I’ve been noticing an increasing uproar in the blogosphere and the agricultural news community about H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. Introduced by Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Congresswoman with indirect family ties to agricultural giant Monsanto, the bill drastically revamps and overhauls the food safety mechanisms by which the Federal government attempts to guarantee the purity and safety of the food Americans consume.
Although my default position is to be somewhat skeptical of these mass semi-panics, in this case there seems to be some meat to the complaints. Many of the elements of the bill as it stands seem to put the Federal government in a position of tremendous power over even the smallest of agricultural producers – literally, the gentleman next door growing a row of organic tomatoes – and requiring them to do business pretty much the way that the giant agricultural companies do business. Now, the big ag companies take a lot of unfair hits sometimes, but we can all agree that not everybody wants to run their farm that way. That’s why there are thousands of organic farms, and plenty of old-fashioned smallholders who do things their own way. Everybody wants food safety – but very few people want the weekend hunter, the hobby gardener, and the small organic operation treated like cogs in the food machine.
What’s more, and troubling to anyone with a memory of the history of government expansions of power, the bill puts all this authority in the hands, not of the FDA (which has handled food safety at the national level for more than a century) but in an ill-defined and shadowy ‘food czar’ working out of the White House. You don’t have to be a frothing partisan to be reluctant to put any President so directly in charge of the food supply of the country. It’s my view that, while there may be ideas of value in this bill (although in my reading thus far I haven’t found any), the bill as it stands would be a terrible idea, one that does nothing to enhance food safety but instead makes it impossible for small producers to compete with the big companies, often imposing what amounts to de facto bans on organic produce or naturally-gathered food and game.
As of now, H.R. 875 is in committee, meaning that the members of the House Committees on Energy and Commerce, and the House Committee on Agriculture, are reviewing the bill and listening (theoretically) to citizen and lobbyist input. The word on the Hill is that companies like Monsanto are all for the bill – although the bill would inconvenience Big Ag, large companies are much better able to absorb the burden of regulation than smaller companies, and thus are often advocates of having lots of regulation simply because they know they can shoulder the load and their smaller (annoying) competitors cannot. The good news is that most bills never make it out of committee, and with H.R. 875 having to pass through two committees before getting out onto the House floor, the odds are probably fairly good that the bill will never become law. (especially if we as ag professionals take action)
To ensure that this terrible bill does not become the law of the land, it is vital for ordinary Americans, most especially including farmers and food producers contact their Congressional representatives and let them know that we do not want to see another Federal bureaucracy springing up and telling honest American entrepreneurs, growers, and food producers how to manage their enterprises. There are three ways you can help:
- Sign my online petition, which will be delivered to Congress to let them know that the people demand that our farm economy not become the plaything of a few major corporations. Visit www.LeaveMyFoodAlone.org (no, it’s not some political activist groups site; it’s a simple petition website I put up.)
- Let your friends and family know about this bill and convince them to help stop it. Email them a link to www.LeaveMyFoodAlone.org so they can sign the petition too, or direct them to this blog.
- Write to your Congressional representative to let them know that you do not want this bill to pass. This will be especially effective if your representative is on the two relevant House committees. Be civil and polite, and avoid conspiracy theories and wild language – just let your representative know that you oppose this bill and want to see food safety laws that protect the rights of hunters, gardeners, organic farmers, and other small producers. Below you will find a sample letter that you can use as a guide, and resources to help you find your Representative.
I suggest you do all three.
SAMPLE LETTER TO YOUR CONGRESSMAN
Dear Congress[wo]man XXX:
As a constituent, I am writing to inform you of my strong opposition to H.R. 875, the so-called Food Safety Modernization Act. Like most Americans, I believe our nation’s food supply must be safe, and that the government has an appropriate role to play in ensuring that our citizens have nutritious and safe food to eat. However, the proposed bill is a true outrage to the liberties which Americans have enjoyed for more than two centuries.
I strongly urge you to vote against this bill in its present form, and to vote against any food safety or agriculture bill which does not make strong provisions for the continued operation of America’s family farms, organic farms, home gardeners, wild game collectors, and others who produce the food that keeps America strong.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
You can find your Representative’s contact information by using this form. Space prohibits listing all the appropriate committee members – there are more than a hundred of them – but you can find the Energy and Commerce committee membership listing here, and the Agriculture committee membership listing here. Contact information for each member of Congress is provided at their individual links. Remember, every constituent contact will weigh heavily when your member of Congress decides how to vote! If you don’t have time to write, give them a call, or drop them an e-mail, sign the petition at www.LeaveMyFoodAlone.org. Do it now. Sign the Petition to stop HR 875.
