PRODUCERS HAVE FEWER AND FEWER PACKERS/PROCESSORS THAT THEY CAN USE. ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS R-CALF USA ARE RAISING THE ALARM ABOUT THE CONTROL OVER PRICING, ETC. THAT THESE FEW PACKERS HAVE OVER THE NATION'S PRODUCERS. THESE SAME PACKERS ARE HELPING TO PUSH THE NAIS ON THE PRODUCERS AS IT EFFECTIVELY SHIFTS LIABILITY FROM THE PACKERS/PROCESSORS (WHERE THE LIABILITY BELONGS) TO THE PRODUCERS. CONTAMINATION IN YOUR FOOD COMES FROM THE PACKERS/PROCESSORS, AND THAT'S WHERE THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE FOCUSING, NOT ON THE SMALL PRODUCERS/FARMERS. PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING NEWS ARTICLES:
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061105/BUSINESS03/611050323/1029/BUSINESS
Brasher: USDA will refocus inspectors' attention to higher-risk plants
Washington Farm Report
By PHILIP BRASHER
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU
November 5, 2006
Washington, D.C. - The federal government is preparing to make the biggest change in the way meat is inspected in at least a decade. Maybe a century.
The U.S. Agriculture Department is preparing to redeploy its inspectors to focus on processing plants where products are the most likely to be contaminated with bacteria that can make people sick.
USDA officials say this risk-based inspection system will make the foods it inspects safer without having to add more inspectors in the field.
"People are getting sick today who don't need to get sick," Richard Raymond, USDA's undersecretary for food safety, told a recent gathering of food-company officials. "I think we can do a better job."
USDA hasn't attempted anything this dramatic since the early days of the Clinton administration, when a fatal E. coli outbreak was traced to the Jack in the Box restaurant chain. The department forced meat plants to look at their operations, identify ways that products could be contaminated and take steps to prevent it.
The USDA plan also would be one of the most significant overhauls of federal meat inspection since passage of the 1906 Meat Inspection Act in the wake of the revelations in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."
The overhaul would not affect slaughterhouse inspectors who are assigned to check each carcass, a requirement of the 1906 law. Instead, it would be inspectors assigned to processing plants, which produce everything from hot dogs to ground turkey and pepperoni. Those inspectors' duties include checking records, conducting microbiological tests and making sure equipment is operating properly.
Leaders of USDA's inspectors union and some consumer activists are raising concerns about the plan.
"This is what they're trying to sell: We're going to get better inspection through less people and less visits to the plants," said Stan Painter, chairman of the inspectors' National Joint Council.
What USDA needs to do is to slash the Food Safety and Inspection Service's administrative staff and hire more inspectors, said Painter, who sits on an advisory committee that recently reviewed USDA's plan.
Painter said inspectors, already stretched too thin, are sometimes responsible for checking several processing plants. He said inspectors already have the flexibility to spend more time in one plant and less in another if they think the first plant needs more attention.
The service has more than 7,500 inspectors to cover about 6,500 slaughterhouses and processing plants.
Meat industry officials won't necessarily say the risk-based inspection system will make meat safer - that would suggest that it isn't safe now - but they support the plan. One reason: Managers in a plant that has invested in advanced sanitation systems, maintained a good sanitation record and produced low-risk foods would spend less time dealing with inspectors.
"It's our responsibility to produce safe, wholesome products and we feel we have the systems in place to do that," said Bryan Farnsworth, director of quality management for Hormel Foods Corp. "More or less inspection won't change that."
Hormel, based in Austin, Minn., has three processing plants in Iowa - at Algona, Knoxville and Osceola - that produce deli meats, sausages and other products. The Osceola plant employs one of the most recent advances in food technology, a high-pressure device that can eliminate listeria and other pathogens in deli meats.
Farnsworth said the risk-based program shouldn't mean much of a change in the frequency of inspection at Hormel plants, but he still said it makes sense for the industry.
The program would work this way: USDA would rank the relative risk of each processing plant based on the type of products it puts out as well as its safety record.
A plant that produces ground turkey, which is often contaminated with salmonella, would receive more visits from inspectors than a plant that produces a less risky product, such as pepperoni or canned ham.
However, the USDA plan also calls for inspectors to target plants with histories of sanitation problems even if the product, say canned hams, is considered less prone to contamination.
That's all well and good in theory, consumer activists said, but they see potential weaknesses, including the accuracy of the ranking system.
One of the critics' gripes is that a group of experts asked to vote on the relative risk of different products didn't include consumer groups or sufficient expertise in public health. It also isn't clear, according to the critics, how accurately the USDA can rank the plant safety records.
Ken Kelly, staff attorney of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, said USDA's plan needs more work.
"It's perfectly understandable to want to reallocate resources to where they are needed most," he said.
Congress also could have something to say. A key congressional Democrat, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, also sounds a cautious note. If Democrats take control of the House next year, she would likely chair the House Appropriations subcommittee that handles USDA's budget.
"The key to implementing a successful risk-based inspection system is the availability of comprehensive data that enhances the inspection process, not diminishes it," she said in a statement.
An independent consulting firm is interviewing inspectors, consumer groups and industry officials and is due to report its findings to the inspection agency in December. Agency officials have not said when they will start the new system, but it could be tested first in one of the agency's 15 districts.
UPDATE ON CREEKSTONE/USDA LAWSUIT:
Legal/Regulatory News
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef counters USDA BSE claims
by John Gregerson on 11/7/2006 for Meatingplace.com
Arkansas City, Kan.-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef on Monday confirmed it has filed its reply to a USDA statement opposing Creekstone's bid to test its cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Creekstone Farms is suing the USDA for refusing to allow it to test cattle for BSE and last summer asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to issue a summary judgement in its favor. USDA replied, and this
filing is Creekstone's response, according to a Dow Jones report.
Creekstone said USDA now has until Dec. 1 to respond to the company's reply, after which the judge is scheduled to issue his decision on the motion for a summary judgement.
In making its case, Creekstone argued that USDA misinterpreted and exceeded the authority Congress gave it in the nearly 100-year-old Virus, Serum, and Toxins Act, which was enacted to stop the sale of bogus hog cholera serums to farmers in the Midwest. USDA argues the statute grants it purview over BSE testing.
In its filing Friday, Creekstone documented the economic harm caused by USDA's refusal to allow the company to test for BSE. According to the filing, "Creekstone has lost about 35 percent of its revenue due to BSE concerns and is prepared to spend $6 million per year to perform BSE testing itself to help recover the lost demand."
Creekstone also submitted comments from nationally recognized BSE experts, stating that more BSE testing, even of younger, healthy-appearing cattle, is valuable because it provides more data on the presence or absence of BSE in cattle slaughtered in the United States.
USDA WANTS EXTENSION ON DEADLINE FOR PRIVATE BSE TESTING CASE
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| If extension is granted, USDA's response would have to be filed on or before September 22. |
| (8/25/2006) |
| Farm Futures staff |
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Thursday the United States Department of Agriculture asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for a four-week extension of the previously agreed-to deadline for responding to Creekstone's Motion for Summary Judgment. If the government's request for an extension of time, which Creekstone did not oppose, is granted, USDA's response would have to be filed on or before September 22, and briefing on the Summary Judgment Motion would be completed on November 6, 2006. On Friday, July 14th, Creekstone Farms asked the court to strike down regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that prohibit private companies from testing slaughtered cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. In its filing Creekstone Farms states that the USDA was claiming authority it does not have under the law. USDA is asserting its authority to regulate BSE testing under the Virus Serum Toxins Act, a 1913 statute that was passed to help USDA stop con artists from selling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers. |
http://www.farmfutures.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=CD26BEDECA4A4946A1283CC7786AEB5A&nm=News&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=610B639E319D4B12A04CC92914AD7E2D
RANCHERS FILE LAWSUIT AGAINST THE PACKERS
Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 2:03 PM
by Lane McConnell
A class action lawsuit was filed by several ranchers that claim United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials were not qualified enough to write an accurate market report on cattle prices. Some of the largest meatpackers in the nation want the report excluded from a federal trial that begins this week in South Dakota.
Ranchers have said that meatpackers took advantage of the new mandatory price reporting law in 2001 to artificially lower prices for live cattle. Kansas feedlot operator Mike Callicrate says the USDA’s price reporting was flawed, but that doesn’t account for the 40 million dollars that he claims packers stole from cattle producers.
“Our view of the law is it doesn’t matter if the packers knew or didn’t know or whether the USDA was messing up or not. The packers made money unfairly off of misreporting information and they should repay the producers,” said Callicrate in an interview with a South Dakota farm braodcaster.
Callicrate believes the case is narrow and it shows the power of the big packers.
“This is a very simple case and shows how the big packers concentration, consolidation and power over the USDA has affected our income at the farm and ranch gate,” added Callicrate.
Jury selection will begin March 31 in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with opening arguments expected to start April 3.
http://www.brownfieldnetwork.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=4273B7D3-FE1F-54BE-759BA0F04E01C70B
OCM: 2007 FARM BILL MUST ADDRESS COMPETITION AND CONCENTRATION
Lincoln, NE ~ The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) is launching the effort to include pro-competition provisions in the next U.S. Farm Bill. OCM joined, in a letter to Congress, more than 200 other organizations representing farmers, ranchers, consumers, labor and faith-based groups to launch this effort.
