The USDA has announced that it will support a new certification system for US livestock that guarantees that meat produced under this standard will never have been fed beta agonists (growth hormones) such as ractopamine. Companies can meet the requirements of the “Never Fed Beta Agonists” marketing claim under either a USDA Process Verified Program (PVP) or the USDA Quality System Assessment (QSA) Program. Beef and pigmeat and meat products derived from animals that comply Continue reading
When a story gets into the Wall Street Journal we all take note. And the report by Kelsey Gee and Bill Tomson at the weekend that Russia wants all US pork exports to Russia to be certified free of ractopamine made the market take note – hog futures fell. According to the Wall Street Journal the absence of a residue testing programme for ractopamine by the USDA would mean that all US pork exports to Russia are effectively halted. This is not the first time that ractopamine has got in the way of smooth trade flows between Russia and the USA – and between the USA and other countries. If you believe that “the customer is always right”, there is only one thing to say. Get a residue testing programme in place – quick. That might fly in the face of WTO-purists who would argue that the WYO has accepted that small amounts of ractopamine residues in meat export products are OK. But any appeal to the WTO and, eventually, an appeal to the disputes settlement body would take months and years. Much longer than it might take to set up a ractopamine testing system for exports.