ASSOCIATED PRESS / MARCH 12
Pradeep Sivaraman, secretary of the Indian Marine Export Development Authority, in an interview at the North American Seafood Expo in Boston. Sivaraman says India is committed to providing quality shrimp to U. S. buyers, but did not respond to questions about hard work and environmental issues.
RELATED PRESS / MARCH 11
Frozen shrimp are on display at the Indian Marine Export Development Authority’s booth at the North American Seafood Expo in Boston.
RELATED PRESS / MARCH 11
Frozen prawns, right, are displayed with other seafood in a freezer at the Indian Marine Export Development Authority’s booth at the North American Seafood Expo in Boston. The Seafood Export Development Authority is an Indian seafood corporation that exports to the United States.
SAN FRANCISCO >> Noriko Kuwabara was excited to see a new recipe for crispy shrimp spring rolls she’d noticed on social media, so she and her husband headed to Costco’s frozen food aisle. But when he pulled a bag of farmed shrimp out of the freezer and saw “Product of India,” he wrinkled his nose.
“I try to avoid shrimp from India,” said Kuwabara, an artist. “I hear bad things about how they’re grown there. “
He sighed and threw the bag into his cart anyway.
Kuwabara’s is one faced by a growing number of U. S. consumers: Since shrimp is the country’s primary seafood, that country’s biggest supplier is India, where the industry is grappling with hard work and environmental issues.
The Associated Press traveled to the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in February to document ongoing situations in the booming sector, after obtaining an initial copy of an investigation released Wednesday through the Chicago-based Corporate Accountability Lab, a human rights law group, that uncovered faces of “unsafe and abusive situations. “
Palestinian Authority journalists visited shrimp farms, breeding ponds, peeling sheds and warehouses, and interviewed workers, supervisors and union organizers.
India has the largest supplier of shrimp to the U. S. It is used in the U. S. , and accounts for about 40% of the shrimp fed in the U. S. The U. S. Navy, in part because the media, adding an AP investigation, revealed popular slavery in Thailand’s fishing industry. The 2015 AP report led to the release of some 2,000 enslaved fishermen and prompted calls to ban Thai shrimp, which dominated the market.
In India, citizens told the AP that newly dug hatcheries and ponds had infected the water and soil of nearby communities, leaving them on the verge of producing crops, especially the rice they depend on for food.
From the ponds, trucks transported the shrimp to the sheds to be peeled. In one shed, dozens of women, some barefoot, stood on narrow wooden benches and endured 10-hour workdays peeling shrimp covered in crushed ice. With bare hands or dressed in dirty clothes. After tearing the gloves, the women ripped off their heads, legs, and shells, allowing the American chefs to simply open a bag and toss the shrimp into a pan.
From India, shrimp travel by the ton, frozen in shipping containers, to the United States, more than 8,000 miles away. It is almost very unlikely to know where an express shrimp ends up and whether a shipment to the United States has any connection to abusive labor practices. And Indian shrimp is sold in U. S. retail branches such as Walmart, Target, and Sam’s Club and in supermarkets such as Kroger and Safeway.
Senior respondents to questions from the AP said they deplored human rights abuses and environmental damage and would investigate.
“If we are informed that serious problems could arise at a supplier’s facility, either through allegations or audits, we send Walmart investigators to collect data through facility visits or by other means,” said Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. said in a statement. That’s why we’re in the allegations raised through The Associated Press. “
Pradeep Sivaraman, secretary of India’s Marine Export Development Authority, a government agency, traveled to the United States this month to build his country’s shrimp industry at the bustling Seafood Expo North America in Boston. A chef at the Indian stall sautéed a hot shrimp curry dish in front of a box full of frozen prawns.
Before concluding a brief interview, Sivaraman said India is committed to providing quality shrimp to U. S. buyers. He declined to answer questions about labor and environmental issues.
