permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Delete my last post and insert this in its place.
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:37:33 -0500
From: Leigh Hauter <bullrunfarm@hughes.net>

My last post had some really confusing language.  This one does a
better job of explaining what's going on with this legislation as far
as small,local farmers.

As I wrote in the previous e-mail the Tester language in the Food
Safety bill exempts farmers with less than half a million gross
business,  who sold in state or within 275 miles of the farm.

However, half a dozen people wrote me off list saying "Yes but I
heard it will still effect me by..... " So I went back and did some
more research and found out that   the truth is The Food Safety Bill
exempts farmers who qualify as local, small farmers under the Tester
language from most, if not all, provisions of the bill.

Here are other ways the food safety bill was amended to make sure
farmers who fall under the Tester language will not be affected by
this bill.

This list comes from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition's
webpage  (http://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/)

    * Senator Sanders (I-VT) providing FDA authority to either exempt
farms engaged in low or no risk processing or co-mingling activities
from new regulatory requirements or to modify particular regulatory
requirements for such farming operations
.
    * Senator Bennet (D-CO) to reduce unnecessary paperwork and
excess regulation required under the preventative control plan and
the produce standards sections of the bill, including instructions to
FDA to minimize the number of different standards that apply to
separate foods, to make requirements scale appropriate, and to
prohibit FDA from requiring farms and other food facilities to hire
outside consultants to write food safety plans.

    * Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) to provide for a USDA-delivered
competitive grants program for food safety training for farmers,
small processors and wholesalers, with a priority on small and
mid-scale farms.
and require FDA to apply sound science to any requirements that might
impact wildlife and wildlife habitat.

    * Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to exempt farmers from extensive
and expensive traceability and recordkeeping  requirements  if they
sell food directly to consumers or to grocery stores, to allow
labeling that preserves the identity of the farm through to the
consumer to satisfy traceability requirements, and to in most cases
limit farm recordkeeping to the first point of sale when the product
leaves the farm.

So my reading of this is that if you come under the tester amendment
then Brown further amended the bill to exempt everyone from record
keeping and labeling requirements.   Bennet amended it to further cut
down any paperwork,  and to make what paperwork  there is farm size
appropriate and also prohibited the bill from forcing anyone to hire
and outside consultant to meet the laws requirement.  Sanders
exempted   farms that do low risk processing and co-mingling of if
the FDA chose to modify the requirements in such a way that they
wouldn't apply to small farmers.  And finally Stabenow amended the
bill to provide grant money to provide small and medium farmers,
processors and wholesalers food safety training.

Of course the devil is always in the details  (which the FDA will be
writing up) but all in all these additional amendments further
exempted small farmers from the food Safety Bill's requirements.

In other words,  the requirements of the food safety bill  has been
written in such a way to make sure that it only applies to farmers
and processors who gross over $500,000 and who are not involved in
direct sales.

Leigh