The mystery-meat lobby bites back

Slapping country-of-origin labels on food products would benefit the global environment as well as American producers. So why did Congress just gut the new labeling bill?

By Katharine Mieszkowski

July 17, 2003 | From the mid-1980s onward, conservationists and marine biologists spent a decade lobbying for a law requiring U.S. shrimp trawlers to use sea turtle excluder devices.

Since prawns are small, the nets that harvest the diminutive critters also entrap tons of other sea creatures, gobbling up about four pounds of "by-catch" marine life for every one pound of shrimp.

The conservationists were successful. Since 1994, U.S. shrimpers have had no choice but to employ turtle-saving devices that allow the endangered reptiles to avoid becoming collateral damage on the way to meeting human demand for shrimp salad and shrimp-fried rice.

But this happy tale of turtle-liberation, brought to you by the wonders of shrimping technology and government regulation, has a hidden catch: $3 billion worth of the shrimp consumed annually in the U.S. is imported from elsewhere around the world, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

And that shrimp, produced by lower-cost labor and often without regard for the environment, is generally cheaper than fished-in-the-U.S.A. shrimp.

It's a classic globalization dilemma. A global market for seafood means that consumers in the U.S. have access to fish and shrimp from all over the world, and benefit from the low prices generated by fierce competition. But American producers get squeezed by that competition, and American consumers have no way to know whether each popcorn-fried nibble is a murderous attack on sea turtles or is instead blessed by environmentally sustainable good karma.

That's because no amount of public education by conservation groups like Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch and Seafood Choices Alliance, about the declining state of the world's oceans, can answer this question when you go to the grocery store: Where did that fishy in the window come from?

"Consumers going into the store have no idea where their meat came from. They're just looking at a wall of meat," says Patty Lovera, deputy director of the energy and environment program for the consumer group Public Citizen.

Those circumstances were supposed to change. On May 13, 2002, as part of Farm Bill 2002, President Bush signed into law legislation which mandated country-of-origin labeling for beef, lamb, seafood, fruits and vegetables by Sept. 30, 2004. The new law does not apply to restaurants, but requires retailers, like grocery stores, to label the country the food came from, and even distinguish between wild-caught and farmed fish.

But even as the new regulations are being crafted, they're under attack. On Monday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that cut the funding necessary to implement the labeling provisions ordered by the Farm Bill. Without that funding, the law is toothless.

Proper labeling could be the key to giving consumers the opportunity to make an informed choice -- and give producers who abide by environmental regulations or employ higher-priced labor the chance to successfully differentiate their product. But those goals conflict with the interests of packers, wholesalers and retailers. They want the freedom of a global source for commodities, without the expense and hassle of labeling.

Supporters of the original labeling bill are now lobbying the Senate to try to keep the funding. But as of Monday, the lobbyists for the distributors and retailers are winning. On the losing side stands an unlikely consortium: the American fishing industry, sea turtles and you, the consumer, trying to decide whether those cheap tiger prawns from Thailand are a steal of a deal or a devil's bargain.

Next page: A plague of shrimp farms