Fishermen hit out at delay in scallop ban

Environmental health officers and fishermen have criticised the Food Standards Agency Scotland for delays in ordering fishing bans that could have allowed contaminated scallops on to the market.

Although the agency recommended against fishing for scallops in certain areas on 11 August, it was six days later before an outright ban was imposed.

Tests had revealed potentially harmful levels of contamination which could cause amnesic and paralytic shellfish poisoning. This can cause memory loss, seizures, nerve paralysis and, in extreme cases, coma and death.

Dr Ian Duncan, secretary of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, said the recommendation not to fish had confused fishermen, because they were used to a clear-cut decision on whether they could gather scallops or not.

He described the agency, established this April, as "a helpless toddler blundering into the situation", which had "added a layer of bureacracy and confusion" between the testing labs and the Government minister who issued the bans.

Sandy Taylor, head of public protection for Argyll and Bute Council, felt the agency's approach had not been focused or prescriptive enough.

A spokesman for the agency admitted there had been an unusually long delay between advice and ban, and said that in future "we will move quicker".

He explained that the agency had had to wait for a second set of results, and that the ban had been complicated by the large area involved, some of which fell between Scotland and Ireland.

Scotland's scallop industry is worth £25m a year, and supplies 90% of the European market. Bans of varying kinds have been in place since last June, the only exception being this April. The current ban covers most of the west coast, from Jura to the Western Isles, and some of the Orkneys.

Fishermen believe that nutrients from salmon fisheries have stimulated unnatural growth of the algae that cause the problems, but the agency says evidence does not support this view. It has commissioned £1m-worth of rese00arch over three years into the phenomenon.

by Angela Frewin angela.frewin@rbi.co.uk

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 14-20 September 2000