Committee weighs HB 396 to let in-state farmers sell cut meat without USDA inspection

Members of the New Hampshire House Environment and Agriculture Committee held a work session on House Bill 396, a retained bill that would exempt meat and meat food products slaughtered and prepared in New Hampshire for sale only within the state from certain inspection requirements.

The bill’s sponsor, Representative Comteuil, told the committee she supports creating a pathway for small local producers to sell cuts to in-state customers and criticized what she called slow federal action. “I’m frustrated, beyond belief that the federal government is dragging their feet on this,” she said, adding that some smaller New England farmers face different market conditions than large operations out West. Comteuil told the committee she once “had to… be a whistleblower for one of the facilities in the state” and described a case in which meat she said had been freezer-burned was relabeled and resold.

The bill would address “amenable” species — mammals covered by the Federal Meat Inspection Act — and not non-amenable species such as rabbit or certain poultry, which are already treated differently under federal law and state practice. A Farm Bureau representative, Mr. Johnson, read language from a House resolution the organization has promoted asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow small and very small slaughter plants to use custom-exempt criteria…