The U.S. Department of Agriculture is looking at ways to expand access to inspected slaughter facilities and increase processing capacity for meat producers as part of efforts tied to recent presidential executive orders aimed at strengthening the nation’s beef supply.
Rod Bain reports Agriculture Undersecretary for Food Safety Mindy Brashears says one executive order focuses on strengthening competition among meatpackers and expanding market access for meat producers, while USDA works to address inspection barriers.
Expanding Access to Inspected Facilities
Brashears emphasized that increasing access to processing does not mean reducing food-safety standards. “Both the secretary and the president said we’re here to provide access, but we are not compromising food safety, and we’re certainly not getting rid of inspection,” Brashears said.
She says some producers face significant challenges getting their animals into inspected slaughter facilities, particularly in remote areas of the country. “Some of the barriers that we face are really related to inspection and having access to inspected slaughter facilities,” Brashears said. “In some areas of the country, we’ve been told that it can take up to year to get their animals in a small plant in some of the more remote areas, or they have to drive five hours to take their animal in to get harvested.”
Modernizing Inspection Regulations
Brashears says USDA is also examining outdated regulations and looking at how technology could be used to make inspection processes more efficient. “There’s a lot of outdated regulations that we are looking to modify to really move toward new technology,” she said. “And this could be anything from record keeping all the way down to how people wash their hands and what we expect of that.”
The goal, she says, is to modernize requirements while continuing to maintain food-safety protections.
More Opportunities Through State Inspection Programs
Another area USDA is examining is how federal and state inspection programs can work together to give producers and processors greater access to customers.
Brashears says USDA is looking at opportunities for products currently processed under custom-exempt programs to potentially enter state inspection programs, while state-inspected facilities could potentially move toward a federal inspection system. “And then also really giving access through not only our custom-exempt programs perhaps moving to a state program inspection, or even state programs moving to SIS, so the product can cross state lines and have further access to more customers,” Brashears said.
She says USDA has several components in place to help facilitate those changes and expand opportunities for meat producers.
The comments from Brashears were included in a report from USDA’s Rod Bain, reporting from Washington, D.C.
