Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins today announced that USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will extend waivers allowing pork and poultry facilities to maintain higher line speeds and engage in rulemaking to formalize these speed increases. 

“Additionally, FSIS will no longer require plants to submit redundant worker safety data, as extensive research has confirmed no direct link between processing speeds and workplace injuries,” USDA said. 

“America leads the world in pork and poultry production, and we are committed to ensuring our producers remain competitive on a global scale without being held back by unnecessary bureaucracy,” Rollins said in a news release.  

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are cutting unnecessary red tape, empowering businesses to operate more efficiently, and strengthening American agriculture — all while upholding the highest food safety standards.”

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said in a joint news release, “This is great news for American meat and poultry companies that continuously lead food and worker safety standards worldwide.”

“We applaud Secretary Rollins for taking quick and decisive action to allow these businesses to expand their operations in a safe and efficient manner. We look forward to continued collaboration with the administration throughout the rule making process.”

National Chicken Council President Harrison Kircher praised the administration for the announcement. NCC noted that a pilot program at almost two dozen chicken processing plants was initiated under the Clinton administration allowing line speeds of up to 175 birds per minute (bpm).

“I want to thank Secretary Rollins and the Trump administration for adhering to science-based principles and following 25 years of experience, studies and data on increased line speeds in chicken processing plants,” Kircher said.

“The current approach has created significant uncertainty for companies with waivers and a competitive disadvantage for those without them. We appreciate the administration moving to ensure a level playing field and help increase the global competitiveness of the U.S. broiler industry. We look forward to providing input as the rulemaking process begins and request that the agency work expeditiously to finalize a rule,” Kircher said.

National Pork Producers Council President Duane Stateler, a pork producer from McComb, Ohio, said, “America’s pork producers thank U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and the Food Safety and Inspection Service for this needed action that will provide financial security and more stability for pork producers. Without this program, some pork producers could have incurred an additional loss of nearly $10 a head.”

 Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents over 15,000 poultry workers at facilities across the southern United States, as well as meatpacking and processing workers in other parts of the country, said, “Increased line speeds will hurt workers — it’s not a maybe, it’s a definite — and increased production speeds will jeopardize the health and safety of every American that eats chicken.”

“Today’s announcement by the USDA and Secretary Rollins echoes the same lack of consideration they had for our essential food processing workers during the first Trump administration and it will put us all at risk,” Applebaum said.

“We rely on the thousands of workers to safely produce the food on our tables every single day, they can’t do that safely at these speeds — we learned that lesson the hard way just five short years ago — let’s not irreparably injure workers to learn what we already know.

“Worker safety must be a priority, and these facilities cannot operate at these speeds without increased staffing, which cannot happen the way they are constructed now. Issuing waivers to a multi-billion dollar industry with no oversight to ensure it’s done safely and properly is a recipe for disaster,” Applebaum said.

“The USDA must make worker safety a priority, not profits.”