The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board is proposing new standard to adopt later this month under which all farmed fish are labeled organic. Wild fish can be labeled organic if they’re sold as fish meal, but not if they’re sold for human consumption. The Alaskan seafood industry spoke out against the rule saying that this whole organic thing has come around twisted so far.
It is found that commercial fishermen haven’t been interested in garnering that label, though their opinions vary. Fishermen’s groups tried and failed in past years. But they generally agree that if farmed fish that eat wild fish get the magic organic label, the wild fish in supermarkets should get that marketing benefit, too. Mark Vinsel, executive director of United Fishermen of Alaska, opined that there’s no way they can know more about the history of their wild fish meal than we know about our wild fisheries.
The standards board said organic customers may or may not want to consume” farmed fish that have been fed wild fish, and so proposes to require that all such fish carry the label “Fed sustainably sourced wild fish next” to the name of the fish. Geoff Shester said that’s not good enough. Shester is the senior science manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, which does scientific reviews of farmed and wild fisheries’ sustainability to help consumers decide what to buy.
