Catfish ban: “We’ll have this resolved soon” – US Ambassador

There may be a breakthrough on the horizon in the long-standing catfish export impasse between Guyana and the United States. In a promising development, the United States Ambassador to Guyana, Nicole Theriot, has signalled that a resolution is near, telling reporters, “We’ll have this resolved soon.” The dispute, which has hampered Guyana’s catfish exports to the US since 2017, may finally be nearing its end — bringing hope to local fisherfolk and exporters alike.
After years of frustration, mounting diplomatic pressure, and hard-fought negotiations, hope is finally on the horizon for Guyana’s embattled catfish exporters. In a strong show of support, US Ambassador Nicole Theriot on Wednesday declared that a resolution to the long-standing US ban on Guyanese catfish imports is “very, very near”.
Speaking candidly at the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony between Guyana and Bloomberg Grain, Ambassador Theriot said the once-daunting process – triggered by stringent updates to U.S. seafood import regulations – has seen Guyana delivering on every single technical requirement to requalify for access to the American market.
“I know this has been a very long-term negotiation. As you all know, the requirements for importing catfish into the United States and most seafoods became much more stringent quite a few years ago, and so Guyana had to requalify, if you will, as did the rest of the world. Guyana has taken every step we’ve asked of them. It’s a long process. They will submit the responses to questions we have. We’ll ask more questions. They’ll submit more responses, but I can tell you that it’s going very, very well. Guyana has been incredibly responsive,” Theriot noted.
The United States has maintained a ban on catfish exports from Guyana since 2017, during the administration of former President David Granger. At the time, Guyana’s catfish exports to the US were valued at approximately $1.8 billion.
Since entering office in 2020, the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has been working assiduously with the USDA to reverse the ban.
Now, the tides may finally be turning, with Ambassador Theriot indicating that she and Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture, Zulfikar Mustapha, are fully aligned in pushing for a breakthrough.
“I am very, very hopeful, as is the minister, that we’ll have this resolved soon and that it will be a positive response, and I am certainly pushing on my end to make that happen,” Theriot said.
According to the US regulations, Guyana must be able to catch catfish and transport it to a processing plant while it is alive. This is in contradiction to what is being practised here, whereby the fish is caught, disembowelled, and the carcass is iced until it reaches the shore.
Exporters of catfish were required to provide documentation to verify that their inspection system was equivalent to US standards. The failure to do this resulted in the US imposing a ban on catfish imports from Guyana and other non-compliant countries.
Guyana is also required to have inspectors at the plants along with documentation of sanitation and the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) during the packaging process. It also needs to provide information on how adulterated catfish products are managed.
As Guyana continues to strive to meet these standards, there have been multiple exchanges between authorities from both sides, with the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS) requesting additional documentation and information from its Guyanese counterpart.
Guyana has been engaging the US Government at high levels on reversing the catfish ban. In fact, the matter was raised with former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Georgetown in September 2020, and he had committed to reviewing the ban on catfish.
Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha had previously lamented that the local fishing industry has been severely affected by the ban. The wild-caught catfish, especially ‘gilbaka’, has been in great demand within the Guyanese diaspora in the US.