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All food, if not properly handled, has the potential to cause foodborne illness – so why does local food get special legislative treatment?
Last week, an amendment was added to the Food Safety Modernization Act, which has finally reached the Senate floor after being stuck in legislative no man’s land for more than a year. If passed, the bill would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the right to order product recalls, give it better access to company records, and require food manufacturers to keep detailed food safety records.
The amendment, put forward by Senator Jon Tester (D-MO) would exempt businesses that bring in less than $500,000 a year, and sell their products within state lines or a maximum of 275 miles from where they are produced. It is intended to protect small producers from regulation that could prove to be financially burdensome – although funding details for the bill have yet to be decided. But what about food safety?
How much of this is about the perceived relative quality of food at the farm gate and the type that comes in a package, or indeed, from further afield? S. 510 may be a bill to improve food safety, but in this instance, food safety has very little to do with it.
Rather, it is about the romantic notion of the ruddy-faced farmer touting his soil-encrusted produce at the local farmers’ market in an era when many of us have become distanced from our food supply.
I am very nearly swayed by it.
I understand why people want to stick up for the little guy. I think of the vendors at my local market, and find it hard to imagine that their produce could be unsafe. It is certainly insulting to suggest that Farmer Joe doesn’t care about the safety of his produce – of course he does – but it doesn’t mean that his food is necessarily any safer than that in the supermarket, just that if it is contaminated, fewer people will get sick.
This is a reality that Tester has acknowledged, saying that if a mistake is made “it doesn’t impact hundreds of thousands of people.”
But hang on – this isn’t any version of small-scale and local that I recognize. Half a million dollars’ worth is a lot of produce. And after some protest that a 400-mile radius was too broad, the definition of ‘local’ in the Tester Amendment was narrowed to 275 miles. Since when was Washington, D.C. (comfortably) local to New York City? Even if it is, where’s the evidence that local, family businesses make safer food?
Look at Estrella Family Creamery, the Washington-based artisan cheese maker that refused an FDA request to recall its cheeses after its facility and cheese was repeatedly found to be contaminated with listeria. Listeria is a potentially lethal pathogen to which the elderly, infirm, children, pregnant women and unborn babies are particularly susceptible.
Think about it: If a large-scale cheese maker refused to recall potentially tainted products for financial reasons, as the Estrella Family Creamery is doing, would it inspire dewy-eyed sympathy? I doubt it.
Nevertheless, the Tester Amendment is now part of the Food Safety Modernization Act. It’s a big compromise and one that should help the passage of a long-awaited bill.
While federal oversight of food safety could get a major overhaul, state and local authorities will continue to be responsible for food safety at smaller facilities.
For the rest of the American food supply, let’s hope this bill passes before we tuck into our respective Christmas dinners, whether they’re sourced from the local farm or the local Wal-Mart.
Caroline Scott-Thomas is a journalist specializing in the food industry. Prior to completing a Masters degree in journalism at Edinburgh's Napier University, she had spent five years working as a chef.
22 comments (Comments are now closed)
Local foodies should embrace innovation
Though it is a complicated issue, there are fundamental problems with the argument that because a producer is local, it doesn't merit regulatory oversight. In any case, the local food movement should embrace safety, and question its antipathy toward government regulation. (Issues I've explored in a recent post: http://labtolaw.org/?p=14)
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Posted by Joe Franklin
06 December 2010 | 17h38
Show who is at fault!
In the last decade. Who was it that caused the most damage? Who's CAFO egg factory? Which salad bagger? What nasty CAFO cattle effluvient flooding said salad fields? You can make snarky remarks about our local farmers and the Christmas dinner they have provided, but it does not change centralized industrial CAFOS and food processors as being the source of most of our death and disease.
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Posted by Pego Rice
04 December 2010 | 07h21
biased and ill informed
Your editorial plays upon people's ignorance of the many laws and regulatory agencies watching all those small producers. This legislation is a frank admission that the big producers are the main source of public health crisis and must bear a greater level of inspection than the local certified, inspected, grade-A raw organic dairy, who currently jumps through a LOