And on quick review, unless google search is completely wrong, i would think you are correct on the urban legend take. It is those that try to hold back seed and replant that run into legal road blocks

Thank you for shedding light on the subject

Below is a social media post by the USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety about what the EO does and does not actually do. The president was very unclear in his public comments. Undersecretary Brashears is a food microbiologist and lifelong passionate advocate for food safety . I appreciate her clarification.

SAFE FOOD for our FAMILIES!!!
I've had a couple of days to decompress and reflect on the past couple of weeks and what it has meant for food safety at USDA. Enormous amounts of time and hard work went into the EO that was signed by the President on Friday.
Despite all of the panic and fear spun up by the media (with most spinning done by those who know better), inspection is NOT gone and there was never a threat for it to be gone. We are not selling meat that isn't inspected. We are not allowing meat from state programs to go into federal streams of commerce. As always, ranchers can have their meat harvested to feed their families under custom exemption but they can't sell it.
What does the EO do??
-Establishes technical assistance for small processors. Approximately 90% of these id processors are small! They need the technical assistance.
-Establishes a coordinator to connect ranches to processors and to oversee the new programs.
-Establishes a loan program so our small and regional facilities and make improvements and expand to have the same technology as larger ones.
-Improves access to CIS and TA programs for state inspection so products can cross state lines.
-Reduces unnecessary and outdated "red tape" that prevents smaller establishments from getting inspection. None of the reductions compromise food safety.
All of these actions are BIG WINS for food safety for our small and regional facilities.
The President and Secretary are resolute in supporting food safety.

The journey though the EO process was exhausting and rewarding and there's still a ton of work to be done, but rest assured, USDA-FSIS is working hard 24/7 to keep our food supply safe!

sanangelo said:

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schmellba99 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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Texas12&0 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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Ok. This can be great for the average person not in a city.

So now the real question. How do you do this without losing oversite to health and safety. Because I don't think the average person on here understands what inspected facilities have to go through in time, cost, and requirements.

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Simple answer is education for the cattle ranchers. If they want to stay in business they will produce quality meat. If they sell to a retailer, like HEB, then the burden shifts to HEB that they are reselling quality meat. Don't need a bunch of government employees looking over everyone's shoulder and adding regulation. If you want to stay in business, ranchers and supermarkets, you do your due diligence. That's the beauty of capitalism. You protect your livelihood and compete at the highest level.

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This is niave at best. I hope. See the post above about reality of the food industry and inspection requirements.

We absolutly need goverment oversite to ensure an even playing field across facilities and verification of safe food handling pracitices. And we especially need the ability to trace evertying accordingly when the inevitable issue (mad cow, bacterial contamination, foreign objects incorproated, etc.) recalls or health outbrakes happen.

Like most posts on this board 97% of the people typing have little to no undestanding of the topic. Outside of co-ops popping up that will still have to abide by inspection and health guidelines and the incurred costs (in inspectors, QA personnel, equipment, and facility cleaning, etc.) it most likely won't change much, if anything in pricing to consumers.

Where it could change something is attempting to break pricing controls of the big houses. But in the end like most similar attempts of deregulation, it just allows others to participate at the same higher pricing (if they can find the financing to play).

I'm in the food commodity industry and ***** regularly about the costs, impacts, and general PITA the various certification and inspections requirements impact all kinds of products. But they are there for a reason.

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We really don't though.

Last I checked, even if a cut of beef has a USDA inspected stamp on it and you end up getting sick because it had something wrong with it, the USDA tells you they are really sorry and that's just about it. You as a consumer have zero recourse. And for all the "government inspection is the greatest thing ever!!!!" - how many thousands of pounds of meat, vegetables, etc. been recalled because after the fact it was discovered that it was contaminated? Even though it was inspected.

Do I think it's a good idea to have inspection? Most of the time I do. Where I think it has the most value is the back tracing ability - but that is a reactive component, not a proactive one. But I don't look at it as some magic bullet that fixes everything and certainly don't think it is an absolute requirement. Man made it a long, long time before the idea that somebody working for a government agency needed to inspect food.

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Why USDA inspections are important.