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Erugula Baby, a 51-year-old widow and homeless, sold her gold jewelry — her only savings — and then took out loan after loan in her rural village in India when her son died of liver disease. Her debt exceeded $8,500 and her son did not survive. Today, she raises her granddaughters and tries to pay off her loans, her daughter-in-law with her studies and, on a good day, eat a small amount of rice. He said he worked in brutal conditions, peeling, cutting and sorting shrimp. in a factory for less than $4 a day, $2 less than minimum wage.
“Running is hard,” she says, wiping away tears with the corner of her red sari. “Standing for long hours peeling and slicing bloodless shrimp takes a toll on my body. “
Baby and other staff members said they pay recruiters about 25 cents a day of their salary just to get into the processing shed. Transportation on corporate buses is also deducted from some employees’ salaries, as well as the cost of lunches in corporate canteens. Many staff are out of contract and have no recourse if they are injured on the job.
Another peeler, Penupothula Ratnam, said she suffered constant back pain from the hard work, for which she paid about $3 a day.
“It’s enough to live on,” she said, breaking down in tears. He rarely has a day off, he says.
In India, many other people are suffering in a context of endemic poverty, debt and unemployment. Women the AP spoke to said work, despite oppressive conditions, was their only chance to avoid starvation. The economic engines go beyond shrimp and India, to the problems of globalization and Western power.
Desperately deficient women told the AP they were not paid overtime as required by law, in addition to not receiving India’s minimum wage. Some said they were locked up in guarded inns when they weren’t peeling shrimp. The paintings were unsanitary to the point that the painters’ hands were infected and lacked the protection and hygienic protections required by Indian law. And it doesn’t meet U. S. food protection legal criteria. U. S. Marine and Marine Goods Imports are required for all seafood imports.
Dr. Sushmitha Meda, a dermatologist at a nearby government hospital in the city of Kakinada, said she treats four to five shrimp peelers each day. Some suffer from nail fungus, which occurs through tiny cracks that allow germs to cause infections. Other women have hands or even entire hands darkened by frostbite. Meda said she had to be amputated.
It’s a preventable problem, he says. Cotton gloves covered with latex gloves can protect hands from peelers, but few can cover a three-dollar box of gloves.
The Corporate Responsibility Lab said U. S. importers would possibly never encounter desperate and abused shrimp peelers, as India’s major exporters invite auditors into their own facilities and use them as a “showcase for foreign buyers. “
On the other hand, “auditors should inspect peeling shops,” the report reads.
And while the companies’ biggest processing conveniences appear to be assembly hygiene and hard work standards, CAL said, there are hidden abuses in the inns where shrimp shellers are housed. CAL found that staff were living “in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, under the careful supervision of corporate guards,” and were only allowed to leave the premises once a month.
“No one can enter, no one can faint without permission,” union organizer Chekkala Rajkumar, district secretary of the Indian Trade Union Center, told the AP of the gigantic amenities in his area. He compared them to the British colonial penal colonies. ” Anyone who talks about career situations is expelled. This is not a worker-friendly environment. She explained that pregnant women abort because of hard work.
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In a tin-roofed processing shed, AP reporters observed dozens of women running in unsanitary and harmful conditions. The shrimp, taken from the ponds in barrels, were stirred with their hands in dirty water. Once rinsed, they were placed on ice-covered tables. , where women peeled one shrimp at a time. Many treated the shrimp with their bare hands. Some women wore bandages over their injured fingers. Some women wore their hair long hanging from the shrimp.
Shrimp from this facility were then loaded into giant plastic crates onto a truck with the “NEKKANTI” branding painted in giant letters. Managers of the small shed said Nekkanti Sea Foods and other major brands outsource the labor-intensive peeling and deveining paints to cut costs. .
Nekkanti, however, says all of its shrimp are processed in a handful of large processing facilities owned by the company and approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. U. S. peelers in an immaculate room, with gleaming tables and staff dressed in gloves, headdresses, masks, rubber boots and aprons.
