Is the USDA Engaged in a Chicken-for-Beef-Swap?

[marmar]

from Food & Water Watch:



January 20th, 2011
Is the USDA Engaged in a Chicken-for-Beef-Swap?


Relations with China figure prominently this week as Peoples Republic of China President Hu Jintao visits the United States to meet with President Obama and members of Congress. I wonder if they’ll talk about food safety. The USDA broke its own food safety rules a while back in an attempt to quickly approve China to export chicken to the U.S. For this reason, Food & Water Watch submitted a Citizen Petition asking the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to remove China from eligibility to export processed poultry.

This is another instance of food safety taking a back seat to trade negotiations. This particular story has some history. Back in 2003, we had a slight beef problem here in the U.S., when mad cow disease was discovered in Washington State. China reacted by banning U.S. beef imports. In the beef industry’s (and the U.S. government’s trade negotiators’) efforts to overturn this ban, a chicken-for-beef swap has been on the table. The deal: if the U.S. allows Chinese chicken imports, China may start buying U.S. beef again.

Unfortunately, in the rush to approve Chinese chicken, the USDA has made critical mistakes. In 2006, they rushed the approval of a food safety rule, skipped a few steps in the approval process, and failed to submit their work to the USDA Office of Civil Rights for review, all because they wanted to be able to tell the Chinese President that they were moving forward on approving Chinese chicken in time for his visit to the U.S. at that time.

The USDA also led the public to believe that country of origin labeling would allow consumers to avoid poultry from China. But these rules would not apply to Chinese chicken, making it difficult for consumers to identify the products. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/is-the-usda-engaged-in-a-chicken-for-beef-swap/

[ironrooster]

1. I'll raise my own chickens before I eat Chinese chicken/nt

[n2doc]

2. Fake Capitalists- deliberately deceiving the public on labels

If these folks really believed in "let the market decide" then they would welcome, nay demand, origin labeling. Instead they want to try and trick people into buying food from places where they would not do so, if given a "free market choice".