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You do realize that this book was actually written to promote and support socialism, correct? And that many of the claims in it turned out to be embellished or flat out untrue. Some turned out to be true....sort of.

There were already government inspectors (a fair amount of them at that) in 1905 when The Jungle Was written. The book was intended to spotlight working conditions, not meat packing sanitation practices. The meat packing industry took a hit in sales because of the book before any new legislation went into effect - because of the free market and the fact that a lie can travel all the way around the world before the truth can get its pants on.

As a result, the meat packing industry - specifically the larger packers - lobbied for more regulation to help bring public trust back. And in the process they forced a lot of smaller packers out of business because those smaller outfits could not afford to keep up with the regulations. The cost of meat increased across the board to the consumer. Sinclair (the author) actually opposed the new regulations.

But here's the thing - much like the unions and their movements and push 150 years ago to improve working conditions, they became so successful that the things they fought and lobbied for became encoded in law. And over time they became the defacto standard, that even if the laws today were repealed, the practices would not be. The same is true in the world we live in with food safety today. If the USDA disappeared tomorrow, the methodologies and standards that we have become accustomed to would not disappear with them.

A local rancher that is processing beef out of his facility isn't doing it in the barn next to the tractor in 90 degree temps and not having a bathroom available. To think that if we didn't have these overlords looking at everything that every aspect of our modern society would suddenly vanish is just silly. I put a lot more faith in my local rancher that lives and dies by the quality of his cattle or pigs than I do a massive packing house that is USDA inspected that still has recalls regularly and who generally doesn't feel a massive impact over those recalls. And that USDA inspection provides absolutely no recourse to the consumer when they screw up and let 25,000 lbs of tainted ground beef go out the door and only figure it out when somebody down the line gets sick.

A single negative facebook post on that local farmer or rancher has the ability to do more damage to their business and reputation than 10,000 negative posts about Armour Packing or Tyson Chicken or Smithfield Meats.

Why is it so difficult to understand that nobody here is advocating to dissolve the USDA when they say "hey, local farmers and ranchers should be able to process and sell their products without having to ship them to Timbuktu for processing and having the product shipped back before they can sell it to the local consumer?"

An easy solution if you don't want to buy from a place that isn't USDA approved is to.....not buy from that place. Keep going to HEB or Kroger. Problem solved.

Well said. The market (and social media) does a better job of keeping standards high than 10,000 government drones.

Same is true for discrimination, but that's another discussion

Makes perfect sense to me. We're not looking at a hanging weight or per Animal weight. We're looking at it from a per pound or 100wt perspective. They sold at Wharton

Quote:

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A local rancher that is processing beef out of his facility isn't doing it in the barn next to the tractor in 90 degree temps and not having a bathroom available

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100% true, but I am old enough to admit that I have seen precisely that done. It was probably 1971 or 1972, dad and a neighbor were running steers, and decided to butcher one. A retired butcher who appeared to me (as a teenager) to be 90 years old, came out and butchered a steer in a detached garage on the farm. I will say it was winter, and we may have used the tractor to lift the carcass.

The scariest part for me was when the butcher raised a rifle to the steer's head to dispatch it, he was so wobbly that I didn't know if he was going to hit the cow, or me, or my brother.


A few years before, I saw a bunch of Hispanic hired hands butcher a hog over a pot of boiling water. No barn at all, just in the sandy farm yard. No tractor, they built a tripod out of poles to raise it on.

So I go to my local grocery, and there's is ground beef from Acme Meat Co and Zeta Meat Co.
How am I as a consumer supposed to judge which one was processed safely/humanely? I'm supposed to check Facebook or xitter, is that it?

I have been very grateful lately I could rely on HEB and the govt agencies to trace bad produce so I don't have to wonder if the stuff at heb is gonna get me sick or not.
I bet the non-affected produce suppliers have also been grateful that I could confidently keep buying their product vs the entire county just not buying any lettuce, say, because no one is sure where the bad stuff came from but they heard on FB lettuce might be bad.

oldord said:

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Makes perfect sense to me. We're not looking at a hanging weight or per Animal weight. We're looking at it from a per pound or 100wt perspective. They sold at Wharton

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Yes but you posted "two dollars a pound hit compared to last year".
But current prices today are very similar to last year. Absolutely not off two dollars a pound.
'You should have gotten about the same price this year as last year if sold about the same time both years
'Calves we sold at Navasota a couple weeks ago averaged $3.41 per pound, and 505 lbs. average, which is very close to last August prices.

some_hooman said:

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So I go to my local grocery, and there's is ground beef from Acme Meat Co and Zeta Meat Co.
How am I as a consumer supposed to judge which one was processed safely/humanely? I'm supposed to check Facebook or xitter, is that it?

