Abstract

Concerns about food safety have increased over the past decade, in part because the rapidly increasing volume of food imports means that U.S. authorities have less direct oversight of a growing share of the foods that Americans consume.U.S. food and agricultural product imports almost doubled from $41 bil-lion in 1998 to $78 billion in 2007, increasing from 11.5 % to 14.4%of the totalU.S. food sup-ply over this ten-year period (Brooks, Regmi, and Jerardo 2009). Imports are higher as a share of consumption for some foods that are often linked tomicrobial foodborne illness. For example, imports of fresh and processed fish and shellfish totaled more than $11 billion in 2007 and now account for 85 % of U.S. con-sumption. In general, the rapid growth in the value of U.S. food imports has been driven by larger volumes of an increasing array of consumer-ready products, such as fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, and processed foods, which may not have a further cooking step to destroy any pathogens that might be present. Sources have been changing as well as prod-ucts. The main countries exporting food to the UnitedStates—Canada,Mexico,theEuropean Union,Australia,Brazil, and China—have var-ied little over this period, but there have been other important changes in trade patterns