August 23, 2010

 

USDA to reveal poultry plant certification standards to Russia

In the hope of convincing Russia to accept more poultry imports from 27 US plants, the USDA has planned to send Russia more detailed information on how it certified these poultry processors as meeting Russian standards.

 

So far, Russia has only agreed to accept poultry from 11 of the 27 plants certified by USDA. On August 13, Russian officials told their US counterparts that they were only willing to accept poultry from eight plants. After subsequent discussions with US company representatives, Russia added three companies to the list: Koch Foods, Mountaire Farms, and Sanderson Farms. In the past week, these companies have met separately with Russian officials and explained the steps they are taking to ensure that their processed poultry meets Russian standards, sources said.

 

Sources this week hoped that the additional information that USDA is sending to Russia would have a similar effect, and that Russia would agree to accept poultry from the remaining 16 certified poultry plants.

 

The meetings between poultry companies and Russian officials, while effective for the three companies that Russia has since added to the list, has complicated the negotiations between the two countries. A senior US trade official accused the industry of undermining the ability for the US to negotiate on their behalf.

 

In the Geneva meeting, the US rejected the Russian proposal to only accept poultry from eight poultry plants and 60 cold storage units, and pressed Russia to fully implement the terms of a bilateral deal on poultry reached in late June, according to a US government source.

 

Under the terms of that deal, as elaborated in a subsequent July 14 protocol, Russia was to accept poultry from plants certified by USDA as meeting Russian requirements.

 

Russia came up with this list of eight plants based on favourable Russian audits of those plants conducted in the past and favorable past inspections of poultry shipped to Russia from those plants, sources said.

 

The July 14 protocol outlines three pathogen reduction treatments (PRTs) that can be used by US poultry producers shipping to Russia. The two sides reached this agreement after Russia earlier this year banned imports that use hyper-chlorinated water in the production process, which is the PRT favored by US producers.

 

While the two sides had already negotiated an agreement on this issue, Russia reopened it during the August 13 meeting in Geneva by proposing that all shipments of US poultry must be accompanied by not only a USDA certificate, which was part of the original bilateral deal, but also a Russian government certificate, sources said.

 

However, sources said that Russia appeared to be on the verge of dropping this new demand.

 

Under the terms of the bilateral deal, the two sides had originally agreed to have a USDA certificate accompany poultry shipments to Russia. That certificate lists 22 PRTs approved for use in the US, including various chlorine compounds, and a USDA inspector would circle whichever PRTs were used on poultry in a particular shipment.