USDA's Oversight of State Meat and Poultry Inspection Programs Could Be Strengthened

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) oversight of state meat and poultry inspection programs to determine whether USDA certification procedures conform to the authorizing legislation and to evaluate the methods used in special USDA internal review studies of state inspection effectiveness. In addition, GAO summarized the results of USDA ratings of state-inspected plants to identify trends and the relative standings of state programs from 1980 through 1982.

Federal legislation gives USDA discretion in determining whether state programs are equal to the federal program. GAO believes that USDA certification procedures are reasonable and consistent with legislative requirements. However, GAO identified several ways of making the certification procedures more effective. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has proposed substantial changes to its state program review guidelines which, if implemented, would establish a specific policy regarding frequency and scope of state-inspected plant followup visits. However, GAO believes that other proposed changes would strengthen federal evaluations of state programs. The basic methods used in an FSIS internal review to determine how state-inspected review results compared with the results of federally inspected plant review were sound, but GAO could not determine whether the results were valid.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Brian P. Crowley Team: General Accounting Office: Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division Phone: (202) 512-9450