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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Pinto

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

3/2/2007

HB

SHORT TITLE Meat Inspection Cultural Considerations

SB SJM 28

ANALYST Schuss

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Environment (DOE)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

Senate Joint Memorial 28 requests that the New Mexico Delegation help retain small businesses

in communities throughout the state and preserve traditional practices of Native American and

Hispanic communities by urging that cultural and traditional practices be considered by the

United States Department of Agriculture in adopting regulations for meat inspection and

slaughterhouses.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

Senate Joint Memorial 28 states that New Mexico is predominantly a rural state, with many very

small communities surrounded by great areas of open vistas and great distances between

communities. Due to the rural nature of the state, many people still raise livestock for personal

consumption, but due to the changes faced by traditional communities, more and more Native

American and Hispanic people rely on commercial ventures to provide them with traditional

foods, and at least ten percent of the population of New Mexico is Native American, many of

whom remain living in traditional tribal or pueblo communities that were occupied by their

ancestors as long ago as one thousand years.

Senate Joint Memorial 28 – Page

2

Close to fifty percent of the population of New Mexico is of Spanish ancestry, and many of these

people live in the small traditional communities settled by their ancestors over the last five

hundred years, this large segment of the population of New Mexico has traditions that must be

preserved if the heritage, culture and spiritual practices of the long-term residents of New

Mexico are to remain vibrant and meaningful into the future. Food and food preparation are basic

to maintaining many belief systems and the traditional practices of both the Hispanic population

and the Native American population of New Mexico and include rich and important practices

involving the raising, blessing, harvesting and consumption of animals. Slaughtering of animals

has for centuries been a community activity that in the last hundred years has become the job of a

community member who knows the culturally appropriate way to raise and prepare animals for

ceremonial or community use, and the proprietors of these community businesses carry much of

the traditional knowledge of the appropriate way and the respectful attitude required to harvest

animals for cultural and traditional activities such as feasts, ceremonies, matanzas and other

community gatherings.

Practices are viewed many times by regulators as conflicting with health and safety standards for

slaughtering of animals, the United States Department of Agriculture has specifically authorized

spiritual leaders of religious traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam or Judaism in

regard to the preparation of kosher products to be present as necessary during the butchering of

animals, but spiritual practices of Native Americans and traditional practices of Hispanic

communities are not recognized in these religious tradition exemptions, in large part because the

need for the services of a slaughterhouse outside of the community or under state or federal

regulation is a recent phenomenon. In recent years, the United States Department of Agriculture

regulations governing the slaughter of animals have become sophisticated and removed from the

traditional values and practices that support the cultures of New Mexico, tending to hold those

values and practices in disdain as fewer people creating and enforcing regulations actually have

knowledge or understanding of these cultural values and practices.

Small slaughterhouses or community butchers have found it difficult to remain in business due to

the lack of understanding expressed and exhibited by regulators and their regulations, and

traditional communities are prohibited from obtaining animals in the way the animals are

required to be prepared by tradition, due to the regulations. Even more stringent regulations

prohibit preparation of slaughtered animals in traditional ways for resale, as in allowing

restaurants to serve some traditional foods; however, in some cases, parts of animals unavailable,

due to regulation, from local slaughtering businesses are available as imported delicacies. Small

butchers and slaughterhouses are disappearing from traditional communities in many cases due

to the expense of implementing regulations and the regulators’ expectations that to remain in

business a butcher will purchase sophisticated equipment and maintain detailed records that

require sophisticated information technology. Some of the requirements that exceed a small

butcher’s or slaughterhouse operator’s capacity to implement are targeted at large meatpacking

operations that obtain their animals from feedlots.

Representatives of traditional communities are willing to work with the United States

Department of agriculture to develop regulations that will allow those communities to continue

their traditions, ceremonies and age-old community practices while satisfying those necessary

health and safety concerns of the regulators, and allowing small butchering and slaughterhouse

businesses to prosper and serve a great need in these traditional communities.

The State of New Mexico requests that the New Mexico Congressional Delegation be urged to

take action to help protect small businesses in New Mexico by helping the proprietors of small

slaughterhouses and butchering operations that provide meat and slaughtered animals for

Senate Joint Memorial 28 – Page

3

consumption for traditional Native American feasts and ceremonies, Hispanic community

matanzas and other traditional community gatherings and celebrations to obtain relief from

oppressive regulation through negotiation with regulators of the United States Department of

Agriculture and implementation of regulations that take into consideration the interests and needs

of traditional people and communities. SJM 28 requests that the New Mexico Congressional

Delegation consider requiring the United States Department of Agriculture to adopt provisions in

regulations that allow Native American spiritual leaders the same liberty as other religious

leaders to participate in butchering of animals in specified slaughterhouse operations to ensure

that animals for feasts, ceremonies or other community gatherings are prepared as required by

tradition.

The United States Department of Agriculture is encouraged to engage in dialogue with the

leaders of traditional communities, both Native American and Hispanic, in New Mexico to reach

accord on regulatory issues of concern to the traditional and spiritual leaders of those

communities and also to aid small community butchering and slaughterhouse operations to

remain as viable businesses and provide the needed services that they offer in small traditional

communities.

According to DOE, the mission and purpose of USDA and federal, state and local environmental

health agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), New Mexico Livestock Board

(NMLB), New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) and other local environmental health

departments is to protect public health by reducing the risk of food borne illness food borne

illness. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates there are 76 million cases of food

borne illness each year, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5200 deaths resulting from food borne

illness. Many health practitioners believe those estimates are conservative. Protecting the food

supply from farms to the table is taken seriously and judiciously by the agencies charged with

this task.

The food safety regulations (or food safety standards) established and employed to keep our food

supplies safer are based on science. Years of study and evaluation are undertaken in the

development of the food safety standards that are represented in federal, state, and local food

safety regulations adopted and implemented by these regulatory agencies. Still, with the

implementation of these sound food safety standards, food borne illness still occur in alarming

numbers. The food safety regulatory agencies must protect the food supply.

BS/nt