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"  Congress agreed late this past Friday to a tentative compromised budget that will keep the government funded through the fiscal year. The situation, which was narrowly avoided by an hour, would have meant near closure of government-funded organizations. Though it was happily avoided this year, it could happen again as it happened before - most notably in 1995. More on the Avoided Shutdown from MSN In the case of a government shutdown, Food Safety News reports that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that &amp;quot;essential personnel,&amp;quot; which includes Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspectors, would be kept in service. That would equal out to about 8,000 inspectors in 6,200 food-processing facilities. Those included in the non-essential category include management and non-inspection employees. These employees, along with many others employed by the USDA, would be furloughed. The aim of the USDA is to keep only those employees who ensure the safety of the public. Were the inspectors to be kept out of plants, 3.7 million jobs would be lost and legally plants would not be able to operate. In the case of an outbreak of a food-borne illness, the FDA would be able to call in furloughed staff, according to Food Safety News. In the 1995 shutdown, FSIS employees were kept in employment and federal meat inspection continued. According to the USDA website, were the shutdown to have occurred, the FDA&amp;#039;s efforts to monitor food imports from Japan for radiation would not come to a halt or be affected. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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