With the continuing stories of contaminated or mislabeled food coming from China, many people have actively sought to avoid Chinese products. The United States Department of Agriculture (long the enemy of the consumer and friend of agribusiness) has come up with a solution: Chinese chicken imports will be sold without telling people that they are from China. In an apparent effort to bring our standards to Chinese levels, the Administration is also planning to hand over key inspection posts to industry.
The U.S. had been fighting with China for banning our beef in 2003. We banned chicken from China during an avian flu outbreak, but China got a favorable ruling from the World Trade Organization forcing us to open our borders.
We therefore have to allow Chinese chicken to be sold here. However, we seem to have gone even further in allowing China to hide its country-of-origin. Here is how it works. The Chinese chickens are raised in the U.S. and Canada and then “processed” in China. By using this loophole, soup companies, restaurants, and other companies can hide the fact that the chicken comes from one of the most notorious sources of food in the world.
On top of this wonderful news, consumer advocates are objecting to a plan by the Obama Administration to replace USDA inspectors with employees of poultry companies. This is meant, you guessed it, to save money at a time when the Administration wants to start yet another war. After all, why have government inspectors when we can use the money for a couple of cruise missiles fired at Syria?
Moreover, if you cannot trust poultry companies to report on themselves, who can you trust? The answer, it appears are those paragons of food quality, the Chinese.
Ugh! Word Press ate my comments. 🙁
Great Article Prof. JT!
However, this should not come as a shocker. Remember earlier that Congress and our beloved President signed into law, allowing Monsanto not disclose what’s in their food products or GMOs, even if their product causes potential harm to the consumers.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/politics/blogs/what-is-the-monsanto-protection-act
What is the Monsanto Protection Act?
by
Russell McLendon
Anger over the “Monsanto Protection Act” is growing like an herbicide-resistant weed, fueled by news the rider was anonymously added to a U.S. budget bill in an apparent favor to biotech firms. The measure has made unlikely allies of Tea Party and environmental groups, inspired more than 250,000 people to sign a petition opposing it, and even prompted the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee to retroactively disavow it.
But what exactly is the Monsanto Protection Act? And why is it causing such an uproar?
The mysterious rider
First, it isn’t actually called the Monsanto Protection Act. Its more formal name is Section 735 of the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013,” or H.R. 933, an appropriations bill that President Obama signed into law last week. The bill averted a government shutdown, but many lawmakers were reportedly unaware of Section 735’s existence. In fact, rather than undergoing a formal committee hearing, the rider was anonymously inserted as the larger bill wound through Congress, sparking accusations of opacity, collusion and corruption. Its origins remain hazy, but Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., has since told Politico he “worked with” Monsanto to secure the rider.
“[T]his all can be boiled down into a single, common phrase: a special interest loophole, and a doozy at that,” writes Dustin Siggins, who blogs for Tea Party Patriots. “This is a situation in which a company is given the ability to ignore court orders, in what boils down to a deregulation scheme for a particular set of industries.” Environmentalists and food-safety advocates have voiced similar concerns; the Center for Food Safety recently called the rider “an unprecedented attack on U.S. judicial review of agency actions” and “a major violation of the separation of powers.”
Seeds of doubt
At issue are genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, created by Monsanto and other biotech firms. While there’s no hard evidence that GMOs can harm humans, some worry about undiscovered health risks and the possibility of manmade genes spreading to wild plants, potentially wreaking ecological havoc. Supporters of the Monsanto Protection Act, who prefer to call it the Farmer Assurance Provision, say it simply aims to prevent activists from using the court system to make farmers scrap or destroy their genetically modified crops. “As we understand it, the point of the Farmer Assurance Provision is to strike a careful balance allowing farmers to continue to plant and cultivate their crops subject to appropriate environmental safeguards, while USDA conducts any necessary further environmental reviews,” Monsanto says in a statement.
But critics say Congress caved to the biotech lobby, which they see as especially galling given the success of industry stalwart Monsanto. Just this week, for example, Monsanto reported its net sales rose 15 percent to $5.5 billion in the second quarter, and the company raised its full-year profit forecast by 10 cents a share. “They’ve got a great portfolio,” one financial analyst tells the New York Times. “The seeds and genomics business is performing quite well.” Nonetheless, the H.R. 933 rider essentially grants Monsanto temporary immunity from legal challenges to the safety of its seeds, setting what Siggins and other observers have called a “dangerous precedent.”
“It is not the purview of Tea Party Patriots to comment on the merits of GMOs — that is a discussion and debate for experts and activists within that field,” Siggins writes. “From the perspective of citizens who want open, transparent government that serves the people, however, the so-called ‘Monsanto Protection Act’ … is one heck of a special interest loophole for friends of Congress.”
Here’s what Section 735 of H.R. 933 actually says:
“In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the Secretary’s evaluation of the petition for non-regulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner: Provided, That all such conditions shall be applicable only for the interim period necessary for the Secretary to complete any required analyses or consultations related to the petition for non-regulated status: Provided further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant Protection Act.”
