Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday released a plan aimed at improving the agency’s response to foodborne illness that includes the launch of a new food safety laboratory in the Midwest.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service aims to speed up its listeria testing method with the help of the new laboratory, which is located in Normandy, Missouri. It also hopes to perform more in-person Food Safety Assessments, collect new data from inspectors on listeria risk factors at plants, and provide $14.5 million in funding to support state meat and poultry inspection programs.
Twenty-nine states currently have cooperative agreements with FSIS allowing them to state meat or poultry inspection programs, which serve around 1,450 small- and medium-sized meat and poultry processors, according to a press release by the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. FSIS plans to sign new cooperative agreements with all 29 state programs this year to “clarify expectations for oversight and enforcement of food safety laws, provide comprehensive training for inspectors, and ensure regular coordination with FSIS,” a USDA release says.
FSIS leaders earlier this year scrapped a proposed Biden-era framework for addressing salmonella in poultry products, which the release said is due to “significant concerns raised by stakeholders about the regulatory burden and costly impacts it would have had on small poultry growers and processors.”
It’s easy to be “in the know” about agriculture news from coast to coast! Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news. Simply click here.
However, it went on to state that the Trump administration will pursue “a new, common-sense strategy on salmonella to protect public health while preventing unnecessary regulatory overreach, which will begin by convening listening sessions with key stakeholders to collaborate on best approaches moving forward."
Ashley Peterson, the senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the National Chicken Council, applauded the new plan and said her organization is committed to working with the agency to reduce salmonella “through policy that is based on sound science, is implementable, and will have a meaningful and measured impact on public health."
"America’s chicken producers appreciate USDA’s common sense, and science-based approach to achieve improvements in food safety,” Peterson said in a statement. “We share the department’s goals to further reduce foodborne illness and promote public health with an emphasis on reducing regulatory burdens."
Ted McKinney, CEO of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, commended the new plan in a statement.
"State meat and poultry inspection programs have been and continue to be essential to protecting consumers and supporting small and mid-sized producers and processors,” McKinney said. "This collaboration strengthens our food system and delivers clear benefits to farmers, processors and consumers nationwide."
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
