permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

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[image: Cornucopia Institute | PRESS RELEASE]****

September 19, 2013****

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*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
*Contact: Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042*****
Organic Industry Watchdog:
FDA Food Safety Rules Threaten
to Crush the Good Food Movement****New Report Suggests Proposed Rules Could
Drive the Nation’s Safest and Best Farmers Out of Business****

http://www.cornucopia.org/2013/09/fda-food-safety-rules-threaten-crush-good-food-movement/<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18568/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2F2013%2F09%2Ffda-food-safety-rules-threaten-crush-good-food-movement%2F>
*CORNUCOPIA, WI:* After years of deliberation in Congress, interagency
meetings, lobbyist activity, and a never-ending stream of food poisoning
outbreaks, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is finally poised to
implement the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).****

**[image: 
CI_GoodFoodSafeFood_450px]<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18570/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F09%2FCI_GoodFoodSafeFood_450px.jpg>
**However, according to a just released white
paper<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18572/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2FFoodSafety%2FFoodSafetyWhitePaper.pdf>by
The Cornucopia Institute, the FDA’s draft rules are so off the mark
that
they might economically crush the country’s safest farmers while ignoring
the root threats to human health:  manure contaminated with deadly
infectious pathogens generated on “factory” livestock farms and high-risk
produce-processing practices.****

“In response to deadly outbreaks involving spinach, peanut butter and eggs,
Congress acted decisively three years ago to pass the Food Safety
Modernization Act,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector at The Cornucopia
Institute<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18574/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2F>,
a farm policy research group based in Wisconsin.  “Better oversight is
needed but it looks like regulators and corporate agribusiness lobbyists
are simultaneously using the FSMA to crush competition from the organic and
local farming movement.”****

Cornucopia’s report closely examines the FDA’s draft
regulations<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18576/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fda.gov%2FFood%2Fguidanceregulation%2FFSMA%2Fucm334114.htm>for
implementing the new food safety law, and a new FDA
guidance<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18578/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fda.gov%2FFood%2FGuidanceRegulation%2FGuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation%2FEggs%2Fucm360028>designed
to control Salmonella in eggs produced by outdoor flocks.  The
report concludes that the new proposals would ensnare some of the country’s
safest family farmers in costly and burdensome regulations in a misdirected
attempt to rein in abuses that are mostly emanating from industrial-scale
farms and giant agribusiness food-processing facilities.****

Family farm advocates, and groups representing consumers interested in
high-quality food, thought they had won a victory when the Tester/Hagan
amendment was adopted by Congress exempting farmers doing less than
$500,000 in business from the new rules.  But Cornucopia’s report suggests
the FDA seems more interested in a “one-size-fits-all” approach to food
safety regulation.****

In reality, the report suggests that small farms are not really exempt.
The FDA is proposing that the agency can, without any due process, almost
immediately force small farms to comply with the same expensive testing and
record-keeping requirements as factory farms.****

“In practical terms,” explains Judith McGeary, a member of The Cornucopia
Institute’s policy advisory panel and Executive Director of the Farm and
Ranch Freedom Alliance, “the FDA will be able to target small farms
one-by-one and put them out of business, with little to no recourse for the
farmers.”****

The FDA’s economic analysis also shows that farms over $500,000 (still
small in the produce industry) will be significantly impacted with some
being driven out of business.****

“The added expense and record-keeping time will potentially force many
small and medium-sized local farms — owner-operated, selling at farmers
markets directly to consumers or to local grocers and natural food co-ops —
out of business,” Kastel added.****

The Cornucopia Institute is encouraging concerned farmers and consumers to
visit its website and download a proxy
letter<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18580/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2Ffood-safety%2F>to
be sent to the FDA encouraging the agency to reconsider some of the
key
deficiencies in the proposed regulations.****

The Institute’s analysis points out that the FDA has wildly inflated the
number of foodborne illnesses that originate from farm production (seed to
harvest rather than contamination that occurs later in processing and
distribution).****

It also alleges that the FDA has failed to recognize that specific
processed crops such as fresh-cut, or produce grown in certain regions are
the genesis of 90% of dangerous outbreaks in fruits and vegetables.  In
addition to imports from countries like Mexico, where the most recent Taylor
Farms Cyclospora
outbreak<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18582/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2013%2F08%2F30%2Fbusiness%2Ftaylor-farms-big-food-supplier-grapples-with-frequent-recalls.html%3F_r%3D0>originated,
the evidence indicates that fresh-cut bagged/boxed salad mix
and greens, other pre-cut vegetables and sprouts are much more prone to
contamination.****

