Regulation for the Largest Common Denominator?

by Mark Foggin

October 5, 2009

In this Sunday's NY Times was yet another excellent article in the annals describing the dangers of a huge, inscrutible food system that combines (and recombines) scraps of meat from many different producers without holding them accountable for their wholesomeness. (Wait. That sounds strangely like the way mortgages were wontonly issued for over a decade!) Reporter Micheal Moss recounts the story of how a young Minnesota woman contracted E. coli from poorly handled ground beef sold by Cargil. It uses company and USDA documents to highlight the flaws in a system (or lack of a system) of regulation and consumer protection when it comes to the safety of meat. But beware the unintended consquences of more regulation on promoting a healthier food system.

The USDA has conflicting missions: promote the United States' meat industry while also protecting the safety of its consumers. As a result, it's regulations for health often wind up merely indsutry guidelines as Moss points out:

"The United States Department of Agriculture, which allows grinders to devise their own safety plans, has encouraged [emphasis added] them to test ingredients first as a way of incresing the chance of finding contamination."

But what happens when the USDA promulgates one-size-fits-all regulations intended to wrastle the biggest, worst offenders? It runs the risk of overwhelming smaller farmers and purveyors who are growing and providing sustainable products and likely do not need to test as stringently. Ironically, the very regulations that help protect the consumer from the ills of industrially produced meat may edge smaller, potentially safer producers out of business by creating expensive regulatory requirements they cannot economically meet.

How do should we create a system that balances the ability for informed consumers to know and trust the provenance of their meat, while also regulating larger producers who have routinely demonstrated a disregard fro the safety of their consumers?