“The federal government needs to establish and enforce the rules of the marketplace,” said OCM President Keith Mudd. “Congress should focus upon increasing choice, price and entrepreneurship for America’s independent farmers.”
The USDA is now holding hearings around the country seeking comments about the next Farm Bill. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has not included competition and market fairness among the topics of USDA concern.
“Today, a small handful of corporations dominate the nation’s food supply, and the concentration continues to accelerate. Price manipulation risks increase accordingly,” continued Mudd. “Livestock producers in some areas have only one packer available, and no competition. Poultry growers are forced into deceptive, changing contracts which take away their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in a dispute.”
OCM is urging Congress to enact the following legislation in the 2007 Farm Bill:
Prohibition on Packer-Owned Livestock: Packer owned livestock is a major market tool for large meat packers. This practice fosters industrial livestock production and freezes independent farmers out of markets. Prohibiting packer-owned livestock addresses the problem of captive supplies, which packers use to manipulate markets.
Producer Protection Act: This legislation would set minimum standards for contract equality in agriculture by addressing the worst abuses of production contracts. The legislation would include 1) clear disclosures of producer risks; 2) prohibit confidentiality clauses; 3) prohibit binding arbitration in contracts of adjesion; 4) recapture of capital investment so that contracts that require a significant capital investment by the producer cannot be capriciously canceled without compensation; and 5) a ban on unfair trade practices including “tournament” or “ranking system” payments.
Captive Supply Reform Act: This legislation would bring secret, long-term contacts between packers and producers into the open and create a market for these contracts. The Captive Supply Reform Act would restore competition by making packers and livestock producers bid against each other to win contracts. Currently, forward contracts and marketing agreements are negotiated in secret, in a transaction where packers have all the information and power, with the end result that these contracts and agreements depress prices and shut small and independent producers out of markets.
Closing Poultry Loopholes in the Packers & Stockyards Act: USDA does not have the authority to bring enforcement actions against poultry dealers. The P & S Act omits this authority. This legislation would clarify that USDA’s authority over poultry applies not only to broiler operations, but also to growers raising pullets or breeder hens.
Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL): COOL was passed as a provision of the 2002 Farm Bill. This measure allows consumers to make informed food purchases as to where the products were grown and processed. It also showcases U.S. grown and processed food products. This legislation would limit the ability of global food companies to source farm products from any country while passing them off as U.S. in origin. Meat packers and retailers have, thus far, successfully stymied efforts to implement the law. Congress should immediately implement COOL to benefit both domestic producers and consumers as intended in the current law.
“The upcoming Farm Bill represents a new chapter for America’s agricultural producers,” noted Mudd. “This is an opportunity to correct the imbalance of market power and influence. We ask Congress for nothing more than fair, competitive markets, which can be easily achieved by incorporating certain mechanisms into farm bill legislation. OCM will lead this effort in the upcoming farm bill debates.”
The Organization for Competitive Markets is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy institute working for American food producers, consumers and rural communities.
The Cattlemen’s Competitive Market Project (CCMP) is a self-help program for U.S. cattlemen, funded through voluntary contributions collected on cattle at the point of sale. Because the program is voluntary, funds may be used to promote USA RAISED (domestically produced) beef where other federally mandated programs cannot.
http://www.competitivemarkets.com/
OCM CALLS FOR SENATE HEARINGS ON USDA'S FAILURE TO ENFORCE PACKERS & STOCKYARDS ACT
Lincoln, NE ~ The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) is joining Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) call for hearings by the Senate Agriculture Committee to probe the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) failure to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act.
Last year OCM urged Senator Harkin to request an investigation into USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) performance reports. The subsequent investigation and report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) demonstrates that GIPSA administrators prevented employees from conducting investigations into complaints of anti-competitive market behavior and cloaked its lack of enforcement by inflating the number of investigations conducted.
"This report provides the evidence needed to initiate a thorough house-cleaning at GIPSA," said Keith Mudd. OCM President. "Through Senate hearings we can begin the sweeping reform that’s so sorely needed. Congress must scrutinize these findings to discover how this situation developed and what needs to be done to correct it. While GIPSA administrators were blocking investigations and cooking the books, thousands of producers went out of business while concentration increased and anti-competitive market behaviors went unchecked. U.S. producers deserve to know why a federal agency failed to enforce laws specifically designed to protect them."
Randy Stevenson, OCM Vice-President said, "The OIG report is proof that a federal agency lied to Congress about its performance by cooking the books Enron-style. In fact, the GIPSA Eastern Regional Office was reprimanded for not following orders to inflate and distort the number of actual investigations performed."
"GIPSA has competent economists in place who were not permitted to do their job while producers and rural communities suffered the consequences of increased concentration and anti-competitive actions. One has to wonder what the liability is for this dismal failure. The administrators who supported these actions should be brought to justice. OCM and producers across the nation are standing by to see how Congress will address this serious problem," said Stevenson.
"USDA’s Inspector General Phyllis Fong is a courageous individual," noted Mudd. "The Inspector General is charged with a mission of promoting effectiveness and integrity in the delivery of USDA ag programs. It is clear that Ms. Fong takes her charge seriously and we applaud her tenacity."
http://www.competitivemarkets.com/news_and_events/press_releases/2006/1-25SenateHearings.htm
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Captured by Meatpacking Industry
by Michael Scherer
First published in the December 2003 Mother Jones
Bad Meat made an activist out of John Munsell. Before the tainted beef arrived -- USDA-approved and vacuum-sealed -- at Montana Quality Foods, Munsell's family-run packing plant, this die-hard Republican had no reason to doubt the integrity of the food-safety system. But that changed after the meat he ground for hamburger tested positive for E. coli 0157:H7, a potentially deadly pathogen found in cattle feces that sickens thousands every year.
Instead of tracking the contaminated meat back to its source, the USDA launched an investigation of Munsell's own operation in Miles City, Montana. Never mind that the local federal inspector had seen the beef go straight from the package into a clean grinder -- a USDA spokesman called that testimony "hearsay." By February 2002, three more tests of meat Munsell was grinding straight from the package came back positive in USDA tests for E. coli. This time, as he would later testify in a government hearing, he had paperwork documenting that the beef came from a single source: CON-AGRA'S massive Greeley, Colorado, facility, which kills as many cows in three hours as Montana Quality Foods handles in a year.
Munsell fired off an angry email to the district USDA manager, warning of a potential public-health emergency, and adding that if no one tracked down the rest of the bad meat, "both of us should share a cell in Alcatraz." The agency moved immediately and aggressively -- not to recall meat from Greeley, but to shut down Munsell's grinding operation, a punishment that lasted four months.
Despite Munsell's continued whistleblowing -- to Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), national cattle associations, and his fellow meat processors -- the USDA failed to address the alleged contamination at ConAgra's Greeley plant. Then, in July 2002, Munsell's worst fears came true. E. coli-tainted burger from Greeley killed an Ohio woman and sickened at least 35 others. ConAgra then recalled 19 million pounds of beef, one of the largest recalls in history. (As much as 80 percent of the meat had already been consumed.)
"I want the world to know what the real policies are," says Munsell, driving through Miles City, a ranching town on Montana's eastern plain where the casinos compete with saddle shops on Main Street and the men don't take their hats off for much. "The real policies imperil the consumer," he says. "The USDA doesn't want that out."
Lanky, with thinning sandy hair, the 57-year-old Munsell speaks in a measured voice that barely hints at the fury he feels. Though his battle with the USDA has crippled his business, Munsell is now on the offensive. After months of lobbying, he persuaded Senator Burns to convene a congressional hearing in Billings last December, where Munsell testified on the failings of USDA inspections. Munsell also convinced the Government Accountability Project (GAP) -- the nation's leading whistleblower organization -- to investigate the USDA's handling of his case. In July 2003, GAP released a major report titled "Shielding the Giant: USDA's 'Don't Look, Don't Know' Policy for Beef Inspection." "The ConAgra-Munsell scandal," it concluded, "perpetuates a long-standing USDA pattern to blame the messenger and scapegoat the victims, rather than stand behind its seal of wholesomeness."
Why would the USDA willfully ignore a whistleblower and stand by as feces-tainted meat entered grocery stores? Two decades of federal reforms have left more and more regulation in the hands of the meat industry itself. "Agribusiness runs the show" at the USDA, says Tony Corbo, a food-safety lobbyist with the watchdog group Public Citizen.
In 1998 the USDA stopped testing for E. coli at the company's Greeley facility, saying internal safeguards were sufficient. While tests continued at small plants like Munsell's, the USDA allowed big packers to conduct their own in-house tests. Indeed, according to the congressional investigation of the ConAgra recall initiated by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), 33 in-house tests conducted at ConAgra's Greeley facility in the month before the recall came back positive for E. coli contamination. ConAgra failed to alert the USDA. In a scathing letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman this spring, Waxman wrote that the USDA's policy of industry self-regulation "appears grossly inadequate to protect the public health."
