52 • URNER BARRY'S REPORTER / VOL. 18, NO. 4 / FALL 2023
The National Fisheries Institute (NFI)
crab council was formed in 2009, initially
consisting of six companies. Today the
crab council stands at 35 companies,
representing about 85% of the imported
crab meat into the U.S. market. The council
represents both blue swimming crab meat
(BSC) and red swimming crab meat (RSC).
Although not the first council to be formed
at NFI, it is the first council to focus
exclusively on sustainability.
With that sustainability focus, one of the
major responsibilities of the council is to
fund Fishery Improvement Projects or FIP's.
FIP's are based in country and not only
concentrate on the health of the industry,
but projects that work to make the fishery
sustainable, which includes working
with fishermen, harvesters, processors,
governments, and scientists. The council
recognizes that all these groups are
important stakeholders who wish to see
these fisheries thrive and be sustainable.
For blue swimming crab, the countries that
the NFI Crab Council currently have FIP's
in place for are Indonesia, Philippines,
Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and India.
There is also expansion of a FIP for BSC
into Tunisia and Mexico. For red swimming
crab, the Crab Council have FIP's is China
and Vietnam, the only two countries in the
world that produce that species. Some
of the work within these FIP's focuses on
minimum size of the crabs, no females and
mesh size limits for traps.
A crustacean council focused on sustainability…
A closer look at the National Fisheries
Institute's Crab Council
In addition to all the great FIP work,
the council also helps to fund research
from both the Institute of Marine and
Environmental Technology and the
Smithsonian. These two research entities
are working on broodstock enhancement
in Indonesia. These groups are not using
a research method where they would put
in a certain amount of hatchery crabs in
the water and see how many were then
produced. Instead it's rather a longerterm project to see how hatchery grown
broodstock affects the fishery. They do
this by looking at the grandchildren of the
crabs they are placing back into the water.
The research groups are looking closely at
DNA levels and measuring to see if these
hatcheries help, if the methods are viable,
and what the impact of the hatchery grown
crabs on the environment would be.
The crab council is proud of their work
and their plans. The companies within the
council readily make information available
to their customers as well.
"NFI Crab Council members are
sustainability-minded companies
committed to supporting not just policies
that benefit the future of the resource,
and the communities that work with it, but
groundbreaking research," says Ed Rhodes,
Executive Director of NFI's Crab Council.
"These days there's a real understanding
of the importance of the Council's focus
and their customers are an informed part
of that sustainability value chain. They
ask about what's going on in the FIP's
and to a great degree, these days, they
understand the complexities."
Article contributed by Janice Schreiber
janice@urnerbarry.com
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