December 21, 2012

New rules for the poultry industry will soon be implemented by the USDA that will mean up to a fivefold increase in production line speeds.

The rules will also turn over quality control monitoring currently done by USDA inspectors to employees of the poultry companies, at a cost of 1,000 jobs of federal inspectors. The USDA announced the plan last January with the intention of finalising it by the end of the year, after a pilot programme involving 20 plants.

Currently, line speeds are limited to 35 chickens per minute. The new rules will allow speeds of up to 175 birds per minute—almost three per second. The opportunity for workers to visually inspect the carcasses is effectively eliminated. USDA inspection, which now is maintained at three inspectors per production line, is cut to a single inspector at the end.

The measures will save the federal government US$90 million over the next three years, and even more significantly, will cut up to US$500 million per year in production costs for the industry. Industry advocates call the new rules a long-awaited "modernisation" of the poultry - inspection system. USDA officials claim that reducing the number of inspectors will somehow allow those left to use more-scientific methods to screen the chickens.

Federal poultry inspectors insist that at the speed the new rules will allow the lines to go, bruises, blisters, tumours, puss, broken bones, and other indications of a bird that is unfit to market will not be seen. Contaminants that can be seen on inspection of the entrails will not be caught.

"The modernisation plan will protect public health, improve the efficiency of poultry inspections in the US, and reduce spending," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stated earlier this year. "The new inspection system will reduce the risk of foodborne illness by focusing inspection activities on those tasks that advance our core mission of food safety."

Poultry plant workers are among the lowest paid of production workers and often have disincentives to report or take action when there is an issue with the product. Speeding the production lines will only exacerbate that problem.

The USDA's plan is motivated not by a desire to develop a more effective inspection system, but by the overriding drive of the ruling elite to cut government spending and boost corporate profits. The recent outbreak of salmonella has focused public attention on the lack of regulation of food companies, yet the response indicated by the so-called HIMP plan expresses a complete disregard of the public good.