I have been very grateful lately I could rely on HEB and the govt agencies to trace bad produce so I don't have to wonder if the stuff at heb is gonna get me sick or not.
I bet the non-affected produce suppliers have also been grateful that I could confidently keep buying their product vs the entire county just not buying any lettuce, say, because no one is sure where the bad stuff came from but they heard on FB lettuce might be bad.

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You realize nothing is changing in how HEB or any store buys and sells meat? The change is how a rancher can raise, sell, and process his own beef to sell directly to a consumer

Here's a hint:

If it's locally produced, you're likely safe.

If it's imported from a country that doesn't have the same standards as the US, and allows the use of herbicides and animal meds not allowed in the US, not so much.

You said the free market and social media will do a better job of ensuring good practices than govt oversight, told me if it's local I'm likely good (trust me bro), then went on to tell stories about butchering animals in less than ideal local environments.

I'll give you a hint, the free market rewards price over everything else. It's why we have tons of cheap Chinese crap instead of anything of quality that lasts.
Regulation is inneficient and has tons of problems, but zero regulation is scary and dangerous - especially with our food supply. I don't doubt we can simplify and reduce red tape, but I'll take some inneficiecy for the basic peace of mind that the food I buy is generally safe.

schmellba99 said:

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sanangelo said:

---

schmellba99 said:

---

AgLA06 said:

---

Texas12&0 said:

---

AgLA06 said:

---

Ok. This can be great for the average person not in a city.

So now the real question. How do you do this without losing oversite to health and safety. Because I don't think the average person on here understands what inspected facilities have to go through in time, cost, and requirements.

---

Simple answer is education for the cattle ranchers. If they want to stay in business they will produce quality meat. If they sell to a retailer, like HEB, then the burden shifts to HEB that they are reselling quality meat. Don't need a bunch of government employees looking over everyone's shoulder and adding regulation. If you want to stay in business, ranchers and supermarkets, you do your due diligence. That's the beauty of capitalism. You protect your livelihood and compete at the highest level.

---

This is niave at best. I hope. See the post above about reality of the food industry and inspection requirements.

We absolutly need goverment oversite to ensure an even playing field across facilities and verification of safe food handling pracitices. And we especially need the ability to trace evertying accordingly when the inevitable issue (mad cow, bacterial contamination, foreign objects incorproated, etc.) recalls or health outbrakes happen.

Like most posts on this board 97% of the people typing have little to no undestanding of the topic. Outside of co-ops popping up that will still have to abide by inspection and health guidelines and the incurred costs (in inspectors, QA personnel, equipment, and facility cleaning, etc.) it most likely won't change much, if anything in pricing to consumers.

Where it could change something is attempting to break pricing controls of the big houses. But in the end like most similar attempts of deregulation, it just allows others to participate at the same higher pricing (if they can find the financing to play).

I'm in the food commodity industry and ***** regularly about the costs, impacts, and general PITA the various certification and inspections requirements impact all kinds of products. But they are there for a reason.

---

We really don't though.

Last I checked, even if a cut of beef has a USDA inspected stamp on it and you end up getting sick because it had something wrong with it, the USDA tells you they are really sorry and that's just about it. You as a consumer have zero recourse. And for all the "government inspection is the greatest thing ever!!!!" - how many thousands of pounds of meat, vegetables, etc. been recalled because after the fact it was discovered that it was contaminated? Even though it was inspected.

Do I think it's a good idea to have inspection? Most of the time I do. Where I think it has the most value is the back tracing ability - but that is a reactive component, not a proactive one. But I don't look at it as some magic bullet that fixes everything and certainly don't think it is an absolute requirement. Man made it a long, long time before the idea that somebody working for a government agency needed to inspect food.

