Food Safety Groups Call for Ban on Some Chinese Poultry in Funding Bill
House and Senate appropriators should prohibit Agriculture Department funding for Chinese poultry in school nutrition programs administered by USDA, said the Safe Food Coalition, an association comprised of several food safety advocacy groups, on Nov. 19 (here). The House-passed agriculture…
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appropriations legislation for fiscal year 2015, HR-4800 (here), includes a provision to bar those funds. The Senate has not yet voted on agriculture appropriations legislation. USDA certified four Chinese facilities to export poultry products to the U.S. in early November, but the coalition fears a lack of USDA inspectors on the ground and poor Chinese documentation threaten to still allow harmful poultry into the U.S. “Further, there is a real concern that the USDA will, in the near future, grant equivalency for Chinese poultry slaughter facilities, despite the fact that China’s food safety system is fraught with problems,” said the letter. Congress needs to act on appropriations legislation for FY15, which began on Oct. 1, by Dec. 11 in order to avert a government shutdown.