New Food Safety Legislation Could Help or Harm Local and Organic Suppliers

By Aimee Witteman

Recent outbreaks of illness caused by food contamination associated with both peanuts and spinach indicate the U.S. food safety system is in need of serious improvement.

Congress has at last begun considering reforming the nation’s food safety laws. But family farm and local food advocates oppose parts of the current proposed legislation, especially its one-size-fits-all approach. They argue that the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749), passed by the House of Representatives in July, would leave the food system no safer, while potentially limiting Americans’ access to natural and organic foods.

The House bill, critics say, puts unreasonable burdens on small family farms, jeopardizes local food system initiatives and fails to focus on the riskiest sectors of the food system. The Senate will be discussing its own version of the food safety bill this fall, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (S. 510). Then, there will be an opportunity to make further changes when these bills move on to a conference committee, where key differences between the two bills are to be reconciled.

Pros and Cons
E. coli carried in bagged, ready-to-eat spinach in 2006 and salmonella linked to chili peppers in 2008 are among the recent, highly publicized outbreaks of illness that have prompted Congress to take a more thorough look at the safety of fresh produce. Until now, fresh produce safety regulations have focused on after-harvest processing and handling, because these steps are most often associated with food-borne pathogen contamination. The new proposals would impose mandatory standards, regulations and fees, and extend them all the way back to the farm.

Provisions would also increase the authority of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the production, processing and importation of fresh produce. While family farm and local food advocates agree that many of the steps are necessary and overdue, they also say the devil rests in the details.

“We welcome stronger food safety regulations and were glad to see the final House bill provide the FDA mandatory recall authority when particular foods and food products are identified as causing health problems,” says Russell Libby, executive director for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. “But there are some nuances that the bill gets wrong. For instance, it imposes a flat $500 annual fee for all farms that process their product and sell to wholesale and retail markets.” Thus, small farm operations would pay the same fee per facility as large multinational corporations.

Many small producers also perform value-added processing to increase farm income and to meet consumer demand—such as turning fruit into jam or cooking maple sap into syrup, Libby explains. “We are concerned that a flat, rather than graduated, fee will create a disincentive for farmers to pursue value-added processing.” Small-farm advocates object to this registration fee for facilities, which is not in the Senate bill.

Another concern is proposed requirements for traceability of foodstuffs through the distribution pipeline, which food safety advocates generally support. But, while the House bill exempts this costly measure for farms selling directly to consumers, the Senate bill does not. Neither bill instructs the FDA to coordinate with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current National Organic Program, which already requires food safety measures for certified organic producers.

“We want to ensure that Congress focuses regulations on the riskiest areas—including food that follows a chain of many steps and miles between when it is harvested and when it shows up on your dinner plate,” advises Brian Snyder, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture.

He observes: “When food is purchased directly from farmers by the end consumer, whether it’s a hospital or a school or at a farmers’ market, we are less vulnerable to widespread food safety outbreaks, because the food source is known.”

Keeping Food Safety in Perspective
Some argue that in the midst of the debate over details, we should not forget critical threats to the health and safety of our food system that is at the heart of the problem—the industrialized, global food system. “I’m concerned that the food safety debate is being limited by the parameters of the proposed legislation,” remarks Jim Goodman, a dairy farmer and a food and society policy fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

For example, says Goodman, “The number-one source of E. Coli is grain-fed cattle. If we want to prevent spinach from being contaminated by E. coli, we need to increase regulations to stop the factory-like conditions in which livestock are raised. We need to increase incentives for farmers to move their livestock onto grass, not simply put the onus on produce growers to keep manure from neighbors’ farms out of their fields.”

Help ensure that concerns about sustainable and organic agriculture and local and regional food systems are recognized in new food-safety legislation by calling members of Congress through the Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121. Track progress of the House bill at govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2749 and the Senate bill at govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510. Visit mofga.org for discussion and updates on the issue.

Aimee Witteman is executive director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.  Support their mission at SustainableAgriculture.net.

Article originally published in Natural Awakenings Magazine; NaturalAwakeningsMag.com