The Plant Protection Act referenced in the rider is a 2000 law regulating “plant pests,” “noxious weeds” and “biological control organisms.” The full statute can be seen here.
Shutdown showdown
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., took some early blame for the rider, including from the Center for Food Safety. “In this hidden backroom deal, Senator Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental, and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto,” CFS executive director Andrew Kimbrell said in a statement on March 20. “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Senator Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.”
But several days later, Mikulski issued a press release distancing herself from the measure. “Senator Mikulski understands the anger over this provision. She didn’t put the language in the bill and doesn’t support it either,” the statement said. “It was originally part of the Agriculture Appropriations bill that the House Appropriations Committee reported in June 2012, and it became part of the joint House-Senate agreement completed in the Fall of 2012 before Senator Mikulski became Appropriations Chairwoman. That agreement was not reopened when the Agriculture bill and several others were included in the Continuing Appropriations Act to prevent a government shutdown.”
The CFS has also softened its stance against Mikulski, recently acknowledging to the Baltimore Sun that the rider originated before her ascension in the Appropriations Committee, and that she faced pressure to dodge a government shutdown. “Her hands were tied by the negotiations that had previously happened,” CFS director of government affairs Colin O’Neil tells the Sun. “We recognize the tough spot she was in.”
In fact, as Blunt tells Politico, he was able to introduce the rider thanks partly to Mikulski’s predecessor on the committee, the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. Inouye was “sympathetic given Monsanto’s large seed operations in Hawaii,” Politico reports.
As much controversy as the provision has generated, though, it has a relatively short shelf life. Unless it’s renewed by Congress this year — and the Senate Appropriations chairwoman is now on record saying she opposes it — the Monsanto Protection Act is slated to expire after six months, when the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
The USDA should review this horrible decision and if not, Congress should be investigating how this decision was made and in whose best interest it was decided upon. I try as hard as I can to not buy anything from China. As mentioned above, I also never buy any dog products made in China. If the Chicken is safe, what are they worried about labeling it as produce in China? I smell a corporate rat.
Maybe showing this story to my wife will cure her chicken Jones.
Have spent considerable time in China over many years. This is not good news. Not exactly thrilled about China buying Smithfield either which is the largest pork producer in the U.S. They already own our debt, now our food supply? Anyone else see where this is headed?
I doubt that the chickens will be raised in the US. In air freight we ship a lot of young chicks to places where they are raised. The chickens may have been hatched in the US, thus giving them US origin, but they will most certainly will not be raised here since it costs too much to ship them when they are fully grown.
I find it mind boggling that increases in efficiency of production could overcome the cost of air freight to China for live chicks and cold transport for processed chickens back to the US.
Usually I am pretty rational. But some things should not be true even if they are.
bfm I agree. IN fact, I go further and I think the FAA should make a rule that no US carrier can use foreign repair stations to work on US airliners. This is allowing US airlines to get cheap and unregulated labor and facilities to work on their aircraft. I would have no problem allowing foreign shops to do cosmetic work such as painting or seat repairs, but for anything that materially affects the aircraft systems or flight controls, all that must be done by the airline mechanics.
When I worked at United’s shop in SFO, we had FAA inspectors on the shop floor most of the time. This is impossible for foreign shops, and they have NO requirements for drug testing, background checks, English language proficiency, etc.. This basically allows the airlines to have no meaningful regulation for maintenance, and it is a LOT cheaper. We will pay the cost in dead pax and destroyed airplanes.
I laugh everytime someone calls Obama a Liberal. Not even close.
Obama works for Wall Street and Wall Street only.
The sad part is, all the head bobbing Democrat politicians will go right along with it. My part has sold out.
“The recalls in North America, Europe, and South Africa came in response to reports of renal failure in pets. Initially, the recalls were associated with the consumption of mostly wet pet foods made with wheat gluten from a single Chinese company.”
I don’t even feed my dogs food of Chinese origin – when I can figure out what that is. I stick with widely consumed name brands in the hope that I will have some warning if there is a problem.
Anybody in the mood for a veggibergur?
I don’t eat American corporate chicken like Tyson’s either. Those industrial feed lots are not known to be clean. Buy the kind of chicken that Juliet recommends if you can. The buy local movement is spreading to smaller towns in many locations.
Why Americans Should Worry About China’s Food Safety Problems
By Stanley Lubman
5/21/13
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/05/21/why-americans-should-worry-about-chinas-food-safety-problems/
Excerpt:
If a diner in the U.S. consumes a lunch of tilapia, mushrooms and spinach, there’s a decent chance the entire meal was imported from China. And the overwhelming odds are that none of those foods were inspected by the Food and Drug Administration when they arrived in the U.S.
This week’s revelation that nearly half the rice sold in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou was found to be tainted with cadmium is just the latest in a long string of eye-catching stories that illustrate the dangers of eating in China. But lost in the exhaustive media coverage of the polluted foods that find their way on to Chinese tables are serious questions about what happens — or doesn’t happen — when Chinese food products make their way into the U.S.
