Republican Senator Rick Scott has asked the government to check how garlic imports from China affect national security.
He wrote to the commerce secretary, claiming Chinese garlic is not safe due to unsanitary production methods. China is the world’s biggest seller of fresh and chilled garlic, and the US buys a lot of it.
The US has had issues with this trade for years, accusing China of selling garlic at prices below the production cost, a practice known as “dumping.”
Since the mid-1990s, the US has put high tariffs or taxes on Chinese imports to protect its own producers. In 2019, during Trump’s administration, these tariffs were increased.
In his letter, Senator Scott mentions these ongoing concerns but also raises worries about the safety of garlic from foreign countries, especially China.
He points to documented practices, such as growing garlic in sewage, found in online videos, cooking blogs, and documentaries.
He wants the Department of Commerce to investigate under a law allowing examinations into how specific imports might affect US security.
Senator Scott gets into specific types of garlic that should be checked, including all grades, whether whole or separated into cloves, peeled or not, and whether chilled, fresh, frozen, provisionally preserved, or packed in water or other substances.
He argues that food safety is an urgent issue affecting national security, public health, and economic well-being.
However, the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Quebec disagrees, stating there’s no evidence that sewage is used as a fertilizer for growing garlic in China.
An article from the university in 2017 explains that human waste is as effective a fertilizer as animal waste, and spreading human sewage on fields for crops is safer than it might seem.
