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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] The Food Safety bills in committee
  • Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:46:57 -0700


Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob165.htm#LETTER.BLOCK6


HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, is a limited-vision
attempt by moderate Democrats and Republicans to craft food safety
legislation to address the out-of-control filth and contamination that are
inherent in our industrialized, now globalized, "profit-at-any-cost" food
system. This being said, OCA does not support HR 875 in its present form,
given the fact that, if the bill's regulations were applied in a
one-size-fits-all manner to certified organic and farm-to-consumer
operations, it could have a devastating impact on small farmers, especially
raw milk producers who are already unfairly targeted by state food-safety
regulators. Although the OCA deems this bill somewhat well-intentioned, we
are calling on Congress to focus its attention on the real threats to food
safety: globalized food sourcing from nations such as China where food
safety is a travesty and domestic industrial-scale and factory farms whose
collateral damage includes pesticide and antibiotic-tainted food, mad cow
disease, E.coli contamination and salmonella poisoning. And, of course,
Congress and the Obama Administration need to support a massive transition
to organic farming practices.
----------------------------------

from Chrys Ostrander

Food & Water Watch’ s Statement on H.R. 875 and the Food Safety Bills:

The dilemma of how to regulate food safety in a way that prevents problems
caused by industrialized agriculture but doesn’t wipe out small
diversified farms is not new and is not easily solved. And as almost
constant food safety problems reveal the dirty truth about the way much of
our food is produced, processed and distributed, it’s a dilemma we need
to have serious discussion about.

Most consumers never thought they had to worry about peanut butter and this
latest food safety scandal has captured public attention for good reason
– a CEO who knowingly shipped contaminated food, a plant with holes in
the roof and serious pest problems, and years of state and federal
regulators failing to intervene.

It’s no surprise that Congress is under pressure to act and multiple food
safety bills have been introduced.

Two of the bills are about traceability for food (S.425 and H.R. 814).
These present real issues for small producers who could be forced to bear
the cost of expensive tracking technology and recordkeeping.

The other bills address what FDA can do to regulate food.

A lot of attention has been focused on a bill introduced by Rep. Rosa
DeLauro (H.R. 875), the Food Safety Modernization Act. And a lot of what
is being said about the bill is misleading.

Here are a few things that H.R. 875 DOES do:

-It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of FDA by splitting
it into 2 new agencies –one devoted to food safety and the other devoted
to drugs and medical devices.

-It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of
inspection on the risk of the product being produced – but it does NOT
make plants pay any registration fees or user fees.

-It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms,
requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical
points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.

-It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in
the U.S.

And just as importantly, here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:

-It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb,
catfish.)

-It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.

-It does not regulate backyard gardens.

-It does not regulate seed.

-It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct
marketing arrangements.

-It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food
that is sold across state lines).

-It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated
foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve
traceability of foods, but specifically says that recordkeeping can be done
electronically or on paper.)


Several of the things not found in the DeLauro can be found in other bills
– like H.R. 814, the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination
Everywhere Act, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system,
or H.R. 759, the Food And Drug Administration Globalization Act, which
overhauls the entire structure of FDA. H.R. 759 is more likely to move
through Congress than H.R. 875. And H.R. 759 contains several provisions
that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:

-It extends traceability recordkeeping requirements that currently apply
only to food processors to farms and restaurants – and requires that
recordkeeping be done electronically.

-It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.

-It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to
fund the agency’s inspection efforts.

-It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and
vegetables and to establish Good Agricultural Practices for produce.

There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to
work for one size of agriculture – the largest industrialized operations.
That’s why it is important to let members of Congress know how food
safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable
practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers
different from agribusiness. And the work doesn’t stop there – if
Congress passes any of these bills, the FDA will have to develop rules and
regulations to implement the law, a process that we can’t afford to
ignore.

But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food safety system
is not an approach that works for consumers, who are faced with a food
supply that is putting them at risk and regulators who lack the authority
to do much about it.

You can read the full text of any of these bills at http://thomas.loc.gov




  • [Livingontheland] The Food Safety bills in committee, Tradingpost, 03/12/2009

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