Chinese food product imports to the U.S. are continuing to rise, but inspections in both China and the U.S. aren’t keeping pace, posing a growing danger to consumers. Many of the imports are used by restaurants, institutions and food processors; as a result, consumers see no labels, keeping them unaware of the origins of what they’re ingesting.
Chinese imports dominate some food categories to a striking extent. In a testimony before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in May (pdf), food safety expert Patty Lovera noted that China accounted for 80% of tilapia, 51% of cod, 49% of apple juice, 34% of processed mushrooms, 27% of garlic and 16% of frozen spinach consumed in the U.S. in 2011.
Reports on the state of Chinese food processing establishments are discouraging. More than half of food processing and packaging firms on the Chinese mainland failed safety inspections in 2011, according to a report by Asia Inspection, a China-based food quality control company. Meanwhile, in the U. S., inspections of imported food products are minute compared to the total volume of imports. According to a recent study by the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee in 2011, FDA inspections were a mere 2.3 % of the total of all imported food products (pdf).
The same study states that food imports generally have risen 10% annually since 2004, and are continuing to rise (imports grew from $399 million in 2011 to $426 million in 2012). The FDA estimates that food imports from China and India will grow by 9% annually between 2010 and 2020.
The flow of reports in recent years from domestic and foreign sources alike about serious violations of food safety in China has been continuous and alarming. In the last year alone, the country has seen thousands of dead pigs show up in a major river, faced multiple milk scandals and busted operations that were passing off rat meat as mutton. In addition, as Patty Lovera told Congress, there is “widespread smuggling of products like honey to avoid tariffs and food safety restrictions [and] mislabeled products ‘transshipped’ through another country but produced in China.”
Food safety problems are, of course, not only a concern to the U.S. The German magazine Der Spiegel recently posted online a list of “rejected food” imported into the EU from China during 2012, including insect-infested potatoes, rabbit meat loaded with antibiotics, oyster sauce with staphylococcus, salmonella-infected ginger, pumpkin seeds contaminated with glass chips and arsenic in frozen calamari.
Didn’t they or someone process rat meat for chicken? What gene said…
This is what TPP will look like on a grand scale where foreign corporations purchase govt and demand rules that are beneficial to the corporation but put people in danger. Elected representatives work for the corporation in most respects. The people are just the means to higher profits.
Was Your Chicken Nugget Made In China? It’ll Soon Be Hard To Know
by Maria Godoy
September 05, 2013
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/09/05/219377718/was-your-chicken-nugget-made-in-china-itll-soon-be-hard-to-know
Excerpt:
Here’s a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.
Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.
For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by . The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March. Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won’t be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times , adding:
“And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants.”
That’s a pretty disturbing thought for anyone who’s followed the slew of stories regarding food safety failures in China in recent years. As we’ve on The Salt, this year alone, thousands of dead pigs turned up in the waters of Shanghai, rat meat was passed off as mutton and — perhaps most disconcerting for U.S. consumers — there was an outbreak of the among live fowl in fresh meat markets.
What’s more, critics fear that the changes could eventually open the floodgates for a whole slew of chicken products from China. As the industry publication notes:
“It is thought … that the government would eventually expand the rules, so that chickens and turkeys bred in China could end up in the American market. Experts suggest that this could be the first step towards allowing China to export its own domestic chickens to the U.S.”
*****
Question: Who is going to be around to assure that only chickens raised in the US and Canada will be processed and exported back to the US if there is no USDA inspector on site???
I raise free-forage Black Copper Marans. They are good meat and egg chickens. Place your orders now. 😉
OS,
It does seem the perfect vector for creating an epidemic, doesn’t it? Even more so than international air travel (which causes epidemiologists all kinds of worry as it is).
Will there be a Find the Kitteh contest in the next batch of Chinese Chicken?
In a time when we are urged to eat less red meat and more poultry to reduce cholesterol, this is really encouraging. Not!
Die of clogged arteries, or something else much worse. In the US, it is politically incorrect to say certain words. In China it is politically incorrect to admit the food chain is contaminated.
Here in Thailand, people avoid Chinese imported foods, goods, etc. That is when they know and can bother to read the labels. Yea, right the chickens are raised stateside and then sent to China for processing, now that really makes a lot of sense. Somehow something doesn’t quite pass the smell (in this case real) test. Obushma is just a tool of the plutocrats and corporations.
On a more serious note, how in the Hell is it cost effective to ship chickens halfway around the globe for processing unless the labor cost is zero?
Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, USFDA needs to be 1) better funded as to be able to perform the critical jobs they were created for like food inspection and drug testing and 2) they need to be the USFSA and the USDSA, possibly utilizing some common lab facilities. Industry is incapable of policing itself and food and drug safety is simply too important not to do right.
The 800# gorilla not addressed it that some of the marbles are inevitably missing when you go to play Chinese chicken.