Comments
I say this to emphasize the point that these thing CAN and DO get through committee and even pass.
Let your voices be heard.
The FDA has imposed questionable legislation through similar measures that causes certain foods from certain places to be irradiated. The government has also obliterated the small local meat processing business in efforts to make it “safer.” (http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/processing/) Similar to HR875, they passed legislation that created rules that were extremely hard to follow for a small independent ag business venture. Example: each meat processing facility must provide office space for an inspector to be on location any time he/she wants and each facility must have a dedicated inspector. This works fine if there are only a few locations, but imagine this rule being applied to every organic farm. (the US would need thousands of inspectors whose job it would be to tell you how to grow and handle your crops.)
I am fighting HR875 with this petition because the language is too vague. We don’t know what we will get out of it. …it could be nothing; or the government could at some point use this bill/legislation as a standard of interference, to force us use X pesticide, Y fertilizer, or Z cleaning/packaging method for the “public’s safety.” True or not. Tested or not. Warranted or not. This is a bill that could wipe out organic farming as we know it because it opens the door for the government to saddle us with unrealistic, large corporation type process.
We need to stop handing over our rights. The government should not have controlling laws on everthing we do. Think about the long term consequences to farmers and growers and thus consumers. Knowing your farmer or grower is the key to food safety, not legislation, red tape, and new laws.
Alex
(B) EXCLUSIONS- For the purposes of registration, the term ‘food establishment’ does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), restaurant, other retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer, or fishing vessel (other than a fishing vessel engaged in processing, as that term is defined in section 123.3 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations).
(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.
In any case, I would like to see an exclusion in ANY food and farm related bill that essentially says, "Nothing in this act, nor in any promulgated regulations, shall interfere with the ability of any natural person to purchase any food product directly from any other natural person.
Your thoughts?
The exclusion just means that those things are excluded from the preceding definition, not that they're excluded from regulation.
@Alex: I've only read the first third of the bill, but I think the bill does make a good case for having a separate agency (which you insist on calling "an ill-defined and shadowy ‘food czar’ working out of the White House").
While I'm against increasing regulation over small farms that are already struggling, I see nothing wrong with the proposal of combining various food inspection apparatus under a single agency. Why is the NOAA doing food inspection?
It's interesting that (as far as I can tell) the bill takes nothing away from the USDA, which has its own, corporate-infiltrated inspection system.
David said, “Years before I became a state Farm Business Instructor, I came to the conclusion that the technology of "feeding the world" was NOT more important than the politics that would allow it to happen. So..., as students of mine have pointed me in your direction, I will look forward to "the flow of things here," but this Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009..., was one more chunk of "useless cr_ _" proposed by the wrong people, for the wrong department at the wrong time. They do not know what they are talking about! However their concerns are legit., of course, just ignorant. Confidence in the American-grown food supply will not be enhanced by another government bureaucracy, just getting into the business! Look how many years it took (1992-2009) to get an Idaho "COOL" (Country of Origin Labeling) bill passed, that every food chain and agri-business fought! Now, after years of delay..., supposedly..., April 1st, 2009..., with little or no enforcement funded or proposed, we want to create a "whole new (Democratic system) to deal with food safety? Time to "get real!"
Maggie writes, “The bill comes across as something good but it is only for more control of the government. The actions they talk about should already be being enforced.” She goes on to say, “I was in Quality Control for over 20 years before my sight was effected and we did all the tests they are talking about. Companies should already have these measures enforced. They do not need the government interference. Please let me know how I can help on this. God Bless”
Thanks Maggie and David.
Local Organic Food & Farming Can Help Revitalize the Economy
• Opportunity Knocks When it Comes to a Local Food Economy
By Olga Bonfiglio
Common Dreams, February 6, 2009
Straight to the Source
Community-based agriculture has the potential for creating jobs, developing small business entrepreneurships and keeping precious dollars in the community.
"As manufacturing jobs decrease, food jobs are increasing," said Dr. Kami Pothukuchi, associate professor of urban planning at Wayne State University in Detroit.