Munsell has steadily been winning allies in his fight for reform. "This guy is the small businessman. He's done everything right," says Brad Keena, a spokesman for Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), who has followed Munsell's case closely. "But because he's the middleman, his reputation gets ground into the problem of the larger company." (Swift & Co., which boughtConAgra's meatpacking operations last year, insists there is no conclusive evidence that the Greeley plant was responsible for Munsell's bad meat.)
To this day, the USDA maintains that it followed all of its own policies in regard to ConAgra and boasts of new safeguards that were put into place after the recall. USDA spokesman Steve Cohen also argues that Munsell never proved the source of the initial E. coli contamination and suggests that he "got a good deal" on the ConAgra meat. Munsell isn't rattled by such accusations. "He is simply grasping at straws," he says.
The negative publicity from the USDA's shutdown of his plant has proved fatal to business. This summer, Munsell put his operation up for sale, foretelling the end of a business that his father -- who, at the age of 84, still serves breakfast to the crew -- founded in 1946. But Munsell has no regrets. What haunts him is not his decision to go public, he says, but the fact that he almost decided to stay quiet, just to protect his own livelihood. "You know what it comes down to?" says the third-generation meatpacker, his steady composure beginning to crack. "My grandkids. The USDA could care less about the health of my grandkids."
© 2003 Mother Jones Magazine
USDA OVERSIGHT OF PACKERS A DECADE-LONG SHAM
(By ALAN GUEBERT Feb 13, 2006)
"For nearly a decade the Packers and Stockyards Administration, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture watchdog to ensure competitive, fair livestock markets, has been little more than a sleeping dog, according to a devastating, 36-page report released by USDA’s Office of Inspector General Jan. 18.
Indeed, notes the OIG in the undressing of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, (at http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/30601-01-HY.pdf), P&S oversight of livestock markets and meatpackers has been so lax since 2000 that "no competition and complex investigations were being done."
USDA’s own indictment of the one USDA agency American meat and poultry producers have daily contact with is repeatedly clear on that point: For years, Packers & Stockyards HAS NOT TURNED ONE STONE TO ENSURE U.S. LIVESTOCK MARKETS ARE FAIR NOR HAS IT FOUND ONE MEATPACKER MISSTEP IN AN INDUSTRY THAT DRIPS WITH BOTH COLLUSION AND BLOOD. But the point is not new.
A similar 1997 OIG investigation recommended a wholesale overhaul of P&S structure and policies to better monitor and regulate the SWIFTLY INTEGRATING, QUICKLY CONSOLIDATING MEAT INDUSTRY. Three years later, a September 2000 Government Accountability Office follow-up found a vastly restructured watchdog, but not a reinvigorated one. P&S "investigative methods," said the GAO, STILL HAD NOT BEEN "DESIGNED FOR ADDRESSING COMPLEX ANTICOMPETITIVE PRACTICE CONCERNS" THAT HAD TAKEN FIRM ROOT IN THE LIVESTOCK SECTOR.
Now arrives the third P&S indictment in less than a decade. Its very first line could have been lifted from the previous two. "The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration have not established an adequate control structure and environment to oversee and manage its investigative activities."
Facts contained in the OIG report make a chilling and infuriating case of P&S ignorance, incompetence and failure:
Records on 1,799 of the 1,842 market investigations P&S said it was conducting as of June 30, 2005 were so incomplete that the OIG could "not identify the location of the work performed." MOST OF THE "INVESTIGATIONS" WERE, IN FACT, FAKE, explained the OIG.
"Our review of the complaints and investigations log... [reveals] all types of work performed (i.e., monitoring activities, sending routine correspondence, or performing onsite reviews) as investigations, which would inflate the number of investigations reported as completed in the agency’s annual performance report."
The bad records, the cooked numbers and P & S’s "weak management control" meant that "...no referrals were being made to the Office of General Counsel [USDA prosecutors] for administrative action." In short, this meatpacker watchdog and market regulator was nothing more than a flea-bitten shadow of what Congress envisioned when it passed the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. It did little but creates paper, then shuffles it.
All led to nowhere. "OGC FILED NO ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLAINTS AGAINST MARKET PARTICIPANTS FOR ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES SINCE 1999 DUE TO LACK OF (P&S) REFERRALS," summarizes the report.
AND ALL OF THIS AS THE AMERICAN LIVESTOCK-PRODUCING AND MEATPACKING SECTORS WAS EXPERIENCING A TIDAL WAVE OF CONSOLIDATION AND INTEGRATION.
As revealing - and sickening - as this latest P&S report is, none of it is even mildly surprising to groups like the Organization for Competitive Markets and R-CALF. Both have screamed bloody murder about the catatonic P&S for years.
LIKEWISE, JUST AS PREDICTABLE HAS BEEN THE SILENCE OF LIVESTOCK GROUPS LIKE THE NATIONAL CATTLEMEN'S BEEF ASSOCIATION AND THE NATIONAL PORK PRODUCERS COUNCIL SINCE THE REPORT'S RELEASE. NEITHER OF THE PACKER LINKED GROUPS HAS EVEN NOTED THE EXISTANCE OF THE OIG REPORT.
Golly, can’t one NPPC or NCBA producer-official at least acknowledge that PART OF THEIR PACKER-PARTNERS' SUCCESS IN SQUEEZING POULTRY, PORK AND BEEF GROWERS INTO NEAR EXTINCTION IS THE RESULT OF THE BLIND POODLES AT PACKERS & STOCKYARDS?
Evidently not, and the silence, like the OIG report itself, IS CONFIRMATION OF THE CRONYISM BETWEEN USDA, AGBIZ AND PRODUCER GROUPS WHO HAVE LINKED UP TO ALL, BUT GIVE UP THE FIGHT FOR FAIR MARKETS, STRICT OVERSIGHT, AND A STRONG, INDEPENDENT AGRICULTURE. Shame on P&S, who, again, has been caught red-handed snoring away. SHAME ON USDA WHO, AGAIN, FINDS MORE TIME TO TOUT AGRIBUSINESS THAN REGULATE IT.
AND SHAME, SHAME ON FARM GROUPS WHO LET IT HAPPEN."
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CONTAMINANTS SUCH AS E-COLI HAPPEN AT THE PACKERS...NOT AT THE FARM! read below:
Marler Clark LLP, PS has seen an increase in business recently, and in light of the
current E. coli outbreak in Minnesota, I think that increase might be courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture. This is the agency that is responsible for, among other things, testing ground beef to ensure that the consuming public has a product free from E. coli O157:H7. What the agency has done, however, is slowly but surely erode the very testing mechanisms and requirements that are our protection against this lethal foodborne bacterium.
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDOH), which was instrumental in detecting last fall's large-scale outbreak involving Dole lettuce, recently reported that at least seventeen Longville-area people have been confirmed to be suffering from E. coli infections in the last six weeks. The illnesses were caused by E. coli-contaminated ground beef. One woman died as a result, and the MDOH suspects that the number of victims is likely more than thirty. Additionally, meat companies from Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia have all recalled E. coli-contaminated ground beef in the last month. To its credit, USDA testing was responsible for three of these recalls.
But with a bug as dangerous as E. coli O157:H7, the USDA cannot be satisfied with the occasional recall. It has both the technology and capability to do much more to prevent E. coli from entering our meat supply.
What may come as a shock to many readers is that the recent Minnesota outbreak could have been prevented. A Minnesota Department of Agriculture investigation has revealed that, prior to final grinding into ground beef, USDA testing proved that certain constituent parts of the meat in question was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
Nonetheless, the USDA did not see fit to preclude the use of the contaminated meat in a ground beef product that it knew was destined for the human food supply.
"What we're looking at here is USDA's complete disregard for consumer well-being," said William Marler, an attorney who has represented hundreds of victims of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks. "I'm left thinking, how could the USDA allow meat that it knows is contaminated with a lethal bacterium reach consumers' plates? I think I speak for the American public in saying that this is inexcusable."
"USDA has done a good job of wasting public resources by not stopping this outbreak before it started. We see again that USDA is basically an extension of the meat industry. Testing as performed and overseen by the USDA is a sham."
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http://www.austbeef.com.au/Content.asp?regID=15403&id=74430
| FOOD SAFETY |
| Tennessee firm recalls ground beef, possible E. coli contamination |
| |
| by Pete Hisey on 8/8/2006 for Meatingplace.com |
| http://web.meatingplace.com/news/init.asp?s=13d2202006_16347 |
Southeastern Meats, Chattanooga, Tenn., has voluntarily recalled approximately 4,337 pounds of ground beef that may have been contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7.
The products subject to recall are:
- 10-pound boxes of "GROUND BEEF PATTIES, SOUTHEASTERN MEATS, INC."
- 5- and 10-pound bags of "GROUND BEEF, SOUTHEASTERN MEATS, INC."
- 10-pound bags of "TACO BEEF MIX, INGREDIENTS BEEF AND BEEF PARTS, SOUTHEASTERN MEATS, INC."
Each package bears the establishment number "Est. 7953" inside the USDA mark of inspection and the case code, "07 31 06" or "08 01 06."
