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Rounds pushes bill to bolster meat and poultry sales

The USDA is expecting Americans to eat record amounts of meat this year.
Grant Gerlock
/
Harvest Public Media
The USDA is expecting Americans to eat record amounts of meat this year.

U.S. Senator Mike Rounds is reintroducing the “New Markets for State-Inspected Meat and Poultry Act.”

Theact would allow products approved by Meat and Poultry Inspection (MPI) programs to be sold across state lines.

Currently, only meat with a federal inspection stamp is allowed to be sold across state lines. Only ten states have chosen to build programs that include this stamp.

The proposed act would expand the option to 29 more states that have federally approved meat and poultry inspection programs to sell meat across state lines.

Rounds said the bill does not disrupt the current federal stamp process but adds more business opportunity for smaller meat and poultry operations.

Federally approved programs are reviewed annually by the Food Safety Inspection Service.

Rounds is co-sponsoring the bill with Sen. Angus King of Maine.

Evan Walton is an SDPB reporter based in Sioux Falls. Evan holds a Master’s in English Literature from Southern New Hampshire University and was honorably discharged from the United States Army in 2015, where he served for five years as an infantryman.