ND Department of Agriculture Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OCTOBER 3, 2007

FARM GROUP WANTS MEAT INSPECTION AD PULLED

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A national farm leader has requested that sponsors withdraw a nationwide advertisement attacking state meat inspection programs.

“That ad contains false information and misleads the public by playing on readers’ fears,” says North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson, the newly-elected President of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.

The advertisement, purchased by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the American Federation of Government Employees, appeared earlier this week in editions of USA Today. It contains a picture of a hamburger with the caption “would you like your hamburger with E. coli or without?”

“The ad falsely implies that USDA ordered a recall of hamburger products from a state-inspected meat processing plant for fear of E. coli contamination,” Johnson said. “In fact, the plant in question was a federally inspected facility and the plant itself recalled its products.”

 “The advertisement also claims that legislation now before Congress will keep federal inspectors out of thousands of processing plants and will allow meat processors to avoid federal inspections,” he said. “That is simply not true; the legislation says nothing about ending or reducing federal inspection, but does require state meat inspection programs to continue meeting or exceeding all federal meat inspection standards.”

Johnson said the advertisement’s claim that state inspections are “weaker” is refuted by facts.

“Pound for pound, state-inspected meat products receive more ‘hands-on’ inspection than federal products,” he said. “State and local agriculture and health officials already conduct 80 percent of all food safety inspections, including meat and poultry.”

At their recent annual meeting in Seattle, the members of NASDA – the commissioners, directors and secretaries of agriculture of the 50 states and four territories – unanimously supported legislation to allow interstate shipment of state-inspected meat products.

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MEDIA: For more information, please contact Patrice Lahlum at (701) 239-7210 or plahlum@nd.gov.  A copy of Commissioner Johnson’s letter to Carol Tucker Foreman can be found at http://www.agdepartment.com/Testimony/StateMeatInspFedLegislation.htm.