---

Why USDA inspections are important.

---

You do realize that this book was actually written to promote and support socialism, correct? And that many of the claims in it turned out to be embellished or flat out untrue. Some turned out to be true....sort of.

There were already government inspectors (a fair amount of them at that) in 1905 when The Jungle Was written. The book was intended to spotlight working conditions, not meat packing sanitation practices. The meat packing industry took a hit in sales because of the book before any new legislation went into effect - because of the free market and the fact that a lie can travel all the way around the world before the truth can get its pants on.

As a result, the meat packing industry - specifically the larger packers - lobbied for more regulation to help bring public trust back. And in the process they forced a lot of smaller packers out of business because those smaller outfits could not afford to keep up with the regulations. The cost of meat increased across the board to the consumer. Sinclair (the author) actually opposed the new regulations.

But here's the thing - much like the unions and their movements and push 150 years ago to improve working conditions, they became so successful that the things they fought and lobbied for became encoded in law. And over time they became the defacto standard, that even if the laws today were repealed, the practices would not be. The same is true in the world we live in with food safety today. If the USDA disappeared tomorrow, the methodologies and standards that we have become accustomed to would not disappear with them.

A local rancher that is processing beef out of his facility isn't doing it in the barn next to the tractor in 90 degree temps and not having a bathroom available. To think that if we didn't have these overlords looking at everything that every aspect of our modern society would suddenly vanish is just silly. I put a lot more faith in my local rancher that lives and dies by the quality of his cattle or pigs than I do a massive packing house that is USDA inspected that still has recalls regularly and who generally doesn't feel a massive impact over those recalls. And that USDA inspection provides absolutely no recourse to the consumer when they screw up and let 25,000 lbs of tainted ground beef go out the door and only figure it out when somebody down the line gets sick.

A single negative facebook post on that local farmer or rancher has the ability to do more damage to their business and reputation than 10,000 negative posts about Armour Packing or Tyson Chicken or Smithfield Meats.

Why is it so difficult to understand that nobody here is advocating to dissolve the USDA when they say "hey, local farmers and ranchers should be able to process and sell their products without having to ship them to Timbuktu for processing and having the product shipped back before they can sell it to the local consumer?"

An easy solution if you don't want to buy from a place that isn't USDA approved is to.....not buy from that place. Keep going to HEB or Kroger. Problem solved.

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This is a good post and the end pretty much gets to the heart of it...

You have a choice and you have access to democratized, real-time info to make that choice.

some_hooman said:

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You said the free market and social media will do a better job of ensuring good practices than govt oversight, told me if it's local I'm likely good (trust me bro), then went on to tell stories about butchering animals in less than ideal local environments.

I'll give you a hint, the free market rewards price over everything else. It's why we have tons of cheap Chinese crap instead of anything of quality that lasts.
Regulation is inneficient and has tons of problems, but zero regulation is scary and dangerous - especially with our food supply. I don't doubt we can simplify and reduce red tape, but I'll take some inneficiecy for the basic peace of mind that the food I buy is generally safe.

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And you will still have that option after this decision!

If I had to guess, you work for the government.

You do realize the two incidents mentioned, both happened something like 60 years ago

And in both cases, the meat was harvested for personal use, not to be sold. Not unlike a deer hunter today.

Last, the conditions may have not been ideal, but they were not unclean.

I do not work for the government.
I'm just a guy with probably 100 or so different food products in my pantry/fridge without any means to independently verify the practices that got them there.
So I (metaphorically) organized with my fellow citizens to put rules and oversight in place so I don't have to worry about having safe food.
It probably makes sense to review and revise those rules from time to time, but I'm glad they are in place.

And that is not changing. If you don't want to buy from local rancher who butchers there own animals on site, then you don't have to. That meat is only sold to a person that chooses to buy it. This just removes a bunch of red tape of having the consumer "buy" the animal, then they pay to have it processed.

Can you not understand that?

CanyonAg77 said:

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Well said. The market (and social media) does a better job of keeping standards high than 10,000 government drones.

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I don't care if you want to buy meat directly from a local farmer. I was responding to this specific comment.