Food Safety and Local Food - At Odds?

There's been some buzz lately about how the pending food safety legislation may impact local growers and producers ability to sell their goods. Fundamentally, the argument is that having standards requiring inspection and lots and lots of red tape will inhibit small producers from selling their foodstuffs.

The text of the bill is available here. (Hint - skip to page 121 - that's where the bill actually starts, past all the strike-outs.) The more concerning parts are on pg. 129 - how is a small producer to conduct in-depth analyses of all potential hazards, and, furthermore, verify the effectiveness of their preventative measures (pg. 130)? The bill does grant small and "very small" businesses more time (pg. 139) - while most businesses have 18 months to comply, small businesses get 2 years and "very small" businesses get 3. Still, for a small producer, even a 3 year window to put all of this together may not make it significantly less burdensome. It seems that simply extending the time frame is not the only concession the bill should be making to small farmers.

There's a strong argument, I believe, that the legislation will promote centralization - which is how we got huge outbreaks in the first place (peanut butter factory has salmonella, now peanut butter all over the country is tainted vs. small producer has salmonella and the small community of their consumers is affected).

Small farmers have spoken up, and Senator Stabenow has introduced the Growing Safe Food Act (S. 2758), which purports to teach farmers how to do their job safely, and "stipulates that existing conservation, biodiversity, and organic farming standards would have to be taken into account in the development of any training program receiving funds." I'm all for expanding Extension programs, but it seems like saying "well, we'll educate you, so the bureaucratic burden on you won't matter" avoids the fundamental issue.

Of additional note, having prior food safety regulations in place has not necessarily made us all that safer. Consider pink slime (sounds delish, no?) which has been more widely used as a result of ammonia treatments in processed beef. Ammonia treatments were supposed to virtually eliminate E coli and salmonella from beef products - but has actually led to increased dispersal of parts of the cow known to be more susceptible to contamination.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for regulation of large producers. But there must be loopholes to provide for small producers or all the work that has gone into developing local food economies may turn for naught. This would be a step backward for the planet and for all of us who like knowing our farmers and eating truly fresh, picked-when-it-oughta-be food.