Country of Chile Exports Chicken to the United States (Yay or Nay?)
Published by Karyn Zoldan October 31st, 2007 in Food Organizations, Food Safety, Opinions.Call me old fashioned or maybe call me a nationalist, I don’t really care. Doesn’t the United States provide enough chickens for the U.S. population? Are we denying U.S. chicken farmers income and a distribution chain?
Oct. 30, 2007 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that the country of Chile will be allowed to export poultry and poultry products, processed in certified establishments within Chile, to the United States effective December 3, 2007.
FSIS has determined that Chile’s laws, regulations and other materials showed that its poultry inspection system includes requirements equivalent to all provisions in the Poultry Products Inspection Act and its implementing regulations. FSIS, through annual on-site reviews, will verify that establishments certified by the government of Chile continue to meet all U.S. requirements.
In addition to relying on its initial determination of a country’s eligibility and performing ongoing audits to ensure that products shipped to the U.S. are safe, wholesome and properly labeled and packaged, poultry and poultry products exported to the U.S. from Chile will be subject to FSIS reinspection procedures at ports of entry for proper certification, labeling, transportation damage and general condition. Selected shipments will be subject to additional reinspection procedures including examinations for product defects, laboratory analyses to detect harmful chemical residues, or pathogen testing appropriate for the product.
The proposed rule to allow the export of poultry and poultry products from Chile was published in February 2007 following a thorough evaluation of Chile’s poultry inspection system, laws, regulations and on-site reviews that began in 1997 after Chile requested approval to export these products to the U.S.
By spending the fossil fuel to ship from Chile to the United States, aren’t we wasting energy and resources? Isn’t there some local chicken farmer who could benefit more?
Also one has to wonder the mode of transportation and at what degrees will chickens be shipped and in what degrees will they arrive and be handled. If you ask me — there seems to be a lot of opportunity for defrosting and refrosting and the development of bacteria.
What do you think? I love Chilean wine but…
I agree totally!
What happened to local and sustainable?
Plus the good old government has been so lax and dishonest about just about everything these days I can’t trust them.
Give me a local chicken.
It is all special-interest politics. Some individual is benefitting from this on a financial or power-broking basis. Next year, it will be something totally different and this will be forgotten.
Not unlike the ethanol debacle. The government decided to give the green light on this and people saw big dollar signs. Immediately entrepreneurs started building ethanol plants. Less than two years later, some are stopping contruction and others are going out of business due to a glut on the market.