The problem was discovered during routine FSIS microbiological testing. There have been no reports of illnesses linked to the product, which was produced July 31 and August 1, then distributed to retail establishments in Georgia and Tennessee.
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http://www.startribune.com/462/story/632284.html
ORIGIN OF BEEF LINKED TO LONGVILLE DEATH IS STILL MYSTERY
Officials are unsure if they will find the source of the E. coli meat that is tied to a Longville death.
Glenn Howatt, Star Tribune
Last update: August 24, 2006 – 6:27 AM
Mile by mile, the freeway belt is widening.
The source of the ground beef that was linked to the death of a Longville, Minn., woman might elude disease investigators, state health officials said Wednesday. Carolyn Hawkinson, 73, died Sunday after becoming sick likely from eating ground beef that was served at a church meal in July. At least 17 people got sick from a dangerous strain of E. coli bacteria that most likely came from ground beef in the same outbreak, according to the Minnesota Health Department. Although the beef was ground by a local grocery store, the source of the E. coli contamination probably came from a MEAT PROCESSING PLANT.
"The final conclusion is we don't know which plant any of this came from," said Kevin Elfering, director of the dairy and food division of the Minnesota Agriculture Department.
The store receives meat from an Albert Lea distributor that gets its supply from four different meat processors. The processors operate at least eight different slaughterhouses. The Albert Lea distributor does not have records on the source of the meat that it shipped to the Longville grocery store, Elfering said. Minnesota health officials have not found other cases of E. coli contamination beyond the initial outbreak.
"We had sampled some of the ground beef that was being sold, and all of the samples that we tested have come back tested negative for E. coli," Elfering said. Results of Minnesota's investigation have been turned over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he added.
Glenn Howatt • 612-673-7192 • howatt@startribune.com
OUR NOTE: THE NAIS WOULD HAVE DONE NOTHING TO STOP THIS OUTBREAK FROM HAPPENING AS IT CAME FROM THE PROCESSING PLANTS, NOT THE FARMERS! DON'T LET PEOPLE TELL YOU THAT THE NAIS WILL KEEP YOU FROM GETTING E-COLI IN YOUR MCDONALD'S HAMBURGER AS THAT IS A FALSEHOOD!
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HOW AGRIBUSINESS HAS HIJACKED REGULATORY POLICY AT THE
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Each working group member had responsibilities for different case studies.The organizations listed do not necessarily endorse every detail of every case study. However, all collaborating organizations subscribe to the thesis that “revolving door” industry appointments at USDA constitute a problem that must be addressed.
The Agribusiness Accountability Initiative thanks
the working group members and
THE JESSIE SMITH NOYES FOUNDATION
for their financial support to this project.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
IN ITS EARLY DAYS,
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was dubbed the “People’s Department” by President Lincoln, in recognition of its role in helping the large portion of the population that worked the land. Some 140 years later, USDA has been transformed into something very different. Today it is, in effect, the “Agribusiness Industry’s Department,” since its policies on issues such as food safety and fair market competition have been shaped to serve the interests of the giant corporations that now dominate food production, processing and distribution. We call it USDA Inc.
The reorientation of USDA has been occurring over many years, but it has now reached a dramatic stage. Thanks to its growing political influence within the Bush Administration, Big Agribusiness has been able to pack USDA with appointees who have a background of working, lobbying, or performing research for large food processing companies and trade associations. Conversely, there are virtually no high-level appointees at USDA with ties to family farm, labor, consumer or environmental advocacy groups.
The extent to which agribusiness has packed USDA with its people is apparent when looking at the biographies of the top officials of the Department, up to and including Secretary Ann Veneman.
In addition to her time as a public official, Veneman served on the board of biotech company Calgene (later taken over by Monsanto). Many of Veneman’s key aides and the heads of various USDA agencies are political appointees who spent much of their career working for agribusiness companies and
trade associations.
For example, Veneman’s chief of staff Dale Moore was executive director for legislative affairs of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a trade association heavily supported by and aligned with the interests of the big meatpacking companies, such as Tyson and Cargill. Deputy Secretary James Moseley was a co-owner of a large factory farm in Indiana. Floyd Gaibler, a Deputy Under Secretary, used to be executive director of the dairy industry’s National Cheese Institute.
Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations Mary Waters was a senior director and legislative counsel for ConAgra Foods, one of the country’s largest food processors.
These industry-linked appointees have helped to implement policies that undermine the regulatory mission of USDA in favor of the bottom-line interests of a few economically powerful companies. This paper documents USDA’s abandonment of its public mission from two perspectives.
Through five case studies, it both reviews the questionable policies the Department has adopted in
key areas and the background of the key officials who helped to determine those policies.
BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE).
The assumption that the United States was immune to this livestock affliction, popularly known as “mad cow disease,” came to an end last year, when the first confirmed domestic case was found in a cow originating in Canada. Since that time, USDA has resisted imposing the strict safety measures and testing procedures recommended by most independent experts. At the same time, the Department has blocked an effort by a Kansas-based meatpacker called Creekstone Farms to install its own BSE testing lab, claiming that comprehensive testing by the company might lead consumers to think that meat from other providers was not safe. The USDA Inspector General is now investigating the actions of agency officials who secretly allowed beef imports from Canada to resume shortly after a BSE outbreak in that country-while at the same time opposing country-of-origin labeling of meat.
These reckless policies are best explained by the fact that numerous key positions in the Department are held by former staffers at NCBA, which, along with the dominant meatpacking firms, has also opposed stricter safety and testing measures as well as country-of-origin labeling.
CAPTIVE SUPPLY IN MEATPACKING.
The handful of giant corporations that dominate meatpacking in the United States have used their economic muscle to deny livestock producers (ranchers) access to open markets and have forced them to enter into private contracts heavily weighted in favor of the packers. This one-sided arrangement is known as captive supply. Under legislation enacted in the 1920s, USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) is supposed to oversee livestock markets and guard against anti-competitive practices.
Instead, GIPSA has repeatedly downplayed the problem of
captive supply and has all but abandoned its enforcement of fair competition rules. This “see no evil” approach has apparently been embraced by the current Administrator of GIPSA, Donna Reifschneider, who previously served as president of the National Pork Producers Council, a trade group closely aligned with dominant meatpacker interests.
MEAT INSPECTION POLICIES.
Americans used to think that tainted meat was a problem that disappeared with the reforms of the Progressive Era in the early 20th Century. Recent years have seen a resurgence of E.coli bacteria, listeria and other hazards that are widely linked to a weakening of traditional slaughterhouse inspection practices. Bowing to the wishes of the major meatpackers, USDA has endorsed a system called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). But instead of using HACCP to supplement traditional inspection, USDA implemented a watered-down version of the system while at the same time allowing meatpackers to rely more heavily on questionable procedures such as irradiation to deal with contamination. The federal official most directly responsible for meat inspection policies is Dr. Elsa Murano, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Before joining the Bush Administration, Murano was an academic who strongly supported irradiation and who did research funded by Titan Corporation, a leading player in food irradiation through its creation of SureBeam Corporation.
BIOTECH FOODS.
Resistance to genetically modified (GM) wheat among farmers has become so strong that Monsanto Co. announced recently that it was abandoning active efforts to
develop GM wheat. USDA, nonetheless, remains one of the strongest proponents of agricultural biotechnology. Like her predecessor Dan Glickman, Secretary Veneman has promoted GM foods in
“The Department has been deliberately transformed from a servant of the public interest into a vehicle for promoting the narrow interests of large producers and major food processing and input corporations, i.e. Big Agribusiness.”
International forums, downplaying the safety issues and charging that biotech critics are impeding efforts to reduce world hunger. As noted previously, Veneman once served on the board of a biotech company. Neil Hoffman, the Biotechnology Regulatory Services Director of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, formerly worked for the biotech firm Paradigm Genetics. Nancy Bryson, USDA’s general counsel, was formerly a partner in the law firm of Crowell & Moring, where she co-chaired the firm’s corporate biotechnology practice.
CONCENTRATED ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIONS (CAFOS).
These overgrown livestock facilities, which house and feed 1,000 or more animals in a confined area, are among the biggest contributors to agricultural pollution. Also known as factory farms, CAFOs produce enormous quantities of manure that contaminate water supplies and cause other environmental problems.
USDA has promoted the growth of CAFOs with little or no regard to their public health consequences. Specifically, USDA has supported the misguided policy of using conservation dollars out of its Environmental Quality Incentives Program to subsidize CAFOs’ attempts to solve their manure problems. The official who oversees the day-to-day activities of USDA, Deputy Secretary James R. Moseley, has been described by the Chicago Tribune as “a champion of industrial-style hog production.” Before taking office, he was a partner in Infinity Pork LLC, an Indiana CAFO that raised 50,000 hogs annually.
Each of these case studies demonstrates an alarming correlation between controversial policies adopted by USDA and the financial interests of the companies and trade associations that previously employed many key Department officials. Rapidly disappearing from USDA is a diversity of perspectives, particularly those that give priority to family farmers and consumers. There is no longer any balance between USDA’s traditional dual roles of promoting the agriculture industry and protecting food safety and the livelihood of family farmers. USDA Inc. now appears to slavishly follow the wishes of Big Agribusiness.
