U.S., Mexico OK Food Safety, Health Standards : Free trade: The tentative accord would cover farm products moving across the border under proposed pact.

U.S. and Mexican negotiators have reached tentative agreement on health and safety standards for food and farm products that would move across the southwestern border under a free trade agreement, officials said Wednesday.

Sources in Congress and the Bush Administration said negotiators appear to have settled on the question of food safety and health standards in advance of a July 25 meeting of the chief negotiators.

Details of the food safety and health standards in the accord were not immediately available.

The accord, the congressional source noted, is preliminary and “this doesn’t mean it can’t be opened for discussion.”

An Agriculture Department official said other food and farm issues are still being negotiated, such as the period for phasing out tariffs on farm products.

President Bush and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari held trade talks Tuesday in San Diego, where Bush also declared: “We are in the ninth inning.”

The question of food safety, however, has been among the more controversial elements of the negotiations for a North American free trade agreement.

The General Accounting Office, in testimony last week before the House Agriculture Committee, said the United States and Mexico allow different levels of pesticide residues on crops.

And Mexico has no government agency responsible for monitoring pesticide residue on foods, said GAO, the watchdog agency of Congress.

The two countries also differ in their efforts to ensure the safety of produce entering the United States, GAO said.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration samples imports for pesticide residue and has a special program for Mexican produce. In contrast, the GAO said, the Mexican government has limited capabilities to monitor residue levels for exported produce. As a result, the job is left to the private sector.

The GAO said agricultural imports from Mexico account for nearly half of all the fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables exported to the United States. If the free trade negotiations are successful, GAO said, the level of imported Mexican produce may increase significantly.

The anticipated rise has heightened concern that pesticide levels on Mexican produce may exceed U.S. limits if growers attempt to maximize production with an eye to expanding their markets.

Bush said he and Salinas told their trade ministers to meet July 25 “to bring this final stage of negotiations to an early and successful conclusion. We want to get it done as quick as possible.”