In the past five years we have imported 20,207,364 pounds of casein and caseinates from China.
You might want to look at:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/eib52/
Imports From China and Food Safety Issues
By Fred Gale and Jean C. Buzby
Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-52) 37 pp, July 2009
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) increased attention to food imports from China is an indicator of safety concerns as imported food becomes more common in the United States. U.S. food imports from China more than tripled in value between 2001 and 2008. Addressing safety risks associated with these imports is difficult because of the vast array of products from China, China’s weak enforcement of food safety standards, its heavy use of agricultural chemicals, and its considerable environmental pollution. FDA import refusal data highlight food safety problems that appear to recur in trade and where FDA has focused its import alerts and monitoring efforts. FDA refusals of food shipments from China suggest recurring problems with “filth,” unsafe additives, labeling (typically introduced in food processing and handling), and veterinary drug residues in fish and shellfish (introduced at the farm). Chinese authorities try to control food export safety by certifying exporters and the farms that supply them. However, monitoring such a wide range of products for the different hazards that can arise at varying points in the supply chain is a difficult challenge for Chinese and U.S. officials.
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John,
ReplyDeleteWhen will the weaker dollar start to effect imports of these milk products? Seems like alot of other commodities are on the upswing.
Tim Tucek
Why would the U.S. eventhink of importing food from china just based on the quality of all of the other trade"goods" imported from there. I have not seen anything from china that was of high quality, it is all junk. How much of that food even gets inspected? I bet it is not much more than what is close to the door of the shipping container. Melamine remember that one? Thanks to the chinese the FDA brought out guidelines for melamine content in foods! Why? how about a zero tolerance for food adulteration? I guess now that china owns us they can feed us whatever they want. They can't even make food that is safe for dogsin china, remember that? So now food is imported and companies think it can be bought and fed to people? Where has common sense and indeed common decency gone when compared to the almighty dollar and cheap products.
ReplyDeleteRobert Lieb
bottom line is the all mighty dollar. Who cares if we are all poisioned. Less headaches for the government, we see that in the health care they want for us. They dont want it for themselves
ReplyDeleteMy wife went shopping in a different store than usual today and came home with a store brand of apple juice - in small black letters on the bottle "Product of China" (made me ill to even think about it).
ReplyDeleteRobert Lieb above has some excellent points that help get folks thinking about this; but let your mind wonder a little more...as our economy slows and we can afford to buy less of the "normal" goods made in China, I think we will start to see more and more of our food come from China. As I said in an earlier comment, we are more than happy to sell our grains to China to help them bolster their animal agriculture, at the detriment to pork, dairy, beef and poultry farmers in this country.
Jeff Suehring