By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is voicing her objections to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns over the amount of foreign-harvested fish included in the national School Lunch Program.

Murkowski said in a letter to Johanns on July 24 that much of the seafood served in schools participating in the national program is twice-frozen product harvested in Russian waters by Russian vessels. That fish is frozen on board and shipped to China for processing, where it is thawed, filleted and frozen again, Murkowski said. Those blocks of frozen pollock are then shipped to the United States to be breaded and made into fish sticks.

"While a final processing stage occurs in the United States, there is minimal justification to consider it a product of the U.S.A.," the senator said.

"I am concerned that the seafood we are serving students is of an inferior quality," she said. "In addition, by including it in the National School Lunch Program, the Department of Agriculture is subsidizing Russian fisherman and Chinese processors at the expense of American fisherman."

While there is some Alaska pollock sold in the school lunch program, approximately 95 percent or more of the pollock sold in that program is foreign, mostly from Russia, said Bill Woolf, fisheries aide to Murkowski.

Woolf said one major Alaska supplier will provide about 200,000 pounds of once-frozen Alaska pollock to the program, but overall, very little Alaska fish besides pollock makes it into the program.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at margie.bauman@alaskajournal.com.