Taking the first step in a broad plan to get safer produce into American homes, President Clinton Wednesday proposed barring fruits and vegetables from countries that do not meet U.S. safety standards. Clinton said he will ask Congress next year for money for the Food and Drug Administration to hire a large corps of inspectors to examine produce safety abroad. And he said countries that block FDA inspections should not sell their produce here.
The president also said he will direct federal health and agriculture officials to work with U.S. farmers to develop new sanitation guidelines for domestic produce. He ordered guidelines developed within a year. Clinton did not offer specifics of the proposed legislation, but an administration official said the bill would seek up to $24 million for new FDA international inspections, the Associated Press reported.
The new agricultural guidelines, which would be crop-specific to help build safety into production here and abroad, could be wide ranging. They might call for certifying that fields are irrigated with clean water, hiring farm workers free of such diseases as hepatitis and ensuring manure used as fertilizer is free of E. coli bacteria, one official told the AP.
A Mexican farm official denounced the plan. "It is very clear to us that behind all this are economic interests which want to prevent Mexican vegetables from entering the U.S.," said Luis Cardenas, of an agriculture group in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, a big tomato producer.
Other critics charge Clinton is adopting the new program in an attempt to disarm those who say his push for free trade legislation would increase the risks of tainted foods entering the country. They argue that the U.S. food supply already is the world's safest.
Under the Clinton plan, FDA inspectors would check foreign food safety systems and ban imported fruits and vegetables from countries that do not regulate strictly enough, said an administration official. Such authority is identical to the Agriculture Department's practice of regulating meat imports. These practices have caused friction with some U.S. trading partners, particularly the European Union, and a crackdown on foreign produce conceivably could cause tensions as well.
The National Food Processsors Association today issued a statement saying the group would support devoting "increased resources" to inspections of imported foods, but emphasized there should be a level playing field between domestic and foreign foods.
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