John Ducar, an adviser to the board of directors of Nekkanti Sea Foods, said the company had nothing to do with the peeling shed he visited through the AP and that his branded truck was only there because he rented it to another company. He provided a document indicating that Nekkanti had earned $3,600 from the four-month lease of a truck with the license plate number noted through the AP.
“It seems as if we’re looking at the operations of a completely separate company,” he said.
The company named in the document responded to a request for comment.
While Nekkanti has no connection to the hangar or shipping observed by the AP, Ducar said, the company will work at locations in nearby shrimp sheds and is reconsidering renting its trucks.
U. S. industry records show that Nekkanti shipped more than 726 units of farmed shrimp from India to the U. S. In the past year, according to industry data from ImportGenius. Records show the shipments were destined for major U. S. seafood distributors. AJC International Inc. Fish of the East, CenSea, Jetro Cash
Importers who responded to requests for comment on potential labor abuses said they would investigate, and in the meantime, some would postpone operations.
“At Rich Products, we treat those claims with the utmost seriousness,” say owners of frozen shrimp with the SeaPak logo. “We are prepared to investigate any allegations and take decisive corrective action in response to any well-founded complaints. “
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Last month, along a busy road, men disposed of shrimp nets from ponds dug into fields and mangroves, destroying critical ecosystems. Local villagers said the developing industry has not only led to abusive operating conditions, but is also damaging their environment.
The huge, murky ponds and their poisonous algae, chemicals and sewage have made it highly unlikely that they will grow and poison their water, they said. CAL researchers say antibiotic use is widespread all the way to outbreaks. The use of antibiotics in shrimp farming and other agricultural spaces can lead to a buildup of drug-resistant infections, a developing challenge in the United States.
“Basically, we feel lost,” said Areti Vasu, a farmer who said he was beaten and jailed in failed protests to block the progress of a 57-acre shrimp processing plant and a bloodless garage adjacent to his rice paddies. “Our lives, our land, our agricultural pride, new air and clean water – all is lost. We are destined to live here in disgrace.
The vice president of Jonnalagaruvu village, Koyya Sampath Rao, helped build the huge facility in the first place, ignoring warnings from environmentalists.
“Unfortunately, their predictions have come true,” he said. Our waterways are now polluted, farmland is barren, yields are declining, and the afternoon air is full of pollutants. “
Indian authorities have at times rejected formal court cases over lack of environmental impact in testing and violations of coastal regulations.
Among the trucks loaded with shrimp at a village pond, there’s one with a giant sign: “Welcome KingWhite. “In the past year, Wellcome has shipped 3,800 tons of shrimp to the U. S. The U. S. Seafood, according to industry data from ImportGenius, which comes with suppliers Great American Seafood Imports Co. , Pacific Coral Seafood and Ore-Cal.
Sysco, the country’s largest food retailer, has imported from Nekkanti and Wellcome in the past. A spokesperson said they stopped doing business with Wellcome in 2022 after the Indian company “refused to allow us to conduct the required social audit at their premises. “Wellcome responded to requests for comment.
Sysco’s spokesperson said the company had suspended receipt of any Nekkanti products after the AP’s request this month and would open an investigation.
Sysco “will continue to require all of its suppliers to respect hard work and human rights standards,” the company said in a statement.
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The majority of U. S. consumers say they prefer to buy food produced in the U. S. But with 5% of shrimp sold in the U. S. trapped there, shrimp from the U. S. U. S. stores can be harder to locate and significantly more expensive.
In the 1970s, the United States was the world leader in shrimp production. Shrimp was considered a delicacy. Diners were served delicious shrimp cocktails with fewer than a dozen seafood harvested from the East, West and Gulf coasts.
Over the next two decades, the use of cheap shrimp farming technologies spread to Asia and imports flooded the market. Today, in the U. S. , where more than five pounds of user-friendly shrimp are fed each year, consumers expect all-encompassing shrimp buffets and frozen bags for $10 at their markets.
There are a number of systems that fail to prevent shrimp produced by hard or forced labor from reaching the tables of Americans.
