The Coalition for a Prosperous America held a conference about globalization and trade Thursday, with a press conference specifically addressing food safety.

Fred Stokes, the president of CPA, urged the American public to confront Congress about the imported food supply, which Stokes said is potentially highly dangerous.

“We believe this is an issue that would be under the title of homeland security,” Stokes said in the opening words of his presentation.

Stokes focused on trade with China and Mexico, although the United States imports food from several other countries.

The Food and Drug Administration, Stokes said, admits to inspecting only 1.5 percent of imported food because of inadequate staffing.

Stokes referred to this kind of inspecting as “poke and sniff,” and he said only one-half of 1 percent of imported food is analyzed in a laboratory.

Even considering the small amount of food that is actually inspected, the CPA found data on the FDA’s Web site that showed the total display of rejected food and drug imports from China and Mexico combined totaled 340 printed pages.

The printed pages of rejected shipments covered the entire wall behind Stokes. He said that placed end to end, the pages would cover the length of a football field.

The unit of “shipments,” Stokes said, is ambiguous; in other words, it could mean a single cargo crate, or it could be any other amount. The bulk weight of all of the rejected shipments, he said, is actually unknown.

In their investigations, Stokes said, the CPA found that Hershey’s Chocolate has closed down 1,500 jobs, moving some operations to Mexico. Some shipments of Hershey’s Kisses from Mexico were listed among the rejected imports hanging on the wall.

Stokes said the public is beginning to have awareness about the potential danger in importing food from foreign countries since melamine was found in pet food shipments, which harmed and killed some pets in the country.

“We’re saying that the system is broken, that our government is not protecting the American consumer,” Stokes said.

Patty Lovera, assistant director of the Washington, D.C.-based Food & Water Watch, said a main issue in food safety today is simply awareness of where food products come from.

The CPA, along with Food & Water Watch, are pushing for the country of origin to be required on all food labels.

“Imports are growing much faster than exports,” Lovera said.