Dairy Industry Moving Towards A Sustainable Future: MOU with USDA Signed
By Guest Blogger Joel Dahlgren
The dairy industry continues to move forward with its objectives of creating a sustainable future and of responding to concerns for green house gas emissions. On December 15, 2009, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Thomas Gallagher, CEO of Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (Innovation Center) and Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) providing for coordination between the USDA and the Innovation Center.
The dairy industry launched a sustainability initiative in 2008. The initiative’s first priority is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions twenty five percent (25%) by the year 2020. Leaders from approximately eighty percent (80%) of the dairy chain – including farmers, cooperatives, processors and manufacturers – have endorsed this commitment.
The Memorandum of Understanding establishes a relationship reflecting the commitment of the USDA and the Innovation Center to create a sustainable future for the dairy industry. Two goals are recited in the Memorandum of Understanding. First, the parties will work toward reducing green gas emissions as described above. Second, the parties will accelerate and streamline the process for adopting anaerobic digesters by U.S. dairy producers through USDA programs.
Click here for the Innovation Center’s website.
Food Liability 2010: More of the Same and Landmark Change?
We’re in the “crystal-ball” season—time to look forward and assess what’s coming in 2010 and beyond. The most likely scenario: more of the same and landmark change.
More of the Same
The last few years have seen growth in both the number of food-borne illnesses detected and the variety of foods affected. This is because more resources are being put into detection (though the CDC recently reported an overall decline in epidemiological capacity by the states) and technology is continuing to advance (think Next Generation Sequencing). There’s little reason to believe these trends will abate in 2010. Expect more outbreaks. Expect to hear about recalls of products not previously implicated in food-borne illness.
Landmark Change
Nobody doubts that we’re in the midst of the most significant legislative and regulatory changes in food safety in generations. Most believe that Congress will pass some form of food safety legislation (e.g., S 510 or HR 2749) in the new year. It will likely include the most comprehensive food safety reform in decades. Among other things, this legislation is likely to give FDA mandatory recall power and great authority for risk-based inspections, and require FDA to create a traceability program.
FDA and USDA are already pushing the boundaries of their current authority to become more aggressive on food safety and labeling enforcement. Examples include USDA moving toward classification of Salmonella as an adulterant, more aggressive rules on ground beef safety, and increased retail enforcement. FDA is already studying how traceability could work, being more aggressive in identifying products and retailers in the event of recalls, reexamining the effectiveness of current nutritional labeling requirements, and investigating whether front of pack nutrition labeling (FOP) practices need to be regulated.
And on the heels of legislative reform and increased regulatory enforcement come the lawyers. Action by the government creates new avenues for the plaintiffs’ bar. Food litigation will likely increase in prevalence both in product liability claims (i.e., food contamination) and in putative consumer fraud class claims into 2010 and beyond.
Hungry for Change: ABA Journal on Food Safety Reform and Its History
Kristin Choo has written a piece for the ABA Journal tracking the history of food safety regulation, recent outbreaks and current legislation pending in Congress. I am grateful to be mentioned in the piece. The article can be found at this link.
Ms. Choo writes:
Litigation is likely to increase as a pumped-up FDA, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, identifies more outbreaks of food-borne illness and collects more evidence about their causes. Meanwhile, many companies are likely to struggle, at least initially, with stricter requirements to develop safety plans, disclose business records when outbreaks occur and improve procedures for tracing products, according to Kenneth M. Odza, a member of Stoel Rives in Seattle, who litigates food safety cases and writes a blog on the subject.
Ms. Choo also includes a summary of information (see below) derived from CDC documented outbreaks (two or more people with the same illness after eating the same contaminated food) from 1990 to 2006 broken down by category of food. Note that nearly 50% of illnesses documented are from produce or "multi-ingredient." Produce and "multi-ingredient" account for about twice the number of illnesses as beef and poultry combined.
| Category | Outbreaks | Illnesses |
| Beef | 518 | 14,191 |
| Beverages | 101 | 3,640 |
| Breads and Bakery | 179 | 4,904 |
| Dairy | 221 | 6,364 |
| Eggs | 351 | 11,143 |
| Game | 28 | 193 |
| Luncheon and Other Meats | 196 | 7,108 |
| Multi-Ingredient | 1,054 | 30,254 |
| Pork | 233 | 6,954 |
| Poultry | 620 | 18,906 |
| Produce | 768 | 35,060 |
| Seafood | 1,140 | 11,809 |
| Other | 369 |
183 |
