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The current annual budget is over a million dollars. Incidentally, we do not expect to shift that cost to the Federal Government under the bills being discussed here today. Federal meat inspection applies primarily to international and interstate commerce.

Many small meat establishments are not engaged in such trade. They do, however, supply wholesome meat and meat products in in

trastate commerce.

Frequently, these plants have supplies of meat and meat products that they could furnish the Federal agencies and to establishments operating under Federal meat inspections to the value of all concerned, including the consumer.

It is my understanding that the Federal Government recognizes inspection by State governments in other food commodities, including berry products, and that approval of State inspection of other agricultural commodities has been affected under cooperative arrangements.

In the State of California our dairy inspection is recognized by the Army. On the other hand, they will not recognize our State meat inspection.

California renders a complete meat inspection service to the meat industry and to the public. All inspectors in charge of establishments, slaughtering establishments, are graduate veterinarians. Assistant inspectors that is, the layman supervisors-supervise sausage kitchens and other approved establishments.

All labeling material must be approved for food products.

Detailed plans for remodeling or new buildings must be submitted and approved before construction is begun.

A meat inspection laboratory for the testing of meat products and ingredients for purity, quality, adulterants is maintained and pathological and biological service is available to the meat inspection service. The bill under consideration leaves the admission of State inspection to the Secretary of Agriculture. It does not propose that all State inspection systems shall be automatically approved.

Millions of pounds of foreign meats are brought into this country every year. In fact, in 1958, over 58 million pounds were brought into California from New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Ireland, and Costa Rico. Over a million pounds of this meat was condemned as unfit for human consumption.

Some of the foreign meats are fed to our Armed Forces and sold to other Federal agencies and move freely about the Nation. Not so with the meat inspectors by the various States.

It seems rather odd that the meat inspection of foreign countries is recognized by our Federal Government and that such recognition is denied our States.

It is my understanding that foreign meat inspection is not usually approved by experts in the field. I am sure that investigation will show that the meat inspection of California is as good as that of foreign countries bringing meat into the United States.

I thank you.

Mr. POAGE. Thank you very much for your fine statement.

Did you mean to say that the million pounds which were condemned were condemned by the California Meat Inspection Service or the U.S. Inspection Service?

Dr. BOYD. It was condemned jointly by the Federal Service and the State of California Service.

The State of California has a Foreign Cold Storage Meat Act. We work along with the Federal inspectors.

Mr. POAGE. Were you in full accord with the Federal regulations, I mean, was there any difference of opinion as to jurisdiction? Dr. BOYD. I do not recall any differences.

Mr. POAGE. Have you ever had any differences as to the importation of foreign meats?

Dr. BOYD. I do not recall any.

Mr. HAGEN. I have never discussed this whole subject with you. You are a veterinarian. How many years have you been an official in this area of veterinary medicine?

Dr. BOYD. I have been 38 years with the State of California, and I spent a year with the Federal Government.

Mr. HAGEN. You have been associated with meat inspection programs for that period of time?

Dr. BOYD. I have inspected meat both under the Federal Government and the State. I was in charge of the California meat inspection for over 8 years.

Mr. HAGEN. This is the significant part of your background. Has it been reported to you that any plants in California have sought Federal inspection that you thought were qualified under the Federal law that have failed to get it?

Dr. BOYD. Yes, sir; two plants that I know of, Mr. Hagen. The Federal Government was not able to supply the personnel. There is a shortage of qualified veterinarians.

Mr. HAGEN. For that reason they were refused the Federal license, is that so?

Dr. BOYD. They were refused, no-they were not refused-it was held up, let us put it that way.

Mr. HAGEN. There are two instances that you know of personally? Dr. BOYD. That is right.

Mr. POAGE. Will you put their names in the record?

Mr. HAGEN. Do you want to put their names in the record?

Dr. BOYD. One of them is a plant located in Sonora, called the. Sonora Meat Co., and another plant I do not recall the name of, is a small one in Kings County, Calif.

Mr. HAGEN. I believe that would be the Caldwell-Martin Co. How about the quality of service that you are able to provide your clients as compared with the quality of service that the Federal inspection plants have as to the availability of inspectors when they are needed, and so forth?

Dr. BOYD. Well, having been on both sides of the fence, so to speak, I think that the quality of the California State meat inspection is just as high as that of the Federal Government. However we, too, in common with the Federal Government are experiencing some difficulty in attracting persons to go into the service because of the low salaries. I am not here to put on a speech about salaries, but that is the reason that we cannot get the help.

Mr. HAGEN. I am in no way criticizing the Federal Meat Inspection Service, which has to go to Congress to get its money. Do you think that you provide a service to your plants which is not always available

to the Federal system plants? I mean the availability of inspectors at the proper time, and so forth?

Dr. BOYD. We do, in this respect: We give service to small volume plants that would not be applying for Federal inspection. For instance, we have some plants that will slaughter not over 10 animals a day. We have some plants that do not operate every day in the week. Mr. HAGEN. What would be the volume of those plants with respect to the Federal system-what would be the Federal problem in the re Federal inspections?

Dr. BOYD. Their problem would be to furnish personnel on a parttime basis. And not having other places that they could assign them to. That is one thing I can think of. In other words, we are able frequently to assign one inspector to two slaughterhouses or three slaughterhouses, in a remote section like Sonora County that I mentioned and that plant was only operating about 3 days a week-they will have a half-time man on their hands he can only work half time, whereas we have other plants in that area where we could use the other part of the time.

Mr. HAGEN. In the case of the Sonora plant, they did not get a Federal license even though the plant was qualified and they met the interstate requirement.

Dr. BOYD. That is true. They were otherwise qualified, but the Federal Government, as I understand it, could not furnish the personnel. That was indicated in that type of plant.

