UPDATE - June 4, 2009: Sustainable and Organic Farming Proposed Revisions to New Waxman Draft Food Safety Bill - as proposed by 16 organizations, including RAFI-USA
April 13, 2009
Over the last few weeks, RAFI has received calls and e-mails from friends and supporters concerned about H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act. Mass e-mails, blogs, and internet petitions say this bill would put an end to local food, roadside stands, farmer’s markets, direct marketing, organic farming and even backyard gardens.
The internet furor over H.R. 875 is largely misplaced and not based on fact. The bill is not perfect, but it is not the threat that recent emails have made it out to be. The furor over H.R. 875 is detracting from attention to several other bills that would pose a more substantial threat to local and organic food.
H.R. 875 is designed to increase the safety of food in supermarkets. It does:
- split the FDA into two divisions, one focused on food safety and one for drugs and medical devices,
- increase the frequency of processing plant inspections based on risk,
- extend food safety agency authority to farms and require farms to have food safety plans,
- require imported food to meet the same safety standards as domestic food.
It does not:
- regulate backyard gardens, farmer’s markets, direct-marketed food, or seed,
- ban organic agriculture,
- establish a mandatory animal identification system,
- apply to food grown and sold within one state,
- cover USDA-regulated foods: beef, pork, poultry, lamb or catfish,
- require registration or user fees for processing inspections,
- mandate any specific type of traceability records (paper or electronic).
Other bills do threaten small farms, independent processors, and sustainable agriculture. H.R. 814, the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act, and S.425, the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, would create a mandatory animal identification system. H.R. 759, the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act, would
- extend traceability requirements from processors to farms and restaurants and requires that records be electronic
- require processing plants to pay inspection fees
- instruct the FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish Good Agricultural Practices for produce.
These bills would require expensive investments beyond the reach of most small farms and processors, effectively putting them out of business. H.R. 759 could also allow regulations that would prohibit many sustainable farming practices.
Industrialized, centralized food production creates significant risks to food safety. After the recent series of food recalls, strengthening the ability to trace where food comes from is a high priority for Congress. Small and organic producers and consumers must watch carefully to be sure that legislation presents real solutions, not one-size-fits-all requirements.
Call your Congress member and Senators and tell them that any produce safety bill must be:
- Scale-appropriate. Federal law should support producers at each level, not impose a one-size-fits-all approach that runs small farms and farmers markets out of business.
- Risk-appropriate. Laws and regulations must be based on actual risk assessments for different products and scales of farms, not assumptions based on an industrial food model.
- Flexible according to farm size, market served and risk. Compliance with produce safety measures should be appropriate for diverse farm sizes and markets and their risks. For instance, a 2-acre fruit and vegetable producer selling exclusively through farmers markets within 50 miles of the farm and a several hundred acre producer shipping produce to multiple outlets in multiple states would need separate standards. All producers would receive training on on-farm produce safety, with larger producers choosing to comply with more rigorous certifications to meet buyer specifications, not federally-mandated standards.
- Focused on education, not regulation. On-farm food safety should center on education and incentives rather than mandated regulations with punitive measures for non-compliance.
Other important points:
- Face-to-face direct market sales, such as Farmers Markets, CSAs and farm stands, are already well-regulated under state and local jurisdiction and require no additional federal oversight.
- Industrial, centralized food production and imported food present distinct risk and safety issues and should be dealt with separately, with concerted oversight
- Interstate commerce is not an appropriate regulatory designation, as many local farming operations routinely conduct business across state lines.
- Banning long term beneficial and scientifically-validated conservation and farmscaping practices in the name of food safety is a reversal of Congressional intent and taxpayer funding. Solutions must be based on sound science, specific to the growing conditions on individual farms.
- The definition of food safety should be expanded beyond narrow microbial contamination issues. It should include overall health impacts of pesticides and GMOs, environmental contamination from synthetic inputs, the energy basis of petrochemicals, effects on climate change, and food security and sustainability issues.
To find your Senators go to www.senate.gov ; to find your Representative, go to http://www.house.gov. Both sites have a tool at the top of the page to locate your congressional representatives. When you call, ask to speak to the staff person that handles agricultural issues.
Farmers and consumers have real work to do to support fair, sustainable food. Before you take action, make sure your information comes from an organization that you trust.
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