USDA May Approve Horse Slaughter Plant in New Mexico, First Time Since 2007
By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com
Within the next two months, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be making a decision on whether or not to approve a horse slaughter plant in New Mexico. While this decision is likely to go through, this will be the first time since 2007 that the U.S. would be allowing horse meat for human consumption to be produced in the United States.
A number of companies have been putting pressure on the agriculture department to re-establish inspection of horses for slaughter. The pending approval comes in the midst of the horse meat scandal that’s impacted 14 countries. If this proposal goes through, this will be the first time in six years that horse slaughter will operate in the U.S. The last plant that slaughtered horsemeat for human consumption shut its doors in 2007, after Congress approved an appropriations bill that included a rider forbidding the USDA from financing the inspection of horsemeat. This rider was renewed a number of times until 2001, when Congress removed it from the spending act.