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Someone finally takes on the Packers Lobby

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Anonymous

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Tester takes aim at meat inspection, food-borne illness

TOM LUTEY Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 12:00 am



Citing food safety concerns, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is proposing sweeping changes in the way the meat industry prevents illness outbreaks from potentially deadly E. coli bacteria.

“I don’t know what kind of blowback we’re going to get, but we do need to hold the people accountable who need to be held accountable,” Tester said Tuesday.

At issue is the way the U.S. government tracks E. coli- and salmonella-contaminated meat in cases of food-borne illness.

Investigations currently stop at butcher shops and packing plants, but Tester said the real contamination takes place in slaughterhouses, where animals are cut open and fecal bacteria from intestines and hides can come in contact with meat. For decades, rules for required testing have made it impossible to trace contamination back to slaughterhouses.

Tester said he will introduce a bill today to amend the Meat Inspection Act, changing those rules and get to the source of a food illnesses like E. coli. Roughly 73,000 Americans are sickened annually by E. coli, 2,000 are hospitalized and 60 are killed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medical costs associated with E. coli exceed $405 million a year.

“If nothing changes, we are virtually guaranteed there will be ongoing outbreaks and recurring recalls as a consequence of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s unwillingness to trace contamination back to the source,” said John Munsell, a former Miles City butcher and advocate for reforming food safety laws.

Eight years ago, a USDA inspector found E. coli in beef at Munsell’s family meat processing plant, Montana Quality Foods. Munsell told the USDA the contaminated beef came from the slaughterer ConAgra Beef Co., but under existing food safety laws, the government’s investigation stopped at Munsell’s plant. Federal regulators said they couldn’t positively trace the bacteria back to ConAgra despite records offered by Munsell.

Munsell recalled 270 pounds of hamburger. Months later, ConAgra Beef was caught in an 18 million pound meat recall, one of the nation’s largest.

Munsell has been lobbying for regulatory changes since 2002. He helped write the bill Tester is introducing. Currently, inspectors are not allowed to document the source of the meat they sample on the same day they collect material to test, Munsell said. Once the test results come back, enough time has lapsed that inspectors can’t say for sure where the meat originated.

“Why have they always required policies that intentionally delayed evidence gathering? Who are they trying to protect?” Munsell said. “In five days, the trail of evidence grows cold.”


Trace back regulations are overdue, said Bill Bullard, of R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America.

But Bullard said the handful of meat companies responsible for slaughtering more than 80 percent of the country’s meat will lobby against what Tester is trying to do.

“Our current laws and regulations insulate the slaughtering facilities where the contamination actually occurs and holds them harmless from any disease investigation,” Bullard said. “As a result, we’ve seen an increase in food-borne illness without the benefit of knowing where the bacteria actually contaminated the meat.”

Better inspection can only restore American confidence in beef safety, Bullard said, which is what ranchers need.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service projected a fresh food security law on Thursday that would be implementing a condition of the 2008 Farm Bill and carrying out precedence for the Food Safety Working Group, which is taken care by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. In addition, it will work to improve the country's food security laws for the 21st Century.

This suggestion would further need to be synchronized, to inform FSIS quickly, if an insecure, unpleasant, or misbranded animal protein or poultry manufactured goods gets into trade and also preserve actions for the recollection of meat and poultry products manufactured and shipped by the institution to additionally document each re-examination of the organization's procedure to manage plans or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point tactics.

Representatives from all central food protection connected organizations take part on the working group, including FSIS, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gathering frequently to talk about how manufacturers, processors, sellers, customers, and Government can work towards food security measures.

This proposal would require regulated establishments to notify FSIS promptly if an unsafe, unwholesome, or misbranded meat or poultry product has entered commerce; maintain procedures for the recall of meat and poultry products produced and shipped by the establishment; and document each reassessment of the establishment's process control plans or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans.

"One year ago, the president called on government to do more to ensure our food is safe, and we are working aggressively every day to improve the food safety system in the United States," said Vilsack. "The steps we are announcing today will help prevent foodborne illness, as well as speed our response when illnesses occur -- two goals of the Food Safety Working Group."

The working group announced its Key Findings on July 7, 2009. Representatives from all federal food safety-related agencies participate on the working group, including FSIS, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meeting regularly to discuss how producers, processors, retailers, consumers, and government can work together on food safety.



