| Back in May, I wrote about Chinese chicken. Meatpackers want to be allowed to import processed Chinese chicken. A broad coalition of other groups oppose it. Currently, it's illegal. America does not import processed Chinese chicken. The fight is over whether or not to legalize it. And... it looks like Sen. Mark Pryor (predictably, the Senator from Arkansas, the same state as Tyson) might try to make processed Chinese chicken legal again.
Over on the House side, I believe Rep. Rosa DeLauro is more or less in charge of this decision, as she chairs the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee. She passed a bill leaving the ban in place. Pryor's attempting to put language in the Senate bill that would:
...ease the ban by allowing the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service to develop and implement regulations for importing cooked poultry products from China. The measure would require on-site inspections at Chinese facilities in addition to reinspections at ports of entry.
In other words, he wants to legalize it. With additional inspections, to make sure it's safe. What's really at stake here is our meat export market to China. China doesn't want American chicken unless America will accept Chinese chicken. China is our largest export market for poultry, and they account for 12 percent of Tyson's international sales. In other words, this move to legalize Chinese chicken has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with helping Tyson.
Personally, I have a problem with exporting factory farmed meat. It's such a destructive industry, both for the environment and also for rural economies, that I think we get a crummy deal when we export it. America gets left with the manure, the stench, the decreased property values around the smelly factory farm, the antibiotic resistant bacteria, and (often) the impoverished factory farmer; Tyson gets the money; and the foreign country gets cheap meat. I think if they want cheap meat, then they should also have to deal with the consequences of cheap meat, instead of shifting those onto us while Tyson or another multinational corporation pockets the profits.
The question now, if the Senate passes the bill with Pryor's language included, is what will happen when the bill goes to conference. |
