USDA meat inspection system is understaffed, in disarray, food safety advocates say

New U.S. Department of Agriculture poultry inspection rules could have a negative impact on a meat inspection business that food safety advocates, members of Congress and some inspectors contend is in disarray, Mike McGraw reports for the Hale Center for Journalism. The poultry rules "will allow poultry plant employees—instead of USDA inspectors—to help determine whether chicken is wholesome and safe to eat. It’s a move critics see as a 'privatization' of meat inspection that could spread to beef and pork processing plants."

"Meanwhile, years of preparations for the Oct. 24 changeover have helped generate what critics see as a severe shortage, at least for now, of federal inspectors in all kinds of slaughterhouses nationwide, a shortage so widespread that inspectors and food safety advocates say some meat in supermarkets stamped as 'USDA inspected' may never have been inspected at all," McGraw writes.

The USDA, which has 7,500 meat inspectors nationwide, has "acknowledged that it has an 8.2 percent nationwide staffing vacancy rate and insisted that it was not deregulating or privatizing the inspection system," McGraw writes. "They said USDA inspectors will continue to inspect carcasses at poultry plants, as required by federal law. But the agency acknowledges that the new chicken inspection rule would phase out up to 630 poultry inspector positions nationwide and replace them with poultry plant employees."

"To prepare for that, the agency has been instituting partial hiring freezes and making other staffing changes," McGraw writes. "Those changes, along with existing nationwide staff shortages, mean some inspectors must drive from plant to plant, working up to 80 hours a week to keep up with workloads so heavy that federal auditors fear they could lead to catastrophic mistakes. The beef and chicken industries said the inspection system is still working effectively, but acknowledged that inspector shortages have required some plants to slow production." (Read more)

Last week the advocacy group Food & Water Watch "filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the implementation of new poultry inspection rules that would allow poultry companies to take over some inspection functions currently assigned to USDA," Daniel Enoch reports for Agri-Pulse, a Washington newsletter.

FWW Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said in a news release: “These rules essentially privatize poultry inspection and pave the way for others in the meat industry to police themselves. The USDA's decision to embrace the scheme—an initiative lobbied for by the meat industry for more than a decade-flies in the face of the agency's mandate to protect consumers. What's more, we believe it's illegal.” (Read more)