Sun, 31 Jan 2010

Indiana budget cuts tap meat inspectors

Basically, the State of Indiana is going to eviscerate the state program for inspecting meat. There are roughly a hundred state inspected abattoirs in Indiana. There is only 1 USDA inspected slaughterhouse that's open to appointments (as in not owned by Cargill or ConAgra) in the state. If meat is not slaughtered in an inspected facility, it cannot be sold.

Other states that have closed or reduced their inspection programs have seen a reduction of better than two-thirds in the number of slaughter facilities operating in the state. That means that we can expect to see about 33 inspected facilities operating here after these cuts.

There is no way those slaughterhouses with reduced schedules for inspection can handle the number of animals currently processed for sale by family farms in Indiana. If you buy meat or poultry from a farmer, or at farmers markets, you will be impacted by this. Probably to the extent of having to settle for factory meat from the supermarket. It will simply be impossible for family farmers to get their animals inspected at slaughter, and illegal for them to sell their meat if it's not.

If you care about family farms at all, please contact the governor and your legislators and get this situation rectified.

While taking strategic measures to slash the state budget, Gov. Mitch Daniels turned his attention to the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH) Meat and Poultry Inspection Program (MPIP) to cut its already fragile budget by 50 percent.

(link) [Farm World]

(link) [Pasture to Plate]

via Masson's Blog

Update: They're backing off.

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