Why don't fish farmers eat the fish they raise? On the tragedy of aquaculture

News summary: At the end of November, over a hundred fish ponds around Tanggu, Tianjin, lay somewhat abandoned, and discarded empty medicine bottles on the embankments had already turned yellow. Chen Ming's fish pond must be dosed with medicine from the very moment the fry are put in, with disinfectants and antibiotics added along the way, and every two months more medicine to improve water quality has to be added. With seven or eight rounds of fish medication a year, a single round means scattering more than 30 boxes. As early as the beginning of the month, most of the fish ponds here had already been harvested, entering the wholesale market through fishmongers' trucks. Yet the farmer Chen Ming had not eaten a single fish he had raised himself: "We don't eat the fish we raise." (November 29, The Beijing News)

Viewpoint: Use the net of regulation to stop fish that are medicated from fry to adult (Shu Shengxiang)

A country has its laws, a trade has its rules. The state stipulates that fish farming requires an "Aquaculture Certificate"; banned drugs such as nitrofurans and malachite green are strictly prohibited; moreover, the "Aquaculture Production Record", "Aquaculture Medication Record" and "Aquatic Product Sales Record" must all be kept for more than 2 years after the entire batch of aquatic products has been sold; operators of wholesale markets must also print uniform sales vouchers stating the name, place of origin, quantity, date of sale, and the seller's name, address, contact information and other items of the edible agricultural products, to make it easy to trace problem fish back through the chain.

But these are only the laws of the state; the real trade rules are like this: nobody applies for the "Aquaculture Certificate" and nobody enforces it, not applying is normal, and those who do apply are the odd ones out; cheap and effective banned drugs such as malachite green are still constantly detected, because they are cheap and effective, and being caught is just bad luck, as everyone believes they can be the "fish that slips through the net"; as for the three records, those are purely the legislators singing to themselves, and in reality farmers have never even heard of them; and as for problem fish, whoever is caught holding them is the unlucky one, and want to trace the source of problem fish? No way, wholesalers will not foolishly sign the receipts.

So why did Beijing's supermarkets suddenly have no live fish for sale? Because although those selling fish are not the ones farming them, fish sellers certainly understand fish farmers and their trade rules, and their confidence in whether the fish they sell can withstand inspection is as empty as those fish tanks. Moreover, if problems are detected, the fish seller is the one who suffers; if banned drugs such as malachite green are found, it is not impossible to be fined into ruin, and they cannot find the wholesaler, let alone the farmer, with no one signing the receipts, as if all those fish had been raised by the seller himself. So of the thirty-six stratagems, emptying the fish tank is the best.

"We don't eat the fish we raise." Reporters can always find such sentimental lines, but that may not be, but the truth. No one in their right mind would want to take medicine for no reason. Since the fish's brief life has been spent growing up in a medicine jar, if you then eat the fish, you are not directly eating the medicine jar, but at least eating the medicine residue. Those who take Chinese medicine pour the residue onto the road for people to tread on, which is said to carry away bad luck; those who sell fish pour the residue into other people's stomachs, which is said to bring wealth. So if the fish you eat does not taste like the fish of your childhood, or even seems to have no fish flavor at all, that is correct. It is all medicine flavor, so how could it have fish flavor?

The fish that swims all day and night never stops swimming, and that is the joy of the fish; the fish medicated from fry to adult never rests, and that is not the fish's wish. One fish pond raises so many fish, one chicken farm raises so many chickens, one small plot of land raises so many cattle, one city runs so many cars; when density is high and patterns suddenly change, illness is hard to avoid, and when ill, medicine is taken. Fish farmers wanting to earn a bit more money is not wrong, we all think that way; the problem is that besides making fish take medicine to raise output, there should also be other paths that do not harm people. This problem cannot be solved by appealing to morality; the problem lies in regulation, which has made the laws of the state inferior to trade rules, and let trade rules overturn the laws of the state.

Of course, regulation also has its difficulties; relevant departments are always short-staffed, and it is impossible for everyone to police fish, or then meat would become a problem. A transparent system needs to be established so that every fish can find its true parent, and every link must have a "fishing net" that can test for drugs, so that those who play the game always have to pay, rather than those who play the game never having to pay. More importantly, the role of market entities should be brought into play, so that those who operate with integrity and raise conscientious fish can gain benefits; fish farming should also have brands, and brands should have premiums. The reason there now seem to be few brands in aquatic products can only show that there is business opportunity here.

"Which fish pond do you say doesn't use medicine? If it doesn't, can there still be live fish?" Fish farmers think what they say is the truth, but in fact that is only the world in their eyes, the false universality in psychology. In the food industry, people do not eat what they themselves make; these people are really clever, but clever as they are, they surprisingly do not know that others think the same way. Unless you eat nothing at all, whatever you give others to eat, others will give you to eat. It is one thing to eat dirt together, but why feed poison to each other? Fish farming that goes for volume can never become big; fish farming that goes for quality can build its own brand. (Author: Shu Shengxiang)

Viewpoint: Don't let overly lax regulation release medicated fish that slip through the net (Zhang Nanzhi)

Judging from the materials provided by media reports, although these small fish ponds have neither applied for an "Aquaculture Certificate" nor filled in an "Aquaculture Medication Record", and are in a completely out-of-control state, most of the drugs they put in are conventional drugs used in fish farming, so how much harm these fish will bring to consumers' health after flowing into the market, and whether it is as great as some people imagine, still awaits testing by authoritative departments.

However, not knowing how great it is does not mean it is not great; it means their safety is in an uncontrollable state. Moreover, because these small fish ponds can usually avoid spot checks by relevant departments during the farming process, and at the market circulation stage can often avoid the entry restrictions of regulatory departments, their safety becomes very doubtful. The cause of these problems undoubtedly comes from the regulatory departments.

The "Aquaculture Certificate", which originally had to be obtained for any aquaculture operation, has not been obtained by these small fish ponds for many years and no one has interfered; spot checks that should have been carried out by regulatory departments have also been ignored and left outside regulation because the fish ponds are too small; and the circulation link that should have blocked medicated fish from entering the market has surprisingly been unobstructed. Whether such neglect is intentional or unintentional is unknown. But judging by common sense, on the way to spot-check large fish ponds, would regulatory staff not pass by a single small fish pond? Could they really be completely unaware that the medication safety of small fish ponds is outside regulation?

That they dare not eat the fish they raise themselves, apart from the reason of farmers' lack of relevant knowledge, is mainly because the amount of drugs they put in has reached a level that frightens even themselves. Using medicine is not frightening; what is frightening is nonstandard use of medicine. Medicated fish entering the market is not frightening; what is frightening is regulation that exists in name only. If the net woven by regulation at every link has mesh as big as a dou, then what the public sees through that huge mesh can only be worry or even fear.

To safeguard fish safety, we must first start with the production and circulation of relevant drugs, weaving well the net of drug safety; through this net, banned drugs are blocked, farmers cannot buy banned drugs, and the safety of edible fish is guaranteed at the source. In regulation at the farming stage, regulatory departments need to include small fish ponds in the scope of spot checks, and should even make them a key part of spot checks; and in the circulation stage, a strict market access system should be implemented to keep medicated fish out of the market. Only in this way can the public buy with confidence and eat with peace of mind. More importantly, only in this way will the adverse effects of the behavior of nonstandard farmers not spread to the entire aquaculture industry, and the normal order of the fish farming industry be maintained.