This is especially good news for a state like Michigan whose economic engine has been dependent on the declining automobile industry.
Out of a total GDP of $381 billion, agriculture is the state's second largest industry pulling in $63.7 billion annually compared to $68.4 billion from manufacturing, according to the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
However, the present "industrialized food system" is made up of a handful of "mega-corporations" that control food production, processing, distribution and preparation, said Pothukuchi. Change to a community-based system is difficult because these corporations have a lot at stake in keeping the current system.
The U.S. industrialized food system was designed in the 1950s to increase production in order to provide the nation with cheap and plentiful food that was easily accessible. As a result, the United States became a top food producer in the world.
A variety of food-related jobs in processing, marketing and distribution also emerged even though the number of farmers declined. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Census (USDA) reported that farms increased in size averaging 155 acres in 1935, a peak year when the country had 6.8 million farms, compared to 2002 when farms averaged 441 acres and numbered 2.1 million farms.
It is important to remember that the industrialized food system was developed at a time when most American businesses were creating systems for mass production and economies of scale. Because volume is critical to the profitability of this system, farming methods developed to support a large-scale, energy-intensive monoculture that uses huge amounts of water and chemicals for herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers. Tons of animal waste products also accumulate and pollute land, water and air because factory farming methods keep animals indoors and free of disease instead of allowing them to graze in pastures.
Actually, the cost of the industrialized food system outweighs its benefits. For example, most food in the industrialized system ends up in supermarkets after traveling an average 1,300 miles to get there. Fruits and vegetables may spend seven to fourteen days in transit. So freshness and taste are sacrificed for the products' ability to travel.
Transporting products has been possible through cheap fuel. However, when oil reached over $100 a barrel last spring, the expense incurred over such long distances proved problematic. For example, world food prices averaged an increase of 43 percent over the past year, which inadvertently created a global food crisis that is causing political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations.
Unseasonable droughts in grain-producing nations also affects high food prices just as falling stockpiles, the increased use of biofuels in developed countries and increasing demands for meat products in Asia's middle class, according the BBC (May 2008).
The Consumer Price Index estimates that U.S. retail food prices increased in 2007 by only 4 percent, but this is the largest spike in 17 years-with more expected to come.
Industrial farming practices were developed when world population was only 2 billion. While these practices increased the carrying capacity of the earth then, they are slowly destroying the earth's long-term carrying capacity for today's population, which is 6.7 billion and climbing.
Over the past two decades as the industrialized food system has expanded to the global level, concerns over food safety have emerged, like the recent tainted food imports from China.
The industrialized food system has had a detrimental effect on the local economy, said Pothukuchi. Our food system should be a community-based system that revolves around small, polycultural farms that practice sustainable agriculture, preserve regional biodiversity and help build local economies. This is already being done in many ways.
First, local food networks like community gardens, food co-ops, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), farmers' markets, and seed savers groups keep money in the community.
Second, as more people prefer organic food products, organic farming represents a profitable alternative for local economic growth and sustainable agriculture since organic farmers tend to sell to local markets (within 150 miles). More acreage is being dedicated to organic farming. From 1997 to 2005, the number of U.S. certified organic acres grew by 63 percent, while Michigan certified organic farmland increased by 166 percent.
In actuality, the number of industrialized farms converting to organic farming methods remains steady, but small. Michigan's 45,500 certified organic acres comprise only 0.4 percent of the state's total farmland and 1 percent of the total 4,000,000 certified organic acres in the country according to the Michigan Organic Farm and Food Alliance (MOFFA). But the potential for growth is there, especially when organic food processors/handlers are figured into the economic mix. The USDA reports that there were over 3,000 organic-certified facilities nationwide in 2004, with 41 percent of those located on the Pacific Coast and almost 800 in California alone.
Local organic food is admittedly more expensive than food from large, industrialized farms, however, organic advocates claim that prices in the industrialized food system are cheap because their true cost omits governmental price supports, direct payments or tax breaks and road infrastructure.
Third, colleges and universities across the country are looking for ways to support sustainable agriculture. One way they are doing it is by supplying their cafeterias with food grown by local farmers. These institutions teach students how to grow backyard and community gardens as well as food-related careers like urban farming. Pothukuchi started an urban gardening program at Wayne State, which is distinguished as the largest inner-city campus with a comprehensive food systems program that is not run by an agriculture school.
