WASHINGTON -- Joey Lowery of Searcy says he won't eat catfish grown in Asia.

Lowery, 51, who farms a few million pounds of catfish near Newport, said it's because Asian catfish aren't grown following American standards. Lowery and the Catfish Farmers of America met with Arkansas' congressional delegation Wednesday about federal inspection of foreign catfish.

"I don't eat it, not going to eat it," Lowery said. "A lot of people, they just don't know what's going on, they really don't. I wouldn't either if I wasn't working on this."

More than six years ago, the U.S. House and Senate required the Department of Agriculture to take over regulation and inspection of catfish from the Food and Drug Administration. The 2014 Farm Bill that was approved earlier this year again ordered the agencies to make the change. Final rules creating the inspection program were sent to the White House for approval last week.

The FDA will continue to regulate other types of fish and seafood, prompting critics, such as U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., to call the USDA oversight "duplicative." This week the House is expected to consider an amendment to the agriculture appropriation for 2015 sponsored by Hartzler that would stop funding the USDA inspection program.

But Lowery said the USDA inspection will give consumers confidence that the fish they buy is safe.

"If somebody goes to buy catfish, we want them to know that they are getting a quality product, and USDA inspection will validate that quality," he said. "It will increase the market. More consumers will be willing to purchase the fish knowing they've been inspected."

The Catfish Farmers of America held its annual fish fry on Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening after lobbying congressmen. The event is hosted by legislators from catfish-producing states and was held two blocks from the Capitol building.

Ben Noble, who represents the catfish group, said concerns about duplication were resolved by an agreement between the USDA and the FDA, known as a memorandum of understanding, that was approved in late April.

The 2014 Farm Bill explicitly expanded the definition of catfish so the USDA would regulate catfish imported from foreign countries. Most of these come from Vietnam and China.

Whether the USDA would regulate just the American family of catfish, known as the Ictaluride family, or the entire order of Siluriformes fish, which include all types of catfish including the Pangasiidae family of catfish commonly found in Asia, caused a lengthy comment period by the USDA. Inspecting the Siluriformes order means the USDA will inspect domestic and imported fish.

The memorandum of understanding was required under the Farm Bill and gives the USDA primary responsibility to regulate and inspect all catfish, regardless of origin.

Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, said many facilities process more than one type of fish and will still have inspectors from both agencies.

The argument "ignores the reality of seafood production," he said. "There's no amount of paperwork between FDA and USDA that will get rid of that duplication."

Gibbons' group represents the fishing industry worldwide and opposes the change.

Between 2008 and 2013 the Government Accountability Office issued several reports that suggested repealing the USDA inspection program would save the federal government $14 million a year, because it duplicates inspections at facilities already done by either the Food and Drug Administration or the National Marine Fisheries Service. The FDA estimates it spends about $700,000 a year on catfish inspections.

Lowery said some foreign farmers use antibiotics and chemicals to keep the fish alive in waters where it is tough to grow fish, such the Mekong River in southeast Asia.

"We have zero tolerance in this country for that," he said. "It is effective in their production system, but you can't do that and uphold food safety."

Those chemicals don't cause immediate health problems for humans, he said, which makes it harder to raise public interest.

"When you use antibiotics, for instance, over time if you eat something with that in it you build a resistance up so antibiotics aren't effective when you get sick," he said. "We don't know how long it will take for it to show up, but it will show up. Russia won't even buy any fish from Vietnam."

Metro on 06/12/2014