This paper concludes that until there is greater stakeholder representation inside USDA, a substantive movement toward more balanced farm and trade polices is impossible. Excessive industry influence is the central obstacle to redirecting U.S. agriculture in a more sustainable and fair direction. The paper thus calls for broad collaboration on an alternative agenda for addressing the problems at USDA, including:
- Reappraisal of ethics rules to prevent government officials from overseeing policies that directly affect the interest of their former employers;
- Enhancement of Congressional oversight over regulatory appointees;
- Evaluation of whether USDA can continue to serve both as a promoter of U.S. agricultural products and a regulator of food safety; and
- Further research on revolving-door conflicts of interest at USDA.
Progress on these measures will begin to turn USDA Inc. back into an arm of government that represents the public interest.
INTRODUCTION “WE PROVIDE LEADERSHIP on food, agriculture, natural resources, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management.”
This is the official mission statement of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), one of the largest entities of the federal government, with an annual budget of more than $70 billion and a workforce of more than 100,000.
Despite this noble statement of public purpose, there is ample reason to question whether USDA’s vast resources and expertise are serving the best interests of consumers, farmers and the environment-or the narrow interests of large agri-food corporations that wield enormous economic power and political influence.
This paper explores the extent to which the food industry has shaped USDA decision-making over the past decade. It suggests that increasing market concentration in the food system may well be exacerbating industry influence at USDA. The result of ongoing mergers and acquisitions is that there are fewer and larger companies that face less competition in advancing their policy prescriptions. To shed more light on these issues, the paper briefly reviews the mission and history of USDA, as well as the rise of the food industry oligopoly. It then explores in more detail a series of issues in which positions adopted by USDA are much more closely aligned with the interests of industry than those of consumers, small farmers and the environment.
In each of the cases studied, high-level political appointees at USDA have had strong ties to companies and industry sectors with much at stake in the Department’s policies.
The paper therefore concludes that a great deal more attention must be paid to conflicts of interest in the formulation of food and agriculture policy, and that there is a need for greater balance in access to key decisionmakers to ensure that the public interest is not always trumped by food industry insiders.
USDA is a vast bureaucracy with a wide range of responsibilities in its portfolio. For example, it:
- conducts and sponsors agricultural research;
- expands markets for U.S. agricultural products;
- administers a financial safety net system for farmers;
- manages 192 million acres of national forests and rangelands;
- carries out anti-hunger efforts such as the food stamp and school lunch programs;
- promotes rural economic development; and much more.
USDA is also a regulatory agency. It is responsible for protecting the nation’s food supply from contamination and animal or plant diseases and infestations. Meat inspectors employed by the USDA’s Food Safety & Inspection Service are stationed directly alongside production lines in packinghouses. The Department is also responsible for enforcing certain antitrust-like laws in order to ensure fair market competition and the viability of smaller agricultural producers.
This paper is concerned only with the food-related regulatory functions of USDA, and our conclusion is that the Department has been an increasing disappointment. The U.S. food supply, once considered the envy of the world, is plagued by outbreaks of E.coli, salmonella and listeria that many observers attribute to the spread of factory farming and production speed-ups by the big food processors. USDA has been widely criticized for its handling of the recent appearance of so-called mad cow disease in domestic livestock. The Department (along with the Food and Drug Administration) has also been called to task for promoting agricultural biotechnology without adequately assessing the economic and environmental impacts on farmers or the public health consequences for consumers.
In addition to performing poorly in the food safety arena, USDA has fallen short in its responsibility to protect family farmers from the effects of economic concentration. Particularly in the meat sector, the Department has stood by while small producers have been squeezed by the handful of giant corporations that have taken control of beef, pork and poultry processing.
The regulatory failures of USDA cannot be attributed simply to bureaucratic inertia. There is growing evidence, documented in part in this paper, that the Department has been deliberately transformed from a servant of the public interest into a vehicle for promoting the narrow interests of large producers and major food processing and input (seed, fertilizer, etc.) corporations, i.e. Big Agribusiness. This transformation has been carried out not only by a shift in policy orientation but also by a change in the composition of the Department itself. Many of the top positions in USDA are now held by individuals who previously worked for Big Agribusiness.
This special interest takeover, which parallels developments in other branches of the federal government, poses a serious threat to the safety of the U.S. food supply and the viability of family farms.
We have produced this report to highlight this alarming development and to offer recommendations for reorienting the agricultural regulatory system to the needs of the country as a whole, not just the most powerful corporate players.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE “PEOPLE’S DEPARTMENT”
The bill creating USDA was signed into law on May 15, 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln, who later referred to the agency as “the people’s department,” given that the group it was designed to serve—farmers and their families—made up roughly 50 percent of the population at the time.
USDA’s original mission focused on providing information to farmers to improve agricultural production.
The phrase took on added significance in the 1880s, when USDA began to protect the well-being of the population as a whole by researching the problem of food adulteration. During the same period, Congress gave USDA responsibility for overseeing the transportation and importation of live stock-a significant expansion of the Department’s role into the then-embryonic field of government regulation.
USDA’s Bureau of Animal Industry was also given responsibility for implementing the first federal meat inspection act, passed by Congress in 1890. That role was expanded when the law was strengthened in 1906 after the uproar caused by the publication of Upton Sinclair’s muckraking book The Jungle. That same year, Congress passed the Food and Drugs Act, largely as a result of research on food safety that had been conducted by USDA’s Bureau of Chemistry (a precursor of the Food and Drug Administration). The Bureau was so zealous in its research that it had assembled a group of volunteers within USDA who consumed meals containing potentially harmful substances to determine the health effects. The press dubbed these human guinea pigs the Poison Squad.
In the 1920s the Department was given additional regulatory functions as part of an effort by Congress to control the effects of concentration of ownership in meatpacking with the passage of the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act.
Later regulatory duties included enforcement of the 1957 Poultry Products Inspection Act and the 1968 Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act.
Today, USDA is a very different entity from the one lauded by Lincoln. It is instead an agency that seems determined to weaken or dismantle much of the regulatory framework that has been developed over the past century.
In areas such as nutrition advice (the food guide pyramid), analysts such as Prof. Marion Nestle of New York University have shown that the Department has ignored scientific evidence in favor of placating industry interests.
As described in the case studies below, USDA takes decisive action in favor of public health only when forced to by a public scandal, and even then it seeks ways to protect the interests of large producers and major processing companies.
The idea that a regulatory agency would abandon its public mission in favor of a narrow one is not a new concept. In fact, it is a common view of analysts on the left and on the right. The left critique of regulation originates with the work of historian Gabriel Kolko, whose 1963 book The Triumph of Conservatism argues that the regulatory reforms of the Progressive Era were really a response to demands by big business that the federal government rationalize ruinous competition.
George Stigler, a leading figure in the conservative Chicago School of Economics, wrote a widely cited 1971 article in which he argues that industries seek regulation in order to control entry into the field and otherwise restrict competition.
Critiques such as these have made the principle of “regulatory capture” a standard element of contemporary economics.
“Thanks to its political influence, Big Agribusiness has been able to pack USDA with appointees who have a background of working in the industry, lobbying for it, or performing research or other functions on its behalf.
These appointees have helped to implement policies that undermine the regulatory mission of USDA in favor of the bottom-line interests of agribusiness.”
PACKING USDA
What has happened in USDA goes beyond a process of capture intended to restrict competition.
Thanks to its political influence, Big Agribusiness has been able to pack USDA with appointees who have a background of working in the industry, lobbying for it, or performing research or other functions on its behalf.
These appointees have helped to implement policies that undermine the regulatory mission of USDA in favor of the bottom-line interests of agribusiness. In other words, public health and livelihoods are at stake.
To see that agribusiness has packed USDA with its apparent representatives, one has only to look at the biographies on the Department’s website of its roughly 45 top officials, including the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Under Secretaries, Deputy Assistant Secretaries and heads of key offices. Many of the biographies cite previous work with agribusiness companies and their trade associations, lobbying firms and research arms, including university research centers bankrolled by the food industry.
Additional research makes clear that there are approximately as many industry people among the appointees as there are career civil servants.
Here are some examples of appointees with past industry ties (unless otherwise noted, the source for each affiliation is the individual’s biography on the USDA website):
- Secretary ANN M. VENEMAN
served on the board of biotech company Calgene.
- Secretary Veneman’s chief of staff DALE MOORE
was executive director for legislative affairs of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), a trade association heavily supported by and aligned with the interests of the big meatpacking companies.
- Veneman’s recently named Deputy Chief of Staff,
MICHAEL TORREY, was a vice president at the International Dairy Foods Association.
- Director of Communications ALISA HARRISON
was formerly executive director of public relations at NCBA.
- Deputy Secretary JAMES MOSELEY
was a partner in Infinity Pork LLC, a factory farm in
Indiana.
- Under Secretary J.B. PENN
was an executive of Sparks Companies, an agribusiness consulting firm.
- Under Secretary ELSA A. MURANO
conducted industry-sponsored research while a university professor (see below).
