WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – By the end of next summer the Food and Drug Administration will finalize its Food Safety Modernization Act, and one farm group says it needs to change before that time.
On Wednesday in West Des Moines, Iowa turkey producers convened for their annual meeting, joined by National Turkey Federation President Joel Brandenberger.
At the top of the agenda was FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act, which in part would require feed mills to prepare costly food safety plans, which Brandenberger says are unnecessary in the turkey industry. The National Turkey Federation estimates virtually all U.S. turkeys are fed by the same companies that own the birds.
“There are already so many safeguards already in place in that integrated model to protect the feed mills,” he explains, “and FDA already has significant regulatory authority over feed mills anyway. We think some layers of this new regulation are not particularly necessary to protect the safety of the feed, protect the safety of the food supply, and we think they create a significant new regulatory burden without increasing safety; we’re trying to work with FDA to recognize the difference in risk, and exempt these mills from some aspects of the rule. Congress recognized this difference in risk, because they granted FDA wide latitude to make exemptions. The agency is choosing not to do that; they’re keeping their exemptions very narrow.”
Such regulation would affect every American, each of whom Brandenberger says consumes about 16 pounds of turkey annually. According to the Iowa Turkey Federation, Iowa’s 130 turkey farms raise about 11 million birds each year and generate about $1.5 billion in economic activity for the state.
The National Turkey Federation and other livestock groups did meet with FDA on Monday to discuss the Food Safety Modernization Act, but Brandenberger says he left the meeting feeling that FDA will spread itself too thin to effectively keep food safe.
“They’d like to regulate a lot; maybe everything that moves,” Brandenberger says, “but the simple reality of the matter is that they don’t have the resources to inspect everywhere they go. I mean, meat and poultry in the plants, USDA has inspectors in there continuously while production is going on. FDA is lucky to get to a facility it regulates once a year, or once every other year.”
The comment period on FDA’s original rule related to preventive controls on animal food closed March 31, but the comment period on several revisions to that rule, including the issue of how tightly FDA will regulate feed mills, does not close until next Monday, December 15. You can submit your comments to FDA by clicking here.
To hear more about the turkey industry’s reaction to FSMA, click the audio player above this story.