On the one hand, shrimp is plentiful in the Gulf of Mexico, but U. S. fishing communities have stricter and more expensive environmental and hard-working criteria than their Asian counterparts. Last year, officials in the region asked for monetary assistance, which is not easy for states. and the federal government allege a crisis in the fisheries sector because they cannot compete with reasonable imports that account for 95% of the market.
The application is pending. If approved, boat owners get checks for a few thousand dollars, well below their losses.
“Louisiana’s many small, family-owned shrimp advertising businesses are facing an unprecedented collapse because of the devastating effects that giant volumes of imported shrimp are having on domestic shrimp prices at the docks,” then-Gov. John Bel Edwards said last fall.
U. S. Customs and Border Protection is guilty of blocking imports of products made with forced labor and in recent years has banned imports of certain cottons from China, gold from the Democratic Republic of Congo and sugar from the Dominican Republic. No product has been prohibido. de India.
Eric Choy, director of CBP’s Bureau of Commerce, said CBP is investigating allegations of abuse.
“You’d expect there to be a magic button that could be pressed to ban anything created by forced labor, but that’s a much more complicated task,” he said. “It forces us to follow the path. “
Last year, the FDA denied access to shipments of shrimp containing antibiotics; 37 of them were shrimp exported from India.
The Departments of Labor and Commerce have taken no meaningful action, despite court cases from U. S. shrimpers over unfair trade.
“For too long, India has engaged in unfair industrial practices that have caused economic damage to our domestic shrimp industry,” said Trey Pearson, president of the American Shrimp Processors Association.
U. S. corporations rely on industry organizations and auditors to get their shrimp imports raised and processed safely, legally, and environmentally friendly.
The National Fisheries Institute, the largest U. S. fishing industry agreement, has announced that the U. S. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration is collaborating with seafood importers to address environmental and operational situations in shrimp farming.
“Any abuse of hard work in the price chain is abhorrent and will need to be addressed immediately,” said Gavin Gibbons, NFI’s chief strategy officer.
The Global Seafood Alliance’s Aquaculture Best Practices Seal of Approval appears on almost all Indian imports, certifying that the chain of origin meets its highest standards.
“We take those issues very seriously,” the organization said in an emailed statement.
OCL said certifications of aquaculture’s most productive practices are performative.
“Despite strict criteria on paper, its implementation is weak,” the report says.
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Fisherman and Paul Greenberg said they see a long-term in which the shrimp Americans eat aren’t wild-caught or farmed — they’re grown in the lab. He said clinical studies are underway to expand those products and that since shrimp aren’t scaly like fish, they deserve to be less difficult to produce with living cells.
In the meantime, she’s trying vegan shrimp, “the shrimp that never die. “The texture is good, he says, and the smoothness impressive.
Human rights activists say cost cuts at U. S. supermarkets, restaurants and wholesalers are forcing manufacturers to supply cheaper shrimp without regard for operating situations and the environment.
CAL says Indian corporations will have to pay decent wages and comply with labour, health, protection and environmental laws. In addition, the organization says U. S. corporations want to make sure that the value they pay for shrimp is enough for Indian exporters to treat staff fairly. . And, they say, the Indian and U. S. governments will have to enforce existing laws.
“The presence of widespread labor abuses and environmental destruction in India’s shrimp sector is undeniable,” said Allie Brudney, a senior official at the OCL. “American restaurants and grocery stores want to eliminate those unethical practices from their home chains.
Environmentalist Marla Valentine, who leads the nonprofit Oceana’s transparency and illegal fishing crusade, said she can help.
“You can use your money to make a difference,” he said. When it’s no longer a lucrative business, it won’t be a profitable business anymore. “
It’s in the past, he said.
“Thailand has been continuously denounced for labor abuses, especially when it comes to shrimp, and we see the Thai fishing industry and government looking to make some of those replacements,” he said. “They respond to the strength of the market, which shows that replacement can happen. “
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