An Economic Assessment of Food Safety Regulations

Options for Improving Meat and Poultry Safety

Several approaches can be taken to improve the safety

of the Nation’s food supply.  Options are available at

many points along the continuum from “farm to fork”

where changes in food production, processing, distribu-

tion, handling, cooking, and consumption can reduce the

health risk associated with foodborne microbial patho-

gens.  Among these are the following:

·

Strengthening the meat and poultry inspection

system;

·

Educating consumers, retailers, and foodservice

workers, and promoting safe food handling;

·

Irradiating meat and poultry products; and

·

Using market-oriented approaches to food safety:

labeling, branding, legal incentives, and providing

food-safety information about products or produc-

tion methods.

All of these options could help improve the safety of U.S.

meat and poultry products.  The role of economics is to

identify the costs and benefits of each potential policy,

rank policies on the basis of their benefits and costs, and

identify the distributional consequences of such policies

for farmers, food processors, retailers, and consumers.

Subsequent sections of this report examine the econom-

ics of these policy options, with an emphasis on the

economic consequences of proposals to strengthen the

meat and poultry inspection system.