post.
It did also cause me to visit the web site of a strictly local non-chain seafood restaurant dearly loved by Mrs Fred where the prices are through the roof & we never visit anymore. Prices there have only risen to greater heights.
I am at least vaguely aware that fishermen out of Boston & coastal communities are complaining that ‘outsiders’ are harvesting too much fish & too little is left for them (& us.) Consumer prices would seem to confirm this.
@Fred,
“By ‘article’ I was referring to the one in the Globe . . .”
Yes, I know. So was I. The point the Globe article is trying to make is that Chinese fishing practices are leading to human rights abuses among the crew, and that much of the seafood in the US is the result of these practices. It was not about the precise path by which Chinese-caught fish reaches American markets.
I doubt that much if any US-caught-by-China fish is making it back to the Boston area, although the Globe article doesn’t say (unless I missed it.)
What is likely happening is that the fish catch by our local fisherman is smaller, and that has driven up local prices throughout the Northeast even, not that it’s bad fish.
Obviously, since I don’t eat (much) fish, I only care about what Mrs Fred has access to, and she’s not complaining about poor quality fish, just expensive fish.
(You) discovered that the cod in grocery stores was Alaskan/Pacific cod.
In the Boston area, presumably this would be because local fisherman have smaller catches. Cod used to be pretty plentiful in nearby ocean waters.
@Fred,
“U.S. fishing quotas for Atlantic cod are so low that most fishermen avoid them altogether, said Terry Alexander, a fisherman based out of Harpswell, Maine. Those same fishermen target other species of bottom-dwelling whitefish such as haddock and flounder.
“We can’t catch cod. The quota is so low that nobody could target cod. Nobody,” Alexander said. “That’s how we’re going to handle it.”
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/05/10/maine-massachusetts-cod-fishing-industry-record-low-catch
@Fred,
Your doubts don’t interest me. I’m interested in data.
“These new revelations about the global seafood industry have serious implications for American consumers and policymakers because more than 80% of the seafood consumed by Americans is imported, and the largest portion of that is caught by Chinese ships or processed in China’s factories.
“By some estimates, half of the fish sticks served in American public schools are processed in China. Fish tainted by Chinese forced labor is even showing up in military base cafeterias, federal prison canteens and veterans homes’ dining halls, paid for by federal and state tax dollars. Such seafood also lines the shelves of our major grocery stores, including Albertsons, Costco, Kroger and Walmart.
“Even fish marketed as “locally caught” is tainted by these labor and human rights problems associated with China because much of the fish coming out of U.S. waters and onto U.S.-flagged ships is frozen, sent to China for processing, refrozen and shipped back to America.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/10/11/us-seafood-china-human-trafficking-uyghur-forced-labor/71127786007/
Hopefully, the cod that you can find that come from the Northwest instead of the Northeast, or whatever other white fish that suits yer fancy from the Northeast, is satisfactory, or much more so than whatever is obtained from China, taken much earlier from New England waters.
I came upon this the other day. Maybe it’s helpful.
12 Best And Worst Grocery Stores To Buy Fish
Best are Costco, Kroger, Wegman’s & Whole Foods.
The last two, at least, I recognize as having grocery stores in my area.
Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishing Year 2023 Catch Limits
NOAA – August 17
NOAA Fisheries Announces Reduced Catch Limits for Atlantic Mackerel
NOAA = October 12
https://www.magzter.com/stories/culture/The-New-Yorker/THE-SHADOW-ARMADA
Same writer (Ian Urbina), same story and more in the New Yorker
Damning
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/the-crimes-behind-the-seafood-you-eat
Where to Eat Spectacular Seafood around Boston
Boston Magazine – June 20, 2023
(Links removed.)
Have a look here:
Fred:
Like I said previously. Too many links and the “system,” not I, puts you in the trash. Just a heads up . . .
Links being generally useful things that certainly don’t take up space, excluding posts that contain them seems (dare I say) ‘silly’, to me.
I’ve noticed that Paul Krugman often goes wild with links for some reason.
Fred:
You have been told this would occur earlier.