Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 7/13/18



The National Pork Producers Council weighed in on two issues with which it strongly disagrees with the Food and Drug Administration: the regulatory oversight of lab-cultured tissue products, and the gene-editing potential for boosting disease resistance and productivity in hogs.

FDA held a public meeting on Thursday to discuss the challenges of overseeing the production of food from cultured animal tissue, a move NPPC called a “regulatory land grab.”

“The viability, production practices and environmental impact of these products are shrouded in secrecy, [but] the misleading marketing plans of the companies producing such products are clear, with animal imagery and terms such as 'clean meat’ and 'prime beef’ used in their packaging prototypes,” NPPC said in a statement.

Such products should be the purview of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which would require that they “comply with the same regulatory standards, including continuous inspection, process controls, antemortem and postmortem inspection of source animals and other requirements, as conventionally produced red meat and poultry products,” the group said.

“These companies – and their unsubstantiated claims about the sustainability, safety and ethics of their products – must be accountable to the same group that regulates the real meat they are striving to mimic,” said NPPC President Jim Heimerl, a pork producer from Johnstown, Ohio.

Gene editing in food animals
Similarly, NPPC sees nothing good coming of “Luddite-like” FDA overseeing the technology of gene-editing in livestock. In hogs, researchers have found that gene editing can produce an animal that is resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). The technology could save pork producers globally billions of dollars, the organization said.

“Despite the lack of any statutory requirement,” NPPC wrote, “the FDA currently holds regulatory authority over gene editing in food producing animals. As a result, an animal health breakthrough that will dramatically enhance animal care and food safety and support economic prosperity in rural America faces an impractical, lengthy and expensive approval process that will render it unavailable to American farmers while countries around the world realize its potential.”

Instead, NPPC proposes that regulatory oversight of gene editing in animals be moved to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which already regulates gene editing in plants.

“It’s deeply disturbing to U.S. pork producers to see the FDA adopt a Luddite-like regulatory approach that threatens the global competitiveness of U.S. agriculture,” said Heimerl. “Common sense regulations have helped make U.S. pork the global leader, and we can’t afford to cede such an important innovation to the rest of the world.”

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