"The domestic shrimp industry is facing a disastrous collapse at the hands of cheap, often illegally produced and unfairly traded farm-raised shrimp," said the Southern Shrimp Alliance.
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Congresswoman Nancy Mace has introduced the Protect American Fisheries Act of 2024 which will expand the Fishery Resource Disaster Assistance Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to address economic causes.
These causes include activities by foreign governments, companies, or international financial institutions that distort the U.S. seafood market or impact any U.S. fishery's operational or economic viability.
According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA), this bill comes at a timely moment as "the domestic shrimp industry is facing a disastrous collapse at the hands of cheap, often illegally produced and unfairly traded farm-raised shrimp imports overwhelming the U.S. market and driving prices down to a level that can no longer support shrimp fishing operations."
SSA assures that a "significant" amount of the annual 1.8 billion pounds of U.S. shrimp imports are produced in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing fisheries.
Last year, NOAA rejected the requests from the governor of Alabama and the governor of Louisiana, encouraged by the SSA, for a fishery resource disaster determination. The purpose was for the shrimp fishery to become eligible for the necessary federal assistance.
Basically, NOAA rejected the requests because the disaster was not caused by a natural cause, a discrete anthropogenic cause, or an undetermined cause and that the decision not to fish was based on economic factors.
"We are so grateful to Congresswoman Mace for recognizing what NOAA apparently did not – that fishery disasters can be caused just as much by the economic impacts of cheap illegal imports and predatory pricing as by a hurricane or fish stock collapse," SSA Executive Director John Williams expressed.
In contrast, NOAA, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Peru’s Ministry of Production (Produce) held in May the 'Workshop for Port State Controllers on the Port State Measures Agreement' (AMERP) to fight IUU fishing.