Thread: Proposed actions to improve import food safety

Proposed actions to improve import food safety

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, June 29, 2008


Consumer groups, government oversight agencies and two congressional bills call for several actions to improve import food safety. Many focus on greatly increasing the percentage of food inspected before it gets onto the kitchen table, whether at U.S. ports of entry or in exporting countries. Among the measures being pushed:

• A $450 million annual increase in the budget of the Food and Drug Administration

• A single food safety agency, rather than parallel inspections by the FDA (agriculture, seafood, processed foods) and the USDA (meat, poultry, some egg products)

• Import user fees to defray the costs of greater vigilance and more inspections

• Country-of-origin labeling for all meat, seafood and agricultural goods

• Restriction of high-risk goods to ports of entry where the FDA has its own testing labs

• Mandatory in-country inspections by U.S. officials or certified third parties


IMPORT SAFETY PLAN

The Bush administration's "Import Safety Action Plan," presented in November, calls for measures that would not increase the FDA's current budget. It is a "risk-based" model that focuses resources on problematic foods. The administration warned that "physically inspecting every item would bring international trade to a standstill." It proposes:

• Requiring producers of high-risk foods to certify that their products meet FDA standards

• Publicizing certified producers so consumers can make better decisions

• Improving communication among government agencies and with foreign governments so better decisions are made on whether to clear import shipments

• Increasing the number of U.S. inspectors in foreign countries and training for foreign inspection agencies

• Toughening safety and inspections standards where needed

• Strengthening penalties against food safety violators, making them more likely to comply


SOURCES: Public Citizen; Consumers Union; U.S. Congress; White House press office

Link

I thought that "country-of-orign" labelling for all meat, seafood & agricultural products was requred under NAFTA. Both Canada and Mexico now do it, and it was to be completed (by legal extension) in the U.S. by 2008. However, U.S. lawmakers on the 2 Congressional Agricultural Committeess have called it a "nightmare for the grocery industry" in order to stall it further. Evidently completing this was not a "nightmare" in Canada or Mexico! I also read that, while seafood is now labelled by country in the U.S., beef producers do not want us to know how many calves are being purchased cheaply in Mexico and raised in the U.S., primarily in Texas. Standards of required vaccinations are more difficult to enforce and monitor there, and even "Open Borders" N.M. Governor Bill Richardson said he was concerned about the increasing numbers of cases of bovine tuberculosis appearing in N.M. as one of the reasons for declaring his "state of emergency" along the N.M./Mexican border.