Best if printed in landscape.

Overview of US Government Response

The current strategy of the US response to food safety centers on several key concepts:

• food that is known to pose a risk of causing illness will be removed from the supply chain,
• consumers are responsible for deciding what foods they will consume (based on the assumption that unsafe foods have been removed from the food supply),
• consumers must be provided accurate information about the food product so they can make informed decisions, and
• consumers should have educational opportunities to learn how to make good decisions about their food consumption.

Implementing these key concepts has been built upon 3 steps - prohibiting adulterated foods, prohibiting misbranded foods, and offering education. The corollary to the prohibitions is to mandate specific practices that help assure food is unadulterated and not misbranded. Thus the majority of the discussion about food safety addresses

• what actions are prohibited and what steps are required to assure food is unadulterated,
• what actions are prohibited and what steps are required to assure food is not misbranded, and
• providing education about making sound food decisions.

Examples of each include

• not adding substances that are likely to cause illness,
• following sanitary procedures during food manufacturing,
• not using containers that deceive the consumer as to the quantity of the food,
• providing nutritional information about the food product, and
• providing information for consumers to learn about safe at-home food preparation practices.

U.S. federal laws dealing with food safety concerns initially addressed the processing sector of the food industry, but other sectors (e.g., final preparation, retail sale, commodity production) have subsequently been subject of government overview. For example, retail sales and final food preparation are subject to state rules (with considerable input from federal agencies), whereas rules for addressing safety concerns in much of the production sector are jsut being devised at this time.

The Function of Food Laws

• Protect the public health from the adverse consequences of unsafe foods.
• "Rose Acre [an egg producer] observes that salmonella is not dangerous to the animals; it is contagious among animals but does not injure them. According to Rose Acre, only diseases dangerous to animals fall within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture. When the disease is dangerous exclusively to humans, Rose Acre insists, the Food and Drug Administration is the appropriate regulator. The Secretary of Agriculture has neither statutory mandate nor expertise in dealing with human diseases, it submits...

"The district judge rejected Rose Acre's contention, and properly so... Control of illness among farm animals is for the welfare of humans: to protect our health from diseases animals carry, and to protect our wallets from the costs of sacrificing additional animals should the infection spread. Salmonella spreads from animals to people; it spreads among animals, potentially increasing the financial cost to farmers; and fear of salmonella depresses the demand for dairy and poultry products, again injuring agriculture. Nothing in the text of secs. 111, 114, 114a, or 120 confines the Secretary to addressing diseases fatal to animals."

Rose Acre Farms, Inc., v. Madigan, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Nos. 91-2358 and 91-2514. February 10, 1992

• Convey information to the consumers, such as package labeling requirements (labeling strives to provide consumers with information so they can make an informed decision) and education programs.
• Protect against fraud; e.g., assure that the package contains what the label states.
• Assure fair trade practices to prevent sellers from misrepresenting what they are selling and from misleading consumers about the quality of the product.
• Protect the environment; recognizing that food production systems impact air and water qualities.

Consider these sites as mandatory reading!

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Published by Agribusiness and Applied Economics
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