“The proposed rule is a mess,” said Daniel Cohen, owner of Maccabee Seed
Company, a longtime industry observer. “The FDA has much greater expertise
on food safety issues from harvest to the consumer, but focused instead on
farming issues from planting to harvest. Limited, modest, and more focused
steps to improve on-farm food-safety could have produced simple,
affordable, effective, and enforceable regulation.”****

According to Cornucopia, the most important lost opportunity in the
collaborative process between Congress, the FDA and the USDA is the lack of
attention directed at the giant concentrated animal feeding operations, or
CAFOs (factory farms) raising livestock.  The massive amount of manure
stored at these factory farms is commonly tainted by highly infectious
bacteria that have been polluting America’s air, water and farmlands.****

“Federal regulators propose nothing to address sick livestock in animal
factories and their pathogen-laden  manure that is contaminating
surrounding rural communities, nearby produce farms and our food supply,”
Kastel lamented.****
No More Organic Eggs?****

**[image: 
Egg.Reg.Comment]<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18584/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F09%2FEgg.Reg_.Comment.jpg>
**The 2010 salmonella outbreak in eggs, centered in Iowa, shone a spotlight
on industrial-scale egg houses confining thousands of hens in filthy and
dangerous conditions.****

The salmonella outbreak led to comprehensive regulation and new guidance
for organic farmers.  Organic farmers are required by federal law to
provide outdoor access to their hens and the new FDA guidance, according to
Cornucopia, materially undermines this management practice.  And they are
doing this despite scientific evidence tying higher rates of pathogenetic
contamination to older, massive factory farms with cages and forced molting
(practices banned in organics) rather than raising birds outside.****

“Their new guidance, on one hand, will make it difficult, expensive and
maybe even impossible to have medium-sized flocks of birds outside,” Kastel
stated.  “At the same time, the FDA has colluded with the USDA’s National
Organic Program to say that tiny ‘porches’, which hold only a minute
fraction of the flock, will now legally constitute ‘outdoor access.’  This
is a giveaway to conventional egg companies that are confining as many as
100,000 birds in a building and calling these ‘organic.’”****

The Cornucopia Institute has publicly stated that they are investigating
legal action against regulators if enforcement action is not taken, under
the Organic Foods Production
Act<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18586/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ams.usda.gov%2FAMSv1.0%2Fgetfile%3FdDocName%3DSTELPRDC5060370>,
against the large industrial operations confining laying hens and broilers
indoors.****

The issue of food safety in Washington has been a contentious one, causing
rifts even between nonprofits representing the interest of consumers and
family farm organizations that have been historically aligned in support of
organic and local food.  Some consumer advocates pressed for no exemptions,
even as farm policy experts have supplied evidence indicating smaller,
family-operated farms are inherently safer.****

“Only an idiot would not be concerned with food safety,” said Tom Willey, a
Madera, California, organic vegetable producer and longtime organic
advocate.****

Added Willey:  “The antibiotic resistant and increasingly virulent
organisms contaminating produce, from time to time, are mutant creatures
introduced into the larger environment from confined industrial animal
operations across the American countryside.  The FDA’s misguided approach
could derail achievements in biological agriculture and a greater promise
of food made safe through respect for and cooperation with the microbial
community which owns and operates this planet upon which we are merely
guests.”****

-30-****

*MORE:*****

To access The Cornucopia Institute’s white paper on food safety regulation,
background on the FDA salmonella rule guidance for outdoor flocks,
information on submitting comments directly to the FDA, or executing
Cornucopia’s proxy letter, visit their website:
http://www.cornucopia.org/food-safety/<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18588/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2Ffood-safety%2F>
.****

Cornucopia’s webpage above also includes links to the full draft
regulations for the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act and the agency’s
salmonella guidance.****

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Having trouble viewing this? *Click here for a web
version.*<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18592/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2Fnewsletter%2Fnews-release-food-safety-9-19-13%2F>
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Read recent *Press
Releases*<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18594/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org%2Fnewsletter_cat%2Fpress-release%2F>from
The Cornucopia Institute.
****
The Cornucopia Institute****

is a nonprofit organization engaged in research and educational activities
supporting the ecological principles and economic wisdom underlying
sustainable and organic agriculture. Through research and investigations on
agricultural and food issues, The Cornucopia Institute provides needed
information to family farmers, consumers, stakeholders involved in the good
food movement, and the media.****

P.O. Box 126 Cornucopia, Wisconsin 54827
TEL: 608-625-2000 | FAX: 866-861-2214 |
www.cornucopia.org<http://app.streamsend.com/c/19480407/18596/QGJZ2yq/9pOA?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cornucopia.org>
****

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