US: New ‘no growth promoting drugs in meat’ certification
The United States Department of Agriculture has a new certification program for producers of livestock, which may allow them to promote products as ‘never fed beta agonists and is free of beta agonist traces’.
According to the USDA: The Never Fed Beta Agonists marketing claim is available to companies that produce livestock, beef and pork products and submit marketing programs to the Livestock, Poultry and Seed (LPS) Program for verification and monitoring.
Companies must meet the requirements of the Never Fed Beta Agonists marketing claim through an approved USDA Quality System Verification Program (QSVP).
With this certification program, livestock producers would be required to inform the USDA that they haven’t given growth enhancers to animals and that the meat has no residues of it.
For instance ractopamine is a growth enhancer and falls under the beta agonist umbrella. Ractopamine has been a major issue in Russian pork imports for example over the last year. The country now only allows certified meat imports. Russia authorities have had issues regarding meat imports from the US, Mexico and Brazil due to ractopamine.
Open markets
With this new certification program new markets could open up for the US. As it could mean that countries that had previously been banned or restricted from importing meat from the US like Russia, South Korea, China and Taiwan amongst others, would be opened up.
To view USDA certification program details, click here
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