Mr. HAGEN. Another question that I have and I am not trying to start an argument between you and the Federal Meat Inspection Service, is there any capriciousness in the application of these standards, these plant standards to applicants, or are there any defects in the standards themselves?

Dr. BOYD. I feel that the Federal meat inspection standards are, probably, the highest in the world. Our legislature-and I believe that you will remember the legislature-when this was passed, recognized when they incorporated in our law the Federal standards were recognized as the standards, and they required our rules and regulations to follow these meat inspection laws and regulations, so far as possible.

Mr. HAGEN. You have the same standards. In that connection, do you know of any plants that you feel would qualify for Federal inspection that have qualified for State inspections using the equal standards that have been refused inspection by the Federal service? Dr. BOYD. I do not recall any, but I can reverse that and tell you of one that we would not accept that was under Federal inspection. Mr. HAGEN. You brought up another point. Go ahead and tell us about that.

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Dr. BOYD. There was a plant in Los Angeles that had been operating under Federal inspection for many years. The death rate, so to speak, of meat plants is pretty high. They deteriorate and wear out rapidly. For some reason or another this plant, which was a major operator, by the way, a national packer, wanted to transfer over to State inspection.

We refused it on the grounds the plant did not meet our sanitary requirements.

In explanation, possibly, the Federal Government cited the story they, probably have been working on that plant management to get it fixed up and, probably, they applied for State inspection to get out of the Federal requirement.

Mr. HAGEN. Thank you. I commend the gentleman for his knowledge.

Mr. POAGE. Thank you very much, Dr. Boyd.

Did you have a statement to make?

Mr. FULLER. I am George M. Fuller and I am the representative of this group here in Washington, D.C. At this time I do not have any desire to make any statement.

Mr. POAGE. Our next witness is Mrs. R. C. Griffith, president of the R.C. Griffith Corp., Long Beach, Calif. We are glad to have you here.

STATEMENT OF MRS. R. C. GRIFFITH, PRESIDENT, R. C. GRIFFITH CORP., LONG BEACH, CALIF.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Mrs. Griffith, president of the R. C. Griffith Corp.

We have been in business 43 years.

I want to speak as to what inspection means to me personally, and speak for the members of the Organization of California Packers & Vendors and by vendors I mean jobbers.

Mr. POAGE. If you care to be seated, you may.

Mrs. GRIFFITH. No, I will talk too long, if I sit down. I am full of the subject.

I have been coming back to Washington for 3 years. This is the first time I have had the privilege of coming before the committee. And I would dislike to go back to California and to hate to say, "Not yet," because we felt that if we could get in front of the committee we would get proper recognition and get this bill passed and get relief.

I speak only in the interest of restraint of trade that I think this causes and that this is not the American way of any business.

You may ask how it restrains trade? May I reply by saying that we back there are State houses, and you are Federal houses. We have a larger buying market than you as a Federal house have, but we have not the outlet. For instance, the Democratic Convention is going to meet in Los Angeles. We will wine you and dine you. I promise you that.

I will start getting orders for New York steaks and the best roast beef we have in the house. If I was not an old hand at the business, I might be carried away by an order for a thousand New York steaks or a thousand this or that, but remember, that is only a small percentage of our carcass and maybe I will be left with 75 percent of the carcass that I have to dispose of.

I am a State house. You are a Federal house. If you took the order, the next morning, after you delivered it, you can take down the phone and call up 35 installations, major installations, the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and say, "I have fine stew beef, I have shanks, I have rounds," and you can give them a very good price. I am a State house.

I have only the State that I can sell to. That is discrimination. I have to sell cheaper to get rid of that, if I take the bait and supply a lot of these steaks for the Convention. I call that restraint of trade. We are not operating on the same level of interchange.

You have asked several times, Do you know of anybody who has been refused Federal inspection? I have.

I came to Washington with my story finally. I had built a beautiful new plant. I complied with all the regulations of the county. I was refused Federal inspection for over 5 years.

As you know, the whole nature of the business has changed since the war. There are trucks moving over the highways. The horse and buggy days are gone. We are going up into Oregon and Washington, down to San Diego, over into Yuma, into the atomic field in the valley, distributing our merchandise.

I wanted to get into that field. I came to Washington and was received most graciously by the Department of Agriculture and within a few days I had my certification.

The problem had been that my drains were not properly placed. They conformed to the county regulations. That cost me thousands of dollars to be taken up, to have those drains changed.

It was over 5 years that I worked for that.

Here at the Department of Agriculture I was immediately recognized. It has been a great impetus to our business and I have benefited very largely by it.

There are things you have to give up when you go into the Federal inspections, but the compensation is much more.

In the early days when we started the business we simply supplied ships. There was no refrigeration. There were no trucks going interstate. And then as the schooners and the lumber hookers vanished from the Pacific we went into a new era.

I do not think it is fair to keep our industry under the law of 1906, with the amendment of 1948. I am not going into that, because Í do not believe in it. It is the 1906 regulation that still hampers our industry. I do not believe that you are going to find all of the vendors and jobless in California wanting to be blanketed in. It will be those large enough to deal in interstate business who want to supply the Army and the Navy and the Air Force. I do not think that labor is interested in this. I think this is a small business problem. I think we should have recognition from that standpoint. And when you in Washington started putting so much accent on little business, we saw hope.

I have been coming here for 3 years hoping that each time it would bring more material. Dr. Boyd has come back to present it. The Agriculture Department has written a bill acceptable to us. I do ask you please to give it serious consideration in this legislative session.

At the time of the war when the Federal Government came in and took over so many of our plants, I think that it worked out very satisfactorily and everybody seemed pleased.

Why, after 20 years, having written a bill without administrative and legislative enactment, can we not successfully pass this new bill which will take off this restriction that we are now operating under.

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