Meat Groups See Improvement Opportunities at Border for US-Canada Trade

Meat and livestock trade between the U.S. and Canada could be improved through better alignment of food safety and other import requirements, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) and the Canadian Meat Council (CMC) said in recent comments to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. OIRA is under the Office of Management and Budget. The comments were submitted in response to a request for input from the U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (see 1810120028). The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement text "provides opportunity for further regulatory cooperation that can work to bring about development of common approaches to food safety, building upon the work of the RCC," the groups said.

A mutual recognition of food safety technology approvals in all three countries would be one important change, the group said. Short of inspection program mutual recognition, the governments could use shipment sampling "instead of undergoing re-inspection at the port of entry," the groups said. Federally inspected facilities could also host onsite inspection house operations "allowing imported product to bypass re-inspection at the border and instead be federally-inspected at the destination facility," NAMI and CMC said. The groups also suggest use of a “Stop, Drop, Inspect and Roll” program, which would "allow product being imported from Mexico (or Canada) into the U.S. to continue on to Canada (or Mexico) after 'dropping' part of the load in a federally inspected establishment in the U.S.," they said.

Also recommended is the "establishment of a common 'window' for an E-document transmission and communication system in the USMCA region to facilitate review and clearance of meat shipments crossing common borders." The meat groups would also like to see an expansion of the trusted trader programs that would reduce border inspection requirements when a shipment remains under control of the same company. Reinspections at the U.S.-Canada border should also be eliminated, as existing FTAs "provide the legal basis for not re-inspecting each and every load," the groups said.

CBP and foreign governments should work together at one of the Container Security Initiative ports "to develop pre-selection of sample program," the groups said. The Food Safety and Inspection Service's "test and hold" policy for imported Canadian meat is unnecessary and wasteful of FSIS resources, the groups said. Microbial and residue testing at the border should be done away with and "if validation is necessary, this should be performed at the producing establishment rather than at the border," they said. The groups also still "look forward to the long promised 'Pre-Clearance Pilot Project on Import Re-inspection Activities for Fresh Meat' under the Beyond the Border Action Plan as a means to demonstrate the futility of border testing."