Export of Indian shrimps to the US has come under the scanner of US FDA for use of antibiotics.
The US,which is the largest market for Indian shrimps and accounts for around 28% of the Indian export share, has put in stringent measures for checking of imported shrimps, as under the latest guidelines issued by the US government, shrimps now come under the purview of Seafood Monitoring Program (SMP).
Since January this year, the US FDA (US Food & Drug Administration) has issued several import alerts regarding the import of seafood from India. Around six such import alerts regarding seafood were issued by the US FDA.
In January, according to reports, around 26 entry lines were refused entry to the US and were related to the violation of the antibiotic norms prescribed under US laws. According to experts it might be due to unpreparedness of the Indian exporters for the stringent enforcement by US agencies under SMP programme.
SMP mandates strict data requirement to trace the entire supply chain of the food from the point of harvest to the point of entry into the US.
The crackdown was specific to banned antibiotics residue or antimicrobial residue and Indian firms need to deploy mechanism to avoid any such occurrence in future, feel industry experts.
Industry experts say that traceability mechanism in every step of the production and transportation is required and Indian firms have started putting up such mechanism.
From India, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharastra, Goa, Puducherry and Gujarat are the shrimp exporter states. India exports Rs 38,000 crore worth shrimps to the world. Japan, USA, Vietnam, China, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates are among the top importers of the same.
