A federal court in California has decided to stop all new planting of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets in light of its September 2009 ruling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) violated environmental law when it deregulated the crop without conducting an appropriate environmental assessment. Ctr. for Food Safety v. Vilsack, No. 08-00484 (N.D. Cal., decided August 13, 2010). Additional information about the court’s prior ruling appears in Issue 320 of this Update. While the court granted the plaintiffs’ request to vacate APHIS’s deregulation decision, it denied their motion for a permanent injunction. The court determined that vacatur was justified because APHIS’s errors were serious. “Moreover,” the court observed, “APHIS’s apparent position that it is merely a matter of time before they reinstate the same deregulation decision, or a modified version of this decision, and thus apparent perception that conducting the requisite comprehensive…
Category Archives Department of Agriculture
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking under the Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002, soliciting feedback on the list of select agents and toxins that could pose “a severe threat to animal or plant health, or to animal or plant products.” APHIS has requested suggestions regarding (i) “any addition or reduction of the animal or plant pathogens currently on the list of select agents,” and (ii) potential reorganization of the list “based on the relative potential of each select agent or toxin to be misused to adversely affect human, plant or animal health.” According to APHIS, “Such tiering of the list could allow for the application o different security measures for those selected agents or toxins which post a higher risk to animal or plant health if they were to be stolen or otherwise misused.” Backed by…
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has issued a notice requesting voluntary participation in a program designed to improve compliance with regulations pertaining to the importation, interstate movement and environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) organisms. APHIS conducted a pilot Biotechnology Quality Management System (BQMS) Program in 2009 and has since refined its draft audit standard and procedures and program training sessions. The program is intended to help all regulated entities, including universities, small businesses and large companies, to develop “sound management practices through the creation and implementation of a customized biotechnology quality management system.” Participants will be expected to attend several training sessions, develop a BQMS within their organization, establish procedures addressing the movement and field testing of regulated GE organisms, participate in evaluations, and submit to a third-party verification audit. Letters of interest may be submitted at any time, but APHIS encourages submission as soon as…
U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to respond to reports that the April 20, 2010, oil spill has contaminated the marine food chain in the Gulf of Mexico with toxins such as arsenic. In a July 13 letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, Markey expressed concern “that the mixture of oil, dispersants, arsenic and other toxic compounds are having effects on seafood that may not be detectable for months.” Markey, chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said researchers have uncovered droplets of oil found inside crab larvae harvested from gulf waters near Pensacola, Florida; Galveston, Texas; and Grand Isle, Louisiana. “In some areas, 100 percent of the larvae recovered contain droplets of oil hydrocarbons, a major concern given that crab is a favorite food for both humans and multiple fish species that live in the marshes,”…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a trade agreement with Russia that ends a January 2010 ban on chlorine-treated poultry from the United States. In exchange for lifting the ban, USDA has pledged to post on its website information about “which disinfectants/pathogen reductions treatments are known to be approved by Russia for use on processing poultry and on food generally.” U.S. officials will also provide (i) “information . . . on the solutions that companies use on poultry shipped to Russia,” and (ii) “an updated list of poultry processing facilities authorized to ship poultry to Russia.” The accord came after 25 senators reportedly urged President Barack Obama (D) to take up the issue with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. “I am pleased that after several months of negotiations, we have finally reached a breakthrough which will allow for U.S. poultry exports to resume to this important market,” stated U.S.…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced two public meetings with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to hear stakeholder input on collective efforts to reduce illness, harm and death from contaminated food. Extensions of an initial workshop held in March 2010, the meetings will be held July 21, in Chicago, Illinois, and October 20 in Portland, Oregon. Presentations are expected from consumer groups, industry, public health experts, and state and local regulators on recommended measures for assessing food safety performance. CDC, FDA and FSIS will present information on the Food Safety Working Group’s “charge to create meaningful metrics to measure the effectiveness of the nation’s food safety system,” according to USDA. The agencies will also “present current thinking, focusing on how these metrics might be applied to evaluate the success of FDA’s shell…
An organic industry watchdog has released a June 7, 2010, letter that urges the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to increase the transparency of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) appointment process. “The Cornucopia Institute, and other organic advocates, have long been concerned that representatives from corporate agribusiness have obtained a disproportionate influence on rulemaking at the USDA,” states a June 8 press release, which claims that in the past, “many eminently qualified candidates . . . did not have the political clout to be appointed.” According to Cornucopia, USDA has continued “the Bush administration policy of keeping secret the nominees and the related corporations or organizations they work for or represent.” The group alleges that NOSB positions reserved for consumers or organic farmers have previously gone to specialists employed by corporate agribusiness or only the largest organic marketers. It has thus asked USDA to make public “the name of…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced two public meetings for stakeholders to offer input on a new framework for animal disease traceability. Specific details for a proposed animal disease traceability rule will be discussed on June 24, 2010, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and July 1 in Fort Worth, Texas. Written comments will be accepted until July 30, 2010. Additional meetings will be announced in a future Federal Register notice. See Federal Register, June 14, 2010.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organics Program (NOP) has announced a settlement agreement with one of the nation’s leading organic certifiers, which had allegedly allowed inspections of Chinese organic food operations by auditors with a conflict of interest. Under the agreement, Nebraska-based Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) will be prohibited from certifying organic operations in China for one year and can be approved for re-accreditation as a certifying agent in China only if it hires inspectors with no connection to governmental or quasi-governmental entities. According to a press report, OCIA allowed government-affiliated inspectors to inspect farms operated on government-owned land and failed to properly oversee the inspectors’ activities. NOP apparently discovered the conflict during an August 2007 onsite OCIA audit and proposed revoking OCIA’s accreditation in China in July 2008. The agreement does not affect OCIA’s accreditation as an organic certifier in the United States, Canada and Latin America.…
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has released its recommendations to the secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), outlining proposed changes to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This report recommends 2010 guideline revisions that will implement “a lifestyle approach including a total diet that is energy balanced and nutrient dense.” Recognizing that Americans, a majority of whom are obese or overweight, eat too few vegetables, fruits, high-fiber whole grains, low-fat milk and milk products, and seafood, while consuming too many added sugars, solid fats, refined grains, and sodium, the advisory committee endorses a shift to healthful patterns of eating, such as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and certain Mediterranean-style diets. The committee also recommends a coordinated strategic plan to improve the overall food environment that “includes all sectors of society, including individuals, families, educators, communities, physicians and allied health professionals, public health…