It's a Complete traceback to the bin of meat that came from cattle or meat animals hanging on the hook after slaughter and the crew that cut it off the carcass or handled the meat at that single site within in a kill plant for traceback of foodborne pathogens that was shipped to other processors on its way to retail..
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Meat, poultry industries await new antitrust rules
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD (AP) – 6 hours ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Federal regulators are set to release the most sweeping antitrust rules covering the meat industry in decades, potentially altering the balance of power between meat companies and the farmers who raise their animals.

Activists, farmers and meat industry officials have been anxiously awaiting the new rules, which will be released this spring for public comment and are set to take effect this summer. The regulations are seen as a kind of litmus test for the Obama administration and how far it will go in regulating competition in the meat industry.

At issue is how much power farmers have as they produce cattle, hogs and chickens for large companies such as JBS SA, Smithfield Farms and Tyson Foods. The new rules will govern how meatpackers buy their cattle on an open market and what demands poultry companies can make on the independent contractors who raise their chickens.

"We have high hopes for them," said Mike Weaver, a West Virginia poultry farmer who raises chickens under contract for Pilgrim's Pride. "We've been promised that there will be sweeping changes in these new rules, but nobody's seen them."

The 2008 Farm Bill required updated rules but left the specifics to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Farm state lawmakers such as Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had long been concerned a lack of competition among meat companies was driving down prices farmers were paid for their cattle and poultry.

Just four companies buy and slaughter 80 percent of all U.S. beef, limiting competition in the meat industry. Meanwhile, big poultry companies dictate chicken prices and can demand farmers take on debt to upgrade their chicken houses for the companies' benefit.

Farmers such as Weaver, who has met with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, think the new leaders in the USDA's antitrust division will push for tougher and more far-reaching regulations than previous administrations. Some believe the new rules could be the strongest antitrust protections imposed since the Great Depression.

There's also a risk they will drive up the cost of meat, eating into meatpackers' profits or pushing up prices at grocery stores if companies pass on the expense.

The USDA wouldn't say when its proposed rules will be released, but the Farm Bill requires new regulations be in place by this summer. The bill lays out a broad outline of what the rules must address, but the all-important details won't be known until a proposal becomes public.

The regulations come at a time when the Obama administration has begun a series of meetings across the country to examine competition in agriculture. Officials with the Agriculture and Justice Departments, who are conducting the hearings, have said they don't know what kind of action could result, but it's clear the meat industry is under more scrutiny than it has been for years.

Among issues expected to be addressed in the new rules is when it's illegal for companies to choose one producer's cattle or hogs over another's.

Ranchers have complained that meatpackers make their choices with an aim toward keeping prices low. For example, meatpackers might pass by independent ranchers to buy cattle raised under contracts that guarantee processors a lower price.

Iowa hog farmer Chuck Wirtz is torn about the rules. He sells most of his hogs on the open market and feels squeezed by big meatpackers. At the same time, he wouldn't want the rules to restrict the market too much.

"I personally probably get preferential treatment, because I'm rather large," he said, noting that meatpackers will pay him more for hogs if he can deliver several hundred at a time.

Wirtz is worried the new rule could say such a deal is illegal if another farmer is passed over.

Such details have been worked over for months within the obscure USDA agency that regulates competition in the meat industry, called the Packers and Stockyards Administration. The PSA was formed in 1921 to limit the power of big meatpackers that dominated the industry.

Ranchers have long criticized the agency as toothless. A 2006 government report said the agency was slow to bring cases and understaffed. But some hope it will be tougher under the direction of its new administrator, Dudley Butler, a lawyer who specialized in suing poultry companies.

Butler declined to comment on the rules.

The new rules also would determine when poultry companies could require farmers to take out additional loans and improve chicken houses by adding new equipment. Farmers resist the investments because although they might earn more money after the upgrades, the extra income doesn't offset the extra debt and cost of operating the houses.

"Eighty percent or more of the upgrade benefits the company and not the grower. And the growers are the ones who pay for it. And that's unfair, plain and simple unfair," Weaver said.

Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, said farmers and poultry companies share the benefit when farmers upgrade a house. Birds grow faster, which can allow more flocks a year to be grown on a farm, he said.

Companies such as Tyson Foods, which produces beef, chicken and pork, will be ready to challenge rules they consider too strict.

"We're already in one of the most heavily regulated industries in the nation and take compliance with the law very seriously," Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said in an e-mail. "However, we don't believe additional rules are needed to control the relationship between livestock and poultry producers and food companies like ours."

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 

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