- Under Secretary JOSEPH JEN
was director of research at Campbell Soup Company’s
Campbell Institute of Research and Technology.
- Deputy Under Secretary FLOYD D. GAIBLER
was executive director of the National Cheese Institute and the American Butter Institute, which are funded by the dairy industry.
- Deputy Under Secretary KATE COLER
was director of government relations for the Food
Marketing Institute.
- Deputy Under Secretary CHARLES LAMBERT
spent 15 years working for NCBA.
- Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations MARY WATERS
was a senior director and legislative counsel for ConAgra Foods.
Industry infiltration also extends to USDA’s non-food areas. For example, Mark E. Rey, the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and the Environment, who oversees the Forest Service, was previously a vice president of the American Forest and Paper Association.
By contrast, there are virtually no associations with family farm, consumer or environmental groups to be found among the appointees. The allies of Big Agribusiness have a tight lock on the main food policy arm of the federal government.
CAPTURED PRODUCER GROUPS
In addition to previous affiliations with food processing giants such as ConAgra, many of USDA’s top appointees used to be affiliated with producer groups such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). These organizations have close ties with the big agri-food corporations. Such corporations can join NPPC through the Council’s Pork Alliance, which is represented on NPPC’s board of directors.
NPPC acknowledges that the dues paid by corporate members (among which are Cargill and Monsanto) “are used to fund critical industry priorities in the legislative and regulatory areas.” NCBA has an Allied Industry Partners program with several categories of membership, depending on the level of financial support provided by a company.
Bigger contributors (which here, too, include Cargill and Monsanto) and are eligible to join the Allied Industry Council, which has representation on NCBA’s board of directors.
NCBA, in fact, was created in 1996 through the merger of the National Cattlemen’s Association and the National Livestock and Meat Board (including its Beef Industry Council), which put producers and processors under the same roof.
Given these relationships, it is not surprising that groups such as NPPC and NCBA consistently side with the interests of the big processors and ignore the interests of small producers. This rift between small and large producers has been most apparent in the controversy over mandatory federal promotion and “The increasing dominance of USDA policymaking by agribusiness interests and personnel can be traced to two sources: the growing concentration of ownership in food production and processing, and the growing political influence exercised by the large players in the industry.” research programs, better known as the “check-offs.”
Under these programs, producers have been forced to pay fees on each head of livestock to help finance marketing programs such as the “Beef: It’s what’s for Dinner” advertising campaign. Check-off fees also fund the political worker and regulatory advocacy of groups like NCBA and NPPC, including support for positions that disproportionately favor large producers and the meatpacking industry.
Small producers argue that they can’t afford the fees and that the marketing efforts provide little direct benefit for them. In a 2000 referendum, a majority of pork producers voted to terminate the check-off program, but USDA refused to comply with the vote. Instead, NPPC and NCBA have gone to court (with the support of USDA) to preserve the check-offs, and the cases have dragged on for years. In the fall of 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case on the beef check-off dispute. Another example of the rift concerns the debate over country-of-origin labeling. Despite strong support among small producers and the public for mandatory labeling, NPPC and NCBA joined with food processing and retailer groups in supporting a weaker voluntary system. In many ways, the leading producer groups have been taken over by industry influence in the same way that USDA has been captured.
THE IMPACT OF CONCENTRATION
The increasing dominance of USDA policymaking by agribusiness interests and personnel can be traced to two sources: the growing concentration of ownership in food production and processing, and the growing political influence exercised by the large players in the industry.
It is worth noting some of the key findings of research on concentration in the agri-food industry conducted by William Heffernan and his colleagues at the University of Missouri for the National Farmers Union. Heffernan points out that economists generally consider that there is potential for market distortion when the top four firms have combined market share of 40 percent or more. His research found that the top four firms typically control 60-80 percent or more of the market in sectors such as beef packing, pork packing, broiler production, flour milling and soybean crushing.
"The result of concentration is that direct food production is increasingly done by large factory farms, and giant corporations dominate the subsequent phases of the food chain."
Moreover, Heffernan points to evidence that the food system is increasingly vertically integrated as companies on the input (pesticides, fertilizers and seeds) side of food production form partnerships and strategic alliances with firms in the processing, food manufacturing and retail phases of the food chain to expand their capacity to influence prices and product specifications.
Concentration in the agri-food system, as evidenced by anti-competitive market distortions and vertical integration, raises a series of important questions about antitrust enforcement, the future of American farming, and the rise of transnational food cartels.
The result of concentration is that direct food production is increasingly done by large factory farms, and giant corporations dominate the subsequent phases of the food chain—including inputs such as seeds and fertilizer (DuPont, Monsanto, etc.); initial processing (Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, etc.); meatpacking (Tyson, Smithfield, etc.); dairy (Dean Foods, etc.); and packaged food manufacturing (Kraft, ConAgra, etc.).
Growing concentration is also seen in food wholesaling (Sysco), retailing (Wal-Mart) and foodservice (Compass Group, Sodexho and ARAMARK).
Another consequence of growing concentration is that the remaining few corporate players and their executives are in a good position to exercise political influence through campaign contributions.
According to compilations by the Center for Responsive Politics, the agribusiness sector increased its aggregate federal contributions from $20.6 million in the 1990 election cycle to $54.4 million in the 2000 cycle, when the current administration was seeking office. By devoting 74 percent of the contributions to Republicans in the latter year, agribusiness interests were in a good position to reap the rewards when George W. Bush was elected.
These generous contributions have, of course, also given Big Agribusiness substantial influence in Congress. One example concerns the country-of-origin labeling issue mentioned above. Strong farmer and public support for the idea forced Congress to include a provision for labeling in the 2002 farm bill. Processing companies, which want to be able to keep the public in the dark about their use of imported foodstuffs, have been waging a campaign against implementation of the provision ever since. In 2003 agribusiness allies in Congress, with support from the Bush Administration, moved to delay implementation of the program until 2006, and President Bush readily signed legislation to that effect earlier this year.
The fact that agribusiness allies in Congress and the Administration succeeded in derailing a program that enjoyed overwhelming public support (a January 2004 National Farmers Union poll found 82 percent of consumers favored labeling) and was already the law of the land shows just how powerful industry has become.
Not only did USDA fail to stand up to Congress; it tried to bolster the industry’s case against mandatory labeling by estimating the costs of the system at a high level that the General Accounting Office called “questionable and not well supported.”
The case studies that follow describe other examples of the way in which food-sector regulatory policy has been hijacked by agribusiness interests. We have chosen to focus our presentation on USDA, but the problem extends to other federal agencies that have some jurisdiction over food safety matters, such as the Food and Drug Administration. In 1993 FDA ignored substantial evidence about the risks of using recombinant bovine growth hormone in milk production and approved Monsanto’s heavily promoted product Posilac. The FDA official responsible for the agency’s labeling policy was Michael R. Taylor, a former partner of the law firm King & Spaulding, which represented Monsanto. A decade later, in July 2003, FDA proposed to loosen rules about the health claims food processors can make for their products; the New York Times described the Grocery Manufactures of America as “pleased with the agency’s decision.”
The case study below on confined animal feeding operations notes agribusiness influence over the Environmental Protection Agency as well as USDA.
Clearly, the problem of excessive industry influence over federal policymaking is widespread. This paper seeks to highlight one aspect of that problem—revolving door appointments at USDA—and to outline some reforms that can help restore some balance to the Department’s regulatory operations. Only then would USDA cease to function as an arm of Big Agribusiness and return to its original role as a guardian of the interests of family farmers and consumers.
CASE STUDY: BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY
THE PROBLEM
Since the late 1980s, the world beef industry has contended with a threat called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more popularly known as mad cow disease. The problem was originally concentrated in Britain, where at least 141 people have died since a variation of the disease spread to humans.
For more than a decade, Americans thought that BSE was mainly a European problem.
U.S. consumers continued to consume prodigious quantities of beef and accepted assurances from federal officials that everything was being done to prevent the disease from infecting domestic herds.
That confidence began erode in May 2003, when a BSE-infected cow was found in the Canadian province of Alberta, prompting the U.S. government to suspend beef imports from our neighbor to the north. Japan and South Korea demanded that all beef they bought from the U.S. be labeled as born, raised and processed in the United
States. USDA refused such labeling, insisting to those countries, as it had to U.S. consumers, that existing rules were sufficient for safety and confidence in the food supply.
The bigger shock came in December 2003, when the first cow in the United States tested positive for BSE. For several days, during which the beef market crashed, USDA withheld the fact that the cow was from Canada. Countries such as Japan and South Korea wasted no time in banning U.S. imports, yet Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and other department officials insisted that the diseased Holstein in Washington State was an isolated case and that they were acting quickly to address the issue for the “North American” herd. Veneman made a show of saying that she intended to serve beef to her family at Christmas.
About a week after the BSE discovery, USDA announced that it would impose some of the stricter rules that independent analysts had long been advocating. These included a prohibition on the use of downer cows (those unable to walk because of injury or illness) and a ban on the use of certain body parts (such as brains and spinal cords, which are most likely to harbor BSE). The latter applied only to cows older than 30 months. The downer cow policy came as a surprise to most Americans, who had no idea that their hamburgers may have come from crippled animals. Yet, for more than a decade, the beef processing industry had successfully thwarted efforts in Congress to ban the practice.
