The Government and Food Safety

Someone left a comment on on my post “The Future of Small Government Voters (part 2),” with a link to a post about the beef recall. The recall was due to the plant violating federal regulations by forcing downed cows to slaughter. The violations and abusive treatment of the animals were discovered by The Humane Society.

I just want to take a moment here to say, this is why we don’t eat beef.

I am sure that there are more relevant, and even more recent, posts for that comment, such as The Free-Market and Product Safety, posted last week, so I thought it would make more sense to address this in a new post, rather than on the non-related post on which the comment was made.

The claim is that the conditions of the slaughtering plant were due to the “small government” policies of President Bush.

(It pains me to use “small government” and “President Bush” in the same sentence.)

It is long held belief of the left that the only reason government programs fail is because the Republicans come along and under-fund them, under-staff them, and set them up for failure.

Could it be, though, that massive federal programs are just unsustainable?

I think this incident is a perfect example of how much more effective non-government entities are at insuring product safety than government agencies are. Their missions are more focused, they are typically more passionate about that focus, and they have more at stake if they fail to meet their objectives.

I mentioned that we do not eat beef. Actually, we usually don’t eat beef. Occasionally, maybe twice a year, we spend the extra money to buy a cut of beef from cows that were fed organic grain and not treated with antibiotics, from a small, preferably local, farm.

I do not rely on a massive government agency to inspect the beef I feed my family. This fact would not change no matter how well-funded and well-staffed that agency was.

I rely on the reputation and quality of the farm that produces it.

But not everyone is going to behave like I do, and I am certainly not immune to a contaminated food supply, so obviously I need to come up with some alternatives to the current system.

So, what do I think the government should do?

First and foremost, the government should punish people who use practices that lead to unsafe food.

What good does it do to have food safety guidelines when there is no real consequence for violating them.

I am talking about serious punishments, like jail or a financially ruinous fine.

Second, inspection should be done at a local level. It is a lot easier to hold someone accountable absent a large bureaucratic structure.

Third, inspection should be done at the expense of the business. If they want to sell their products with the government’s seal of approval, they should pay for it.

Which leads me to my final point, food producers should also have the option of using a private organization for inspection and sporting their seal of approval in lieu of the government’s.

This would provide choice for the producers and for the consumers.

Let me ask you this, would you rather buy meat with the USDA seal of approval or one from People for the Humane Treatment of Cows?

I am not a policy maker, so feel free to pick this apart.

I just came up with this off the cuff (with three children playing behind me) based on the following principles:

(1) Government should punish people who cause harm or violate the rights of others.

(2) Government should not punish or otherwise infringe on the rights of people who have not committed a crime.

(3) Government should remain as small and as close to the people as possible.

(4) Government should not impede the freedom of consumers to have choices in the marketplace.