Some areas of the state are actively recruiting youth for community-based farming careers through hands-on learning situations. The 4-H Entrepreneurs Club in Kalkaska County has youth pick and buy produce at area farms in order to sell it at five different farmers markets. There are similar programs in Detroit and Monroe County.
Fourth, regions like Grand Traverse in the northwestern lower peninsula, are rebuilding their local economies through agriculture by forming partnerships among businesspeople, economic developers, schools, grocers, restaurateurs and food retailers, reported the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service. As these partnerships work to bring more food-related jobs to the area, they not only support local farmers but they also protect precious income-producing farmlands from being overtaken by urban sprawl.
The Michigan Land Use Institute (MLUI) speculates that the Grand Traverse region could stimulate more job growth and entrepreneurship by supporting its 2,229 farms through cooperative efforts like the Food and Farm Network. Moreover, a 2006 MLUI study found that farms could generate 1,889 new jobs across the state and $187 million in new personal income by selling more fresh produce locally.
Fifth, state programs can provide yet another opportunity for local economic development, like the MDA's Agricultural Innovation Program. This competitive grant seeks to establish, retain, expand, attract or develop value-added processing and production operations in Michigan through innovative financing assistance to processors, agribusinesses, producers, local units of government and legislatively-authorized commodity boards in Michigan.
All these efforts for change, however, have barely dented the deeply-entrenched industrialized food system. Michigan residents, for example, spend $26 billion on food with only 10 percent from the state's farmers, according to a 2001 MLUI study.
"Michigan has the second most diverse agriculture in the United States [with 150 crops]," said Pothukuchi. "We could add another $2.6 billion to the state's economy if we increased production of local food by another 10 percent."
Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to t.... She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of social justice and religion. Her website is http://www.olgabonfiglio.com/. Contact her at olgabonfiglio AT yahoo DOT com.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_16777.cfm
information Agriculture business Network Network.
Regards
racheal
href="http://www.agri4b.com">Agriculture business Network Network for more information.
Regards
David
Wondering what people's thoughts were on their analysis of the bill. According to them, HR 759 has the potential to have more of a negative impact on small farms than HR 875.
EC. 103. ADDITIONAL DUTIES OF THE ADMINISTRATION.
(a) Officers and Employees- The Administrator may--
(1) appoint officers and employees for the Administration in accordance with the provisions of title 5, United States Code, relating to appointment in the competitive service; and
(2) fix the compensation of those officers and employees in accordance with chapter 51 and with subchapter III of chapter 53 of that title, relating to classification and General Schedule pay rates.
needs to justify their jobs and
e) Penalties Paid Into Account- The Administrator--
(1) shall deposit penalties collected under this section in an account in the Treasury; and
(2) may use the funds in the account, without further appropriation or fiscal year limitation--
(A) to carry out enforcement activities under the food safety law; or
(B) to provide assistance to States to inspect retail commercial food establishments or other food or firms under the jurisdiction of State food safety programs.
I'm betting most of these folks would not know the difference between a pumpkin seed and cow pattie. Lord help us all!
I would love to debate the topic with you, but I would suggest that you pick out the specific provisions of the bill that claim to put small organic farmers out of business. Basically what this bill does is transfer the regulation of agriculture to a new agency instead of the FDA. This makes the FDA more of a regulatory commission on things like medical devices, getting drugs to market and the science/technology field. It removes their power over agriculture, which would be a natural split as time has progressed.
Again, please specifically cite what your issue is with the bill by quoting the paragraphs otherwise, I will come to the conclusion that you are just trying to scare people to line your pocket. There is nothing wrong with that, but i can't stand when I am BS'd and I hope this is not the case with you.
I strongly agree with your position and stance against HR 875. I never had heard of this bill until reading it on your blog. We are starting to see similar bills in many different industries, and to be honest, it is quite scary. This bill would hurt the small farmer and squeeze them off financially because they cannot afford or keep up with all of the regulations. Big Ag can absorb the costs, but small farmers and agricultural producers simply cannot, especially not in a financial crisis already. It is simply another form of socialism. I love your idea of the leavemyfoodalong.org campaign, I truly hope it works.
I am really impressed by the blog...
I would like to read more..
Collin paul