The growth in fruit and vegetable imports reportedly pose a threat to US consumers as free trade deals “facilitate a deluge of uninspected products”, according to a recent study published by US consumer agency the Food & Water Watch.
Imports made up twice as much of the fresh fruit and fresh vegetables that US consumers ate in 2007 as in 1993, according to the report The Poisoned Fruit of American Trade Policy: Produce Imports Overwhelm American Farmers and Consumers.
“The US imported a total of 40bn lbs of produce in 2007, but the Food and Drug Administration has been asleep at the switch in the face of these surging imports,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “The free trade deals like NAFTA have unleashed a flood of nearly uninspected fruit and vegetable imports onto US supermarket shelves.”
Imported produce enters the US with almost no oversight by the Food and Drug Administration, the report said, with FDA border inspectors examining only one in 134 shipments of produce imports (less than 1 per cent) between 2002 and 2007, according to the General Accountability Office.
“These imports can contain hidden dangers – the FDA has reported that imported produce is more likely to contain foodborne-illness causing bacteria and illegal levels of pesticides than domestically grown fruit and vegetables,” explained Ms Hauter.
The Food & Water Watch report also cites an internal FDA document (released to Food & Water Watch under a Freedom of Information Act request) which states “approximately half of the foods that have been associated with food borne illness have been imported.”
However, the report claims only 4,876 shipments of the studied 50 products were refused at the border by FDA for food safety concerns between 1997 and 2006, although the US imported 164bn lbs of the studied produce products and 7bn gallons of juice during the period.
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