Fresh produce growers in the U.S. will have an easier time exporting fruits and vegetables now that an international group has given its stamp of approval to a federal food safety audit program.
The nod from the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) announced Monday grants technical equivalency to the USDA’s Harmonized Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)…
Which foods the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates and which foods the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates are not easy questions to answer. One oft-repeated example used to demonstrate the complexities is that cheese pizza falls under the jurisdiction of FDA, but a pizza topped with pepperoni is under USDA’s jurisdiction. Another example is…
On Tuesday, China joined a growing list of countries barring U.S. poultry imports after avian influenza was found in backyard chicken and guinea fowl flocks in Oregon and Washington. More than 30 countries have banned or restricted the import of poultry originating in one or both of those states. China and the 28 members…
China has suspended imports of shellfish from the West Coast of the United States after finding high levels of arsenic and a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning in recent shipments of geoduck clams from Northwest waters. The indefinite ban affects clams, oysters and all other two-shelled bivalves harvested off the coast of Washington, Oregon,…
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated the nation’s stance on beef imports with regard to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the fatal affliction in cattle commonly known as “Mad Cow Disease.” The U.S. is moving to adopt international standards set forth by the World Organization for Animal Health, which bases trade policies on…
Food products now come to the United States from over 250,000 foreign establishments in 200 countries. Indeed, 15 percent of fruits, 20 percent of vegetables, and 80 percent of seafood come from overseas. And, with the consumption of imported foods growing, we have seen an increase in recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks linked to them.…
The number of food safety and plant health trade barriers plaguing U.S. agricultural exports is way up, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a congressional committee recently.
“In the last 10 years, the number of sanitary and phytosanitary barriers we have had to deal with has increased from roughly 650 to close to 1,500 last year,” …
A controversial animal drug, fed to a majority of pigs raised in the United States, has become the focus of a long-running trade dispute centered on meat exports.
Ractopamine hydrochloride – used to keep swine lean and boost their growth in the last weeks before slaughter – is administered to an estimated 60 to 80 …
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is holding a public meeting to provide information and receive comments on agenda items, as well as to draft U.S. positions to be discussed at the 19th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS).
The…
If rural America kicks the lite version of animal identification (ID) to the curb just as it did the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), an economic study says export markets for U.S. beef and pork will be much smaller.
Funded by the U.S. Meat Export Federation and authored by five professors from three major state …
