MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2004 Regular Session
To: Agriculture
By: Representative Eaton
AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 69-7-605, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO DELETE SCIENTIFIC NOMENCLATURE IN THE DEFINITION OF CATFISH; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. Section 69-7-605, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
69-7-605. For purposes of this article, the following terms shall have the meaning ascribed herein unless the context otherwise requires:
(a) "Capable of use as human food" means and shall apply to any catfish or part or product thereof unless it is denatured or otherwise identified as required by regulations prescribed by the commissioner to deter its use as human food, or unless it is naturally inedible by humans.
(b) "Catfish" means any species within the family Ictaluridae * * *.
(c) "Commissioner" means the Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce of the State of Mississippi.
(d) "Direct retail sale" means the sale of catfish products individually or in small quantities directly to the consumer.
(e) "Distributor" means any person offering for sale, exchange or barter any catfish product destined for direct retail sale in the State of Mississippi.
(f) "Label" means a display of written, printed or
graphic matter upon or affixed to the container in which a catfish product is offered for direct retail sale.
(g) "Labeling" means all labels and other written, printed or graphic matter upon a catfish product, or any of its containers or wrappers, offered for direct retail sale.
(h) "Pay pond" means a circumscribed body of water owned by a person and operated solely for recreational fishing purposes on a commercial basis for profit.
(i) "Person" includes any individual, partnership, corporation and association or other legal entity.
(j) "Processor" means any person engaged in handling, storing, preparing, manufacturing, packing or holding catfish products.
(k) "Producer" means any person engaged in the business of harvesting catfish, by any method, intended for direct retail sale.
(l) "Product" means any catfish product capable of use as human food which is made wholly or in part from any catfish or portion thereof, except products which contain catfish only in small proportions or historically have not been, in the judgment of the commissioner, considered by consumers as products of the United States commercial catfish industry and which are exempted from definition as a catfish product by the commissioner under such conditions as he may prescribe to assure that the catfish or portions thereof contained therein are not adulterated and that such products are not represented as catfish products.
(m) "Product name" means the name of the catfish item intended for retail sale which identifies it as to kind, class or specific use.
(n) "Restaurant" means any person offering for sale to a consumer prepared food for immediate consumption.
(o) "Retailer" means any person offering for sale catfish products to individual consumers and representing the last sale prior to human consumptionexceptthat restaurants and other eating establishments are hereby excluded.
(p) "State Health Officer" means the State Health Officer of the State Board of Health, or his designated representative.
(q) "Wholesaler" means any person offering for sale any catfish product destined for direct retail sale in the State of Mississippi.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.