GUYANA has submitted the protocols and relevant documentation to remove the current ban on catfish to the United States of America (USA) to the relevant government bodies, Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, has said.

“We are continuously making representation. We are very optimistic that we can get that ban released as early as possible. Only recently, we submitted a number of documents that they would have asked for,” Mustapha said in an invited comment.

Mustapha recently engaged the outgoing US Ambassador to Guyana, Sarah-Ann Lynch.

During their meeting, the two officials discussed the partnerships that were developed to promote and develop Guyana’s agriculture sector during the ambassador’s tenure, as well as the steps taken to address and resolve several sectoral issues.

Back in November 2017, Guyana and several other countries were temporarily banned from exporting catfish. The country was unable to meet several requirements in keeping with US standards.\

For Guyana, these requirements included the lack of inspectors on plants along with insufficient documentation detailing the sanitation and hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) process, along with how the industry manages adulterated catfish products.

“This was a result of the ineptitude of the last government…they were told two years prior to the ban and they never put a system in place,” the minister added.

EARLY WARNING

Exporters of catfish were required by the US Food and Safety Inspection Services (FSIS) to provide documentation to verify that their inspection system was in keeping with US standards. This protocol came into effect in 2016.

Exporters here were given a transitional period to update their regulations and provide the relevant documentation. Failure to do this within the timeline, however, saw the United States imposing a ban on catfish imports from Guyana in September 2017.

Since assuming office as the agriculture minister in 2020, Mustapha and a team of technical officers from the fisheries department have worked to remove the ban.

Exporters of catfish have been severely affected over the past few years as a result of the ban.