Sen. Angus King and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced legislation this week that aims to help small farms and ranches provide locally raised meat and poultry to consumers by giving states the freedom to create a “custom processor category” for meats sold in state.
The Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption Act, or “PRIME” Act, mirrors House legislation co-sponsored last year by Rep. Chellie Pingree.
Current federal and Maine laws exempt custom slaughter of animals from federal inspection regulations, but only if the meat is slaughtered for personal, household, guest or employee use.
The PRIME Act would give states the freedom to permit intrastate distribution of custom-slaughtered meat to consumers, restaurants, hotels, boarding houses and grocery stores.
As it stands, anyone raising and wanting to sell beef, poultry, rabbits or any other meat must have it processed at one of 13 U.S. Department of Agriculture or state-inspected facilities in Maine, and that can make it tough for beef producers in rural parts of the state.
“In Maine, a growing number of consumers are looking to buy locally produced meats,” King said. “It simply defies logic that a Maine farmer has to send their animals halfway across the state when they just want to sell the meat next door.”
Those distances create burdens for many of Maine’s meat producers.
“If we want to sell individual cuts of meat, we have to go three hours away to have it processed,” Erin Parisien of Aroostook Beef Company in New Canada said. “It would be tremendously helpful to us if there was something closer.”
Janice Bouchard, who with her husband, Joe Bouchard, raises beef and owns Bouchard’s Country Store in Fort Kent, said distance equals cost.
“It would be easier if we didn’t have to go as far,” Bouchard said. “Right now we have to go downstate to deliver [the cows] and then two weeks later go back down and get it again.”
The PRIME act, according to King, would provide states with the option to develop and implement regulations creating a third custom processor category for meats to be sold in state.
“By providing states with the option to regulate the processing and local sale of meats, the PRIME act will restore a measure of common sense to the process, support Maine’s farmers and bolster the local foods movement, all while protecting consumer safety,” King said.
At the state level, the proposed federal legislation could reduce some regulatory red tape.
“The legislation proposed by Senator King would eliminate state regulations created when the current meat inspection program was established during the Governor King administration,” John Bott, spokesman for the Maine agriculture department, said.
According to King’s office, the Maine State Meat Inspection Program was signed into law by King, who was governor in 2003, as a cooperative agreement between the USDA and the state that allows Maine to have state-employed inspectors on site during processing rather than USDA inspectors.
“The PRIME ACT would help lift some of the federal barriers that aren’t always necessary for small farmers who may raise a few cows to feed their families or neighbors,” Pingree, who raises grass-fed beef on her Maine farm, said. “Small farmers sometimes just don’t have access to USDA-inspected processors without driving hours each way [and] the act would expand the current custom exemption and allow small farms, ranches and slaughterhouses to thrive.”
