May 11, 2007

 

Proposal to open chicken market to China raises concerns in the US
 

 

A US government proposal to allow cooked poultry from China is raising concerns among poultry groups and food safety experts.

 

Unlike previous proposals which saw US raised chickens cooked in China and re-exported back to the US, the current proposal would see the import of chickens raised, slaughtered and cooked in China.

 

This has alarmed food safety experts due to concerns over food safety practices in China and the lack of country-of-origin labeling in the US. The latter meant consumers would have no way of knowing whether the chickens they are buying came from the US or China.

 

Currently, the United States imports poultry only from Canada.

 

Chinese companies are hoping the US would open its market to its cooked chickens Rosa DeLauro, head of an agricultural subcommittee in the House of Representatives, said Congress should signal China that it needs to improve its food safety practices, by placing limits on agricultural produce.

 

The Agriculture Department, which shares food-safety oversight duties with the FDA, says its proposal to allow the sale of Chinese chicken is still in the early stages. The department would review records, conduct on-site audits and confirm that foreign laboratories can ensure the safety of the food, said Steven Cohen, a spokesman for the department's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

 

However, Lucius Adkins, president of the United Poultry Growers Association, is strongly opposed to the idea. The association represents more than 700 producers in Georgia, one of the leading U.S. poultry-producing states

 

Firstly, no US representative would be supervising the slaughtering facilities, unlike in the US, where on-site inspectors are routine, he pointed out.

 

Referring to the recent findings that Chinese wheat gluten shipped to the US contained banned chemicals which killed US pets, Adkins hinted it would be dangerous to eat Chinese chickens.

 

The widely dispersed and small-scale nature of China's farm production also makes it difficult to monitor quality, other food experts pointed out.

 

On top of these concerns are shrimps and seafood imports from China, especially catfish found with antibiotics. These seafood are believed to have been fed from chicken litter, meaning that the chickens themselves could have been fed with liberal amounts of antibiotics.