"At a time when [USDA] should be bending over backward to reassure customers, it keeps taking actions that suggest more concern with protecting the financial interests of the beef industry than with protecting public health...No one can be confident if the department remains so blatantly protective of the American meat industry."
Despite the level of public concern in the wake of the Washington State BSE discovery, the industry was not prepared to accede to new rules, such as the testing of all cattle for BSE, country-of-origin labeling and a ban on using cattle remains in the production of animal feed.
In early January the chief lobbyist of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) declared: “We’re not about to let the federal government come in here and overregulate at a time when they think they ought to do something.”
As it turned out, the NCBA had little to worry about. USDA wrapped up its investigation of the Washington State BSE case in only seven weeks, after having failed to find almost two-thirds of the 80 cattle that entered the United States from Canada with the infected Holstein. W. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinary officer of USDA, declared: “It’s time to move on.”
The rigor of USDA’s investigation came under Congressional scrutiny shortly thereafter, when a report by the House Committee on Government Reform, citing three eyewitnesses, disputed USDA’s claim that the infected cow was a downer. Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-VA) and ranking Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman of California wrote to Secretary Veneman, stating that the new evidence “could have serious implications for both the adequacy of the national [mad cow] surveillance system and the credibility of the USDA.”
Under pressure such as this, USDA reluctantly agreed to expand its testing program a bit more, but it still resisted the more aggressive measures that were widely advocated outside the Department and the beef industry.
USDA also continued to deny that country-of-origin labeling would help re-establish export markets and consumer confidence—despite the certification requested by Japan and South Korea.
Consumer surveys showed a strong preference for country-of-origin labeling. World Animal Health Organization rules state that a country can maintain “BSE free” status if an infected animal is proven to be imported. But Tyson, Cargill, and Swift—which have large meatpacking and production operations in Canada, Australia, Argentina and other countries—did not want to identify the source of the meat they sold to consumers. USDA, as a result, adamantly refused to change it position on labeling.
USDA’s inclination to put the interests of the big meatpackers ahead of public safety was so strong that the Department went on the attack against a small maverick beef company. Kansas-based Creekstone Farms operates what is reputedly an ultramodern plant and has sold premium meat to customers in places as far away as Russia.
Realizing that its business would be crippled unless foreign customers were assured that its product was free of BSE, Creekstone spent more than $500,000 to install its own BSE testing laboratory—the first in a U.S. slaughterhouse—to test every head of cattle it slaughtered. The company hired seven chemists and biologists to operate the facility.
Rather than praising Creekstone for its initiative, USDA prevented the company from operating the lab by refusing to sell it necessary testing materials, domestic distribution of which is controlled by the federal government. In a position that was supported by NCBA, USDA insisted that its own policy of limited testing was the only acceptable one and that allowing Creekstone to do comprehensive testing might lead consumers to think that meat from other companies was not safe. USDA also claimed that false positive results for BSE could have a negative impact on cattle and beef markets.
The inadequacy of USDA’s regulatory approach has become even clearer with some recent events.
In May there were reports that a cow with evidence of neurological problems (which is considered to be a marker of higher risk of BSE) was discovered at a Lone Star Beef slaughterhouse in Texas, yet it was not tested for BSE. The animal was removed from the meat production line but was sent to a rendering plant to be made into animal feed, which could allow a BSE infection to return to the human food supply. USDA could not explain how this animal slipped through its supposedly strengthened testing program.
Revelations such as these prompted the New York Times to editorialize: “At a time when [USDA] should be bending over backward to reassure customers, it keeps taking actions that suggest more concern with protecting the financial interests of the beef industry than with protecting public health…No one can be confident if the department remains so blatantly protective of the American meat industry.”
It then came to light that, in September 2003, USDA had allowed meatpackers to resume imports of some meat products from Canada that were prohibited by an August 2003 regulation that responded to the discovery of BSE in that country. Over a six month period, more than 30 million pounds of ground beef and other high-risk beef products were brought into the country. The willingness of USDA to take this reckless secret action can only be interpreted as another example of an agency totally subservient to the interests of industry. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) was so outraged that he urged President Bush to ask for the resignation of Secretary Veneman (whose spokeswoman claimed the Secretary knew nothing about the imports), adding that the public “deserved to know who may have benefited from favored treatment, and why.”
At the written request of U.S. Senators Tom Daschle (D-SD), Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Mark Dayton (D-MN), the USDA Inspector General agreed to review the agency’s authorization of the Canadian beef imports.
USDA’s wrong-headed BSE policies have put U.S. consumers at risk while jeopardizing the livelihood of ranchers.
Despite the position of NCBA, it is not in the best interests of cattle producers to resist comprehensive testing or country-of-origin labeling. The domestic meat market may have stabilized after last year’s scares, but beef exports have plunged in the face of foreign skepticism about the safety of U.S. cattle. If USDA continues on its current course, there is a serious risk that a crisis of confidence will emerge in this country as well.
THE USDA-FOOD INDUSTRY CONNECTION
USDA’s inclination to defend the interests of major meatpacking companies comes as no surprise when one considers the background of some of the Department’s key officials. USDA is overflowing with meat industry veterans.
- DALE MOORE, Secretary Veneman’s Chief of Staff, was previously the executive director for legislative affairs of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
After taking office Moore said he would recuse himself from matters involving his former employer, but it is unclear how far that position extends into meat safety issues and how diligent Moore has been in observing it.
- DR. CHARLES “CHUCK” LAMBERT, Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, spent more than 15 years in various positions at NCBA.
In a June 2003 Congressional hearing the former beef lobbyist was asked whether it was possible that a case of BSE could occur in the United States. He replied: “No, sir.” When asked whether he would bet his job on that statement, he replied: “Yes, sir.” He later admitted to a reporter: “I overstated my case.”
- ALISA HARRISON, USDA Director of Communications, was formerly executive director of public relations at NCBA.
Harrison has defended the BSE policy of USDA and Secretary Veneman to the press, and she was the spokesperson who tried to justify the Department’s position on the Creekstone Farms controversy. On the latter issue, Harrison made the following dubious statement: “We are looking at what the consensus of international experts is when it comes to testing, and that consensus is that 100 percent testing is not justified.”
- J.B. PENN, Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, used to be a senior vice president of Sparks Companies, a consulting firm that works closely with the meat industry and other parts of agribusiness.
In April, Penn led a USDA delegation that went to Tokyo to try to reassure Japanese officials about the safety of U.S. beef. Penn strongly hinted that his aim was to persuade the Japanese that the 100 percent testing approach that Creekstone Farms wanted to pursue was not necessary. Speaking of planned follow-on negotiations, Penn told reporters: “I think part of what we’ll be discussing in these technical talks is, are there different ways to get to the same level of consumer safety, to the same assurance of a level of some consumer safety of beef?”
- MARY WATERS, Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations, used to serve as a Senior Director and Legislative Counsel for ConAgra Foods, which until 2002 was a major packing company for beef and pork.
In 2002 the company was forced to recall 19 million pounds of beef shipped from a plant in Colorado because of E.coli contamination.
- SCOTT CHARBO, Chief Information Officer, was formerly president of mPower3 Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of ConAgra Foods. Secretary Veneman assigned Charbo responsibility for creating a national animal identification program to help deal with problems such as BSE. Charbo seemed to be downplaying the importance of the project. He stated: “It is important to note that no animal identification program by itself will prevent an introduction of animal disease, ensure safe food or prevent a recall.”
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that officials such as these are going out of their way to minimize the regulatory burden on their former employers in the beef industry, even in the face of marketplace and food safety threats as potentially disastrous as BSE. The industry mindset seems to be so ingrained that these officials have become oblivious to common sense or simple prudence.
CASE STUDY: CAPTIVE SUPPLY IN MEATPACKING
If Hasbro Inc., the current owner of the board game “Monopoly,” wanted to be up to date, it would bring out a new game called Monopsony. A monopoly, of course, is a situation in which a single seller dominates a market and thus can command an artificially high price. A monopsony is a situation in which a single buyer dominates the market for raw materials or wholesale goods and thus can compel suppliers to accept an artificially low price.
In the U.S. economy today, the increasing domination of certain industries by a small number of companies is moving those sectors in the direction of monopsony. One of the key examples of this phenomenon is meatpacking, where a handful of giant companies now wield enormous market power. Two of the most powerful are Tyson Foods (annual revenues: about $25 billion) and Smithfield Foods ($8 billion). After conquering the poultry business, Tyson bought IBP Inc. in 2001 and became the dominant player in beef, processing more than 12 million cattle a year.
Thanks to a string of some 30 acquisitions over the past two decades, Smithfield is now the undisputed king of pork, processing about 20 million hogs a year. Excel Corp.—a subsidiary of Cargill Inc., a $60 billion agribusiness conglomerate—is also a major force in beef and pork. Tyson, Smithfield, Excel and the other major packers use their economic power to make sure they are buying livestock from ranchers and farmers on the most advantageous terms. Over the past few decades, they have increasingly done this by limiting their purchases in open markets (such as auctions) and instead have forced producers to enter into contracts well before animals are delivered. These contracts are weighted in favor of the packers. The result of these arrangements is that ranchers and farmers become captive suppliers and tend to receive less for their output than they would in a competitive market.
