NEWS IN BRIEF Faster-chicken-line requests raise outcry

A dozen advocacy groups are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reject requests from four chicken-processing plants that seek to speed up production lines.

Two requests came from plants in Arkansas, one of the nation’s leading broiler chicken producers.

In letters addressed to the USDA risk management arm, 12 groups opposed the requests to increase processing line speeds to 175 birds per minute. Industry officials petitioned for increased line speeds for competitive reasons earlier this year, to no avail. The USDA is allowing individual plants to request speedier production.

The letters, dated July 31, said the waiver requests are inconsistent with agency regulations.

The Washington, D.C.based group, Food and Water Watch, obtained the line-speed waiver requests through Freedom of Information Act requests. Peco Foods and Ozark Mountain Poultry asked for approval to speed production at plants in Arkansas. A Pilgrim’s Pride plant in North Carolina and a Gerber Poultry plant in Ohio also sought waivers.

The USDA established a 140 bird-per-minute cap for processing in 2014.

Allowing poultry processors to operate at faster line speeds would “dramatically worsen the already unsafe worker conditions in poultry plants,” the letters said.