permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Wild Farm Alliance info@wildfarmalliance.org
Sent: Thu, Sep 12, 2013 9:01 am
Subject: WFA News: Working to Ensure That Food Safety Regulations Don't
Proliferate Habitat Destruction

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        * *
           *Wild Farm Alliance Newsletter*
 *September 12, 2013*
   *Working to Ensure That Food Safety Regulations *
*Don't Proliferate Habitat Destruction*
*We need your help too!*

   *On-farm conservation practices, like this hedgerow, could be at risk.*
 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently proposing
regulations that could have a profound impact on the way wildlife habitat
and other conservation practices on farms are managed. Earlier this year
the FDA released their proposed (a.k.a. draft) set of rules for the Food 
Safety
Modernization Act (FSMA)---the first major overhaul of our nation's food 
safety
practices since 1938. When they become law, the FSMA rules will require the
implementation of certain food-safety management practices on many fruit
and vegetable farms. While addressing food safety on produce farms makes
sense, if not written correctly, these regulations could encourage the
needless destruction of wildlife habitat near produce fields.

The FDA is seeking public comments on the proposed FSMA rules by November
15th of this year. Wild Farm Alliance (WFA) has been reviewing the rules
and analyzing how they may impact conservation-based and sustainable
farming practices. During our initial review, we found major problems in
the proposed rules related to issues concerning wildlife, domestic animals
and soil amendments. Once we have finished our analysis, we will share our
findings. This is when we will need your help! We need farmers and
conservation specialists to let the FDA know how these proposed rules may
affect farm operations, as well as local/regional conservation efforts.
Everyone plays their part in ensuring safe food from farm to fork, but the
FDA needs to hear that the practices aimed to reduce food-safety risks on
the farm should avoid impacts to water quality, wildlife and habitat.

*So, What Does Food Safety Have to Do With Biodiversity Conservati**on? *
*A Lot More Than You Might Think...*
   *A pile of dead trees removed from a farm to appease food safety
auditors. *
 Everyone---from farmers, to processors, to consumers---has a role in
ensuring safe food from the field to the table, but some current, misguided
food-safety practices have encouraged the destruction of wildlife habitat
and conservation plantings on farms. In 2006, an outbreak of *E. coli* O157
from spinach was traced back to a farm on California's Central coast, the
home of our nation's fresh-cut salad industry. While it was never
determined how the spinach became contaminated, a finger was pointed at
wildlife as a source of food-borne pathogen contamination (even though
research so far has indicated that native wildlife pose a low risk of
carrying human pathogens). Wildlife and the habitat they inhabited became
suspect in the eyes of the leafy-greens industry.  Buyers purchasing leafy
greens from growers often refused to buy lettuce or spinach that came
within a certain distance of wildlife habitat. A grower might be asked not
to harvest any of the spinach within 30 feet of a grassy drainage ditch, or
within 50 feet of a windbreak of trees and shrubs. To avoid losing
production area, many growers were subtly pressured into removing
conservation plantings from their land. Chainsaws were taken to windbreaks,
grassed waterways ripped out, lakes plowed under, wildlife poisoned.

Six months after the outbreak, the Resource Conservation District of
Monterey County, CA conducted a survey of produce growers on California's
Central 
Coast<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001r2hp-hrnLISwOIi6JIP__U6CyKlLrs9wBnq6KMboxjb7NMrA9hua1FinCgSnpCY8fTmNC-fZKzIYga6C5lisefEgjjjT1qlSaCNZYV8GZvYUXDqxoCseqA==>.
Eighty-nine percent of respondents indicated that they actively discouraged
or eliminated wildlife from produce fields in order to meet food safety
requirements. Thirty-two percent of responding leafy-greens growers
reported actively removing non-crop vegetation from their land due to
comments by food safety auditors. Recent research conducted by the Nature
Conservancy<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001r2hp-hrnLIQgC2Bh_HE6Y1NQk4YQ4wnX1o7eoHYAFcszkbC2GYRS6QtwLN9Yk2io6-LtrOQOTwRf8eIzzyGHddsL4hdoPd2Hu90Mt3Ki-qYtbqw-x7pCdA==>
found
that between 2005 and 2009 13.3 percent of the remaining wetlands and
riverside habitat in the Salinas Valley were eliminated or degraded.
* *
 *We Need YOU to Make Comments to the FDA Too!*
  WFA wants to make sure that this scientifically questionable,
food-safety-inspired destruction doesn't spread to the rest of the country.
The FSMA rules should reflect the 'co-management' of food safety and
conservation---practices aimed to reduce food safety risks through methods
which also minimize or avoid impacts to water quality, wildlife and
habitat. As mentioned above, we found problems in the proposed FSMA rules
concerning wildlife, domestic animals and soil amendments. On the flip
side, we found good aspects of the rules that we would like to make sure
end up in the final rules that become law. As the weeks progress we will
provide you with more information on our analysis, as well as tools to help
you make your own comments to the FDA.

*More Information: *
*Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA):
*
- FSMA and Why It
Matters<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001r2hp-hrnLITC_yBmw3-qnb5NqRer2kIsaC14jgJQDp9dfNEnXXTWUGwXMSiXqXgyan-eaCNn5aQPRCJNKiZwMAv4S7SJ8zpoK_q-XdgOrOHf6XlwQwE5EA==>
**
- For Farmers: Will I be affected by
FSMA?<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001r2hp-hrnLISipgeanP9CgneeEueIb07rum82kt1jJeTS2ytPGdXbZKAqGhdJGyfNiau1loyH02_9gMH45wMeKxzX48waCALjYZ5ImQ1TJcIDNpoeFz5JLslWEAqCg0tN>
**
*
*
*Co-Management of Food Safety and Conservation:*
Learn more about the co-management of food safety and conservation through
WFA's
"Farming with Food Safety and Conservation in
Mind<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001r2hp-hrnLIR3JnShUeCXG-4UbEy7CdYbVWeMAyEvhxRv19kAa7oA29WUYqk9legvBGyA5v4Zuld_k0uAVFuxVDaK-Mp9X7EsjkLBL9SCPt-vMweOLII3lw==>"
publication.

 **Courtesy of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

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*Promoting a healthy, viable agriculture that helps protect and restore
wild Nature.*
*
*
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