The danger of unchecked market power on the part of big meatpackers was recognized back in the early 20th Century. During the Woodrow Wilson Administration, the federal government took antitrust action against the leading companies, which in 1920 signed a consent decree to settle the case. Its provisions required the large packers to end their involvement in retailing and to divest their interests in public stockyards, railroad terminals and market outlets. Additional reforms were codified in 1921, when Congress passed the Packers and Stockyards Act. The main results of the Act were that packers could not apportion territories, that stockyards had to post their rates and that market agencies and brokers were subjected to rules barring unfair, discriminatory or deceptive practices. The Act created the Packers and Stockyards Administration (PSA) within the Department of Agriculture. PSA was given authority to oversee matters such as prompt payment to livestock sellers, bonding of livestock buyers and accuracy of weighing equipment. It was also empowered to collect data on the industry and to investigate complaints of anti-competitive practices. PSA—which joined with the Federal Grain Inspection Service in 1994 to form the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, or GIPSA—was authorized to bring administrative proceedings against parties that broke the rules, but it had to refer more serious matters to the Justice Department.
As meatpacking has grown ever more concentrated over the past few decades, groups representing family farmers and ranchers have been warning that the increased use of captive supply arrangements is undermining fair competition. Although this is an area in which GIPSA is mandated to act, the agency has been reluctant to do so. Instead, the agency focuses mostly on that part of its mission related to marketing. In its annual report for fiscal year 2003, GIPSA reports that, of the 1,522 investigations completed by the Packers and Stockyards Programs, only eight related to competition issues. In six of the eight cases, the agency found no violation had occurred.
GIPSA has bent over backward to avoid the conclusion that packers are colluding to restrict competition. Noting allegations that packer behavior led to low hog prices at certain times or that packers deliberately refused to bid on cattle at certain times and places, a GIPSA report stated:
“These circumstances do not necessarily suggest that firms are acting in concert to restrict competition and instead may be attributable to normal supply and demand forces, competitive bidding processes, or personal relationships that have developed over time between packers and livestock sellers.”
In other words, GIPSA officials find it hard to think that packers could act in an anti-competitive manner, preferring to believe that economic forces or random factors are always the explanation for suspicious market trends.
GIPSA also adopts a sanguine approach toward the spread of captive supply arrangements. While acknowledging the concerns of family farm groups, the agency says that there are other observers who contend that captive supplies do not affect market prices and that they play a beneficial role. GIPSA avoids taking a strong position of its own by saying that “concerns about the possible effects of captive supplies are complicated by questions about the accuracy of publicly available captive supply statistics.”
"The government has sat by as the packing industry has steadily become more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands with greater and greater political clout."
The truth was put more bluntly in a New York Times editorial last February: “The government has sat by as the packing industry has steadily become more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands with greater and greater political clout.”
With the failure of GIPSA to act against monopsony, family farm groups have sought relief in Congress and the courts. Both Republicans and Democrats from major cattle-producing states have introduced legislation that would bar some of the most unfair practices associated with captive supply arrangements. Prospects for the legislation in Congress are unclear.
As for court action, in February 2004 a federal jury in Alabama found that Tyson’s beef operation (the former IBP) was guilty of manipulating cattle prices by using illegal supply contracts. The jury awarded damages of about $1.3 billion. The judge in the case (Pickett et al. v. Tyson Fresh Meats), who seemed to be leaning in favor of Tyson throughout the case, later threw out the verdict for technical reasons. His action is being appealed.
Despite being vacated, the jury’s verdict in the Pickett case helped to dramatize the problem of captive supply and gave an indication of how much economic damage is being done to small producers. It makes GIPSA’s failure to act all the more egregious.
THE USDA-FOOD INDUSTRY CONNECTION
The Administrator of GIPSA is DONNA REIFSCHNEIDER.
There is currently no biography of Reifschneider posted on the USDA website, but a press release issued when she was appointed in 2002 indicated that she was previously a member of the executive committee of the Meat Export
Federation and, prior to that, president of the National Pork Producers Council. The Federation and the Council are agribusiness trade associations that have not been critical of growing concentration in the meat industry. Reifschneider participated in a Council task force that came out against a ban on packer ownership.
Reifschneider’s family owns and operates a hog and grain farm in southern Illinois. In 2000 Successful Farming magazine reported that the Reifschneider farm was where multinational agribusiness giant Bunge Ltd. “had its main genetic nucleus herd.”
GIPSA’s Deputy Administrator for Packers and Stockyards Programs, JoAnn Waterfield, does not come from an industry background, but she has apparently adopted much of the meat processing industry’s point of view.
According to a September 2003 article in a publication of the Illinois Farm Bureau, Waterfield “recognizes packers enjoy the right to ‘grow their business.’ She emphasizes [that] neither livestock market concentration nor consolidation are prohibited under the agency’s guiding Packers and Stockyards Act.”
Speaking to a 2002 meeting of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Waterfield made it sound like enforcement of the unfair competition provisions of the Packers and Stockyards Act was all but impossible, claiming that the Act provides “an extremely difficult threshold” to prove there is a violation. Apparently, GIPSA has given up trying.
CASE STUDY: MEATPACKING INSPECTION POLICIES THE PROBLEM
When social studies textbooks in the United States mention Upton Sinclair and his 1906 novel The Jungle, they give the impression that unsanitary conditions in meatpacking plants are a thing of the past. Yet there is evidence suggesting that, over the past two decades, the meat consumed by Americans has been getting increasingly dirty.
The consequences of tainted meat became quite apparent in 1992, when four children died and 500 people became ill as a result of eating hamburgers at Jack-in-the Box restaurants that contained a virulent strain of E. coli bacteria. Then, in 1997, a Nebraska packing plant owned by Hudson Foods had to recall 25 million pounds of ground beef because of bacterial contamination. In the wake of the Jack-in-the Box scandal, there was strong public pressure to tighten the meat inspection system, yet the industry had a different agenda.
Meatpacking had become increasingly concentrated, dominated by a handful of corporations obsessed with maximum productivity in order to achieve maximum profits. These companies sought to replace the long-standing inspection regime, based on direct observation by federal employees, with a system that impinged less on output.
The industry united behind a system known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), which was presented as a modern science-driven, riskbased approach.
HACCP was not a new concept. It had been used in manufacturing since the 1970s and was supported by consumer groups with the understanding that it would supplement existing inspection procedures. There was thus no uproar in 1996 when the Clinton Administration adopted HACCP as federal policy for meat and poultry, with the new system to be phased in over several years.
Yet, as was documented in a report titled The Jungle 2000 by Public Citizen and the Government Accountability Project, the adoption of HACCP served to weaken rather than strengthen the inspection process. The report, based on a survey of federal meat inspectors, concluded that, under HACCP, companies were gaining control of the inspection process and were letting dirtier meat get distributed to consumers."
The report, based on a survey of federal meat inspectors, concluded that, under HACCP, companies were gaining control of the inspection process and were letting dirtier meat get distributed to consumers. Inspectors, who joked that HACCP really stood for “Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray,” reported that they felt pressured to “let the system work” and not to shut down the line, even in cases of serious contamination.
Disturbing conclusions were also reached in a General Accounting Office report released in August 2002.
The GAO found that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) was not ensuring that all plants’ HACCP plans met regulatory requirements; that FSIS was not consistently identifying repeated violations; and that FSIS was not ensuring that plants took prompt and effective action to return to compliance after a HACCP violation had been identified.
The HACCP program was supposed to provide for comprehensive pathogen testing, yet what was put into effect was a requirement for routine microbial testing only for salmonella, with limited random testing for other pathogens. It was also left ambiguous as to whether government inspectors would have access to the results of testing done by the company. At the same time, HACCP has allowed meatpackers to rely on questionable procedures such as irradiation to deal with contamination, rather than preventing the problem in the first place.
Irradiation serves only to mask sanitary problems in slaughterhouses, and the process forms new chemicals in food that are known or suspected carcinogens.
HACCP has now been fully implemented in processing (from carcass to package) but not in slaughter (from live animal to carcass.) FSIS is trying to implement HACCP in slaughter through something called the HACCP-based Inspection Models Project, or HIMP. As proposed by FSIS, the change would end the policy of having a government inspector examine every carcass, as mandated by the Federal Meat Inspection Act. The inspectors’ union sued the agency to stop this, and in response the agency reinstated an inspector at the end of the line to comply with the requirement of continuous government inspection. HIMP is currently in place as a pilot project, mostly in poultry plants with high line speeds.
Since HACCP was implemented, there have been several high-profile food safety problems. In 2002 ConAgra (where, as noted above, Mary Waters, USDA Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations, used to work) was forced to recall 19 million pounds of beef shipped from a plant in Colorado because of E. coli contamination. Also in 2002, in the wake of several deaths and dozens of hospitalizations, Wampler Foods recalled more than 27 million pounds of cold cuts..."
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