Action Alert: Food Safety Legislation
On Wed., Nov. 18, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passed major food safety legislation, S. 510. A version of this legislation has already been approved by the House of Representatives.
This food safety legislation now goes to the full Senate for consideration. The bill includes key reforms that would put real teeth into federal regulation of large-scale food processing corporations and protect consumers. However, the bill as written would also do serious harm to family farming, local and regional food systems, conservation and wildlife protection, and organic farming. The good news is the Senate could fix those problems by adopting some common sense provisions.
Can you call your senator?
Please call or fax their office and ask to speak with the aide in charge of food safety issues. You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.
The message is simple. “I am a constituent of Senator___________ and I am calling to ask him/her to support the proposals for amendments to S. 510 offered by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Organic Coalition.”
About the proposed amendments
Specifically, we’re asking the Senate to support the following key principles:
- The bill should provide small and mid-sized family farms that market value-added farm products with training and technical assistance in developing food safety plans for their farms.
- The bill should direct FDA to narrow the kinds of farm activities subject to FDA control and to base those regulations on sound risk analysis. (Current FDA rules assume, without any scientific evidence or risk analysis, that all farms which undertake any one of a long list of processing, labeling or packaging activities should be regulated.)
- The bill should direct FDA to ease compliance for organic farmers by integrating the FDA standards with the organic certification rules. FDA compliance should not jeopardize a farmer’s ability to be organically certified under USDA’s National Organic Program.
- The bill should insist that FDA food safety standards and guidance will not contradict federal conservation, environmental, and wildlife standards and practices, and not force the farmer to choose which federal agency to obey and which to reject.
- Farmers who sell directly to consumers should not be required to keep records and be part of a federal “traceback” system. All other farms should not be required to maintain records electronically or records beyond the first point of sale beyond the farmgate.
The bill focuses on foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, not meat and poultry, which is regulated by USDA.
For more information on the Senate food safety bill, please see National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition's Talking Points and its policy brief, Food Safety on the Farm.
Read the organizational sign-on letter to Senators Harkin and Enzi.
Page Updated 11.13.09