Food safetyFood safety, farm groups oppose Smithfield sale
A group of farm and food safety advocates is pushing federal regulators to prevent the sale of Smithfield Foods to Chinese food giant Shuanghui International Holdings. The coalition argues the sale could hurt domestic food safety, cause economic damage in rural communities, and could be a threat to national security.
China looks to improve pork supply and safety with purchase of Smithfield // Source: biotech.org.cn
A group of farm and food safety advocates is pushing federal regulators to prevent the sale of Smithfield Foods to Chinese food giant Shuanghui International Holdings.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that if the sale goes through, it would be the largest takeover of a U.S. business. According to a report by the St. Louis Dispatch seventeen groups sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) asking the agency to block sale of the pork processor.
“The White House should reject the sale of America’s food supply,” Tim Gibbons of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center told the Chronicle. “The Smithfield purchase turns over American farms to a consolidated, globalized meatpacking industry that leaves rural communities to clean up the waste while China gets the meat.”
Members of the coalition which sent the letter to CFIUS, among them the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Food & Water Watch, and the Nebraska Farmers Union, argue the sale could hurt domestic food safety, cause economic damage in rural communities, and could be a threat to national security.
Missouri governor Jay Nixon recently vetoed two bills which would allow 1 percent of Missouri farmland to be owned by foreign businesses.
Smithfield executives have said that the sale would increase the export of domestic pork to foreign markets, rather than leading to domestic sale of imported Asian pork. Last year the United States exported about 12 percent of its pork to China.
Opponents of the sale point to several food-related problems in China, including reports of adulterated and mislabeled meats, and the treatment of pigs with a drug which is hazardous for humans a by a subsidiary of the company now making the bid to acquire Smithfield..
“The deal has been promoted as a way to facilitate U.S. pork exports to China, but ultimately Shuanghui could export pork back to the United States,” the group’s 9 July letter states. “The adoption of Smithfield hog genetics and processing technologies could allow Shuanghui to reverse the global flow of pork.”
