Food products shippers Dec. 12 will have to provide an electronic notice to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at least two hours before each truckload arrives at inspection stations in U.S. ports of entry.

The new rules are required by the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 and will be gradually enforced by the FDA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"We are not going to be holding shipments on Dec. 12 if they fail to comply with the act," Rick Pauza, a customs spokesman, told the San Antonio Express-News. "It's going to be a phased-in program."

The notices will be filed mainly by customs brokers, who already handle much of the paperwork for cross-border cargo.

"A shipment that just shows up at the border and says, 'Here I am, cross me,' will be no longer," said Rodolfo Delgado, president of the Laredo Customs Brokers Association.

"We are going to have to add another number to the manifest," he said. "Getting that number (from the FDA) is what's going to be the trick. ... The first day, we are going to have a little bit of chaos."

Also under the act, thousands of foreign and domestic food-handling facilities that manufacture, process, ship or pack food are required to register with the FDA and designate a contact person in the United States, which takes about 15 minutes on the Internet.

Delgado said entrepreneurs are charging up to $1,000 a year for that service to some shippers in Mexico who aren't computer savvy or are leery of sifting through a foreign law.

In 2002, $6.1 billion worth of agricultural products were imported into the United States from Mexico, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. About 10 percent of the 4,000 commercial trucks that cross into the United States here each day carry food products, but the percentage is higher at some other crossing points.

"The farmers that don't have computers, that don't have the Internet, that don't speak English, how are they going to comply with the regulations?" wondered Rene Gonzalez, the state, federal and international affairs director for the Laredo Development Foundation. "They are not terrorists — they are just not rich."

The change comes on the heels of a program that started in El Paso Thursday that allows pre-registered truck drivers to go through special lanes at border crossings. Called the Free and Secure Trade (FAST) program, it will also be implemented soon here and in McAllen and Pharr.