Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 1/31/18


USDA’s denial of the National Chicken Council’s petition asking for young chicken plants to be exempt from the 140-birds-per-minute maximum line speed under the New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) does not close the book on the issue, agency

Secretary Sonny Perdue told an audience of several hundred here today at the International Production and Processing Expo.
Rather than request a blanket waiver, however, USDA would consider individual requests by company or plant, backed up by data demonstrating that food and worker safety would not be compromised, he said.

“We want you to be as efficient and effective as you safely can be in operating your businesses,” Perdue said. “Some of you can do that, some of you cannot.”

“But we are very amenable when demonstrating through data … that you can operate on a faster speed, and you may be allowed to do that on a case-by-case basis.”

The data would come from and audit of the industry itself, he said. “They have to self-regulate and self-inform those data over microbial issues. Those whose data suggest that they can do it safely, we’ll take a look at increasing their line speeds.”

Trade, labor
In the course of about a half-hour talk, Secy. Perdue also addressed issues of trade and the need for labor in the industry, and how that relates to immigration reform. He reiterated some of the comments that President Donald Trump made in his State of the Union speech the night before, and on other occasions recently, noting that a “fair, free-trade” North American Free Trade Agreement is in each country’s best interests, but that Canada has to make some key concessions.

And Perdue said he “hoped” that the ag industry’s need for labor is part of an immigration reform package, hammered out perhaps as early as this spring.

Decreasing regulation
Perdue also repeated his call for ag professionals to weigh in on which regulations are most burdensome, to consider them for elimination. He encouraged the audience to go to the USDA's website to offer their comments.

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