Press Releases: Meat

Organic food has become big business and the largest food manufacturers have rapidly taken over the organic food sector, sweeping formerly independent businesses into large food conglomerates. An analysis released today by the national consumer group Food & Water Watch found that the farmers who grow organic crops and raise organic livestock now face the same forces of corporate consolidation that dominate the conventional food industry, with a declining number of buyers putting downward pressure on the prices farmers receive.

Media Statement: The largest meat recall in Canadian history has been expanded for the sixteenth time since Sept. 16, 2012, and now USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is hunting down some 2.5 million pounds of meat potentially contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 that has entered the U.S. from the same Canadian beef slaughtering facility. That is nearly triple the amount originally estimated by USDA.

Media Statement: “Today Food & Water Watch joins food inspectors, other food safety advocates and consumers in front of the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters to protest plans to privatize and hasten the inspection of poultry slaughter plants. The USDA wants to cut back on its meat and poultry inspection program and let company employees do the job currently done by 800 professional federal inspectors.

“Cutting the budget does not justify putting the health and safety of consumers and workers in the balance. USDA inspectors receive extensive training to protect public health in poultry facilities, but there is no similar requirement for company employees to receive training before they assume these inspection responsibilities in the proposed privatized inspection system. This short-sided thinking could actually cost the federal government more to deal with a potential increase in foodborne illnesses caused by unsanitary, defective poultry and meat.”

Press Release: Today, the Secretary of Agriculture and Undersecretary for Food Safety announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) plan to proceed with a program that would privatize the inspection of poultry products in the United States. Food & Water Watch vehemently opposes this plan and any other attempts to privatize food safety functions that are the responsibility of the federal government.

Media Statement: “Yesterday, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) sent a proposed rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget that would privatize some of the inspection functions currently performed by Federal government inspectors in poultry slaughter facilities. Food & Water Watch vehemently opposes this proposed rule because we believe it will compromise consumer safety.”

Media Statement: “With a recent public letter to the dean of the Maryland School of Law’s Environmental Clinic, Governor Martin O’Malley has clearly taken a stand: he’s for polluters and against the Bay.