Wisconsin Ag Connection - Romanski Asks USDA to Allow Meat to Cross State Lines

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Romanski Asks USDA to Allow Meat to Cross State Lines
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 05/06/2020

Wisconsin's interim agriculture secretary is asking the USDA to grant a temporary exception allowing state-inspected meat to be sold or donated across state lines. In a letter to the director of the regional Food Safety and Inspection Service, Randy Romanski said the short-term exception would allow more livestock through slaughter facilities, thus cutting down on the number of animals being euthanized and making more meat available to consumers.

"We have shown evidence that our state meat and poultry inspection program is at least equal to federal requirements," the letter stated. "Furthermore, Wisconsin has been a leading state in the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program, in which our program is deemed to be the same as the federal program. In the past decade, the flexibility in the CIS program has allowed Wisconsin livestock farmers and meat processors to reach new markets and benefited the state's entire agriculture industry."

Romanski added that the COVID-19 public health emergency has created challenges across the food supply chain that have never seen before. He says the closures of large processing facilities are causing market-ready livestock to back-up on farms and severely limiting options for dairy farmers to ship their cull cattle.

"Our agricultural development staff has been working tirelessly to identify state-inspected main street meat processors who may be willing to slaughter and process even an extra dozen animals a week," he said. "Our state meat inspectors stand ready to provide additional slaughter inspection days as necessary. We feel that new partnerships between farmers, processors, and consumers or food donation programs are vitally important in responding to this pandemic."

The memo concluded that if the exemption were granted, Wisconsin state-inspected meat will be able to travel across the borders for further processing, utilization by food banks, or direct consumer purchases.

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