“As all outstanding issues have been resolved, [China] may proceed with certifying a list of poultry processing establishments as meeting [Food Safety and Inspection Service] requirements,” says a letter signed by Andreas Keller, director of international equivalence staff.

And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants.

The food safety issue is certainly a serious one. There's an environmental cost as well. One important caveat is that the Chinese factories can only make products with chickens raised and slaughtered in the U.S. or Canada. That's right. We'll be raising chickens in the Americas, shipping them to China, and then shipping them back.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved four plants in China to process chicken for export to the United States.The New York Times is saying that consumers will not be able to identity the origin of their chicken product.You'll probably be concerned about the food safety issues as China does not have the best reputation in that department. Consumers in U.S. have been wary about contaminated pet food coming from China which has lead to recalls and pet death.Is it too much to expect some sanity for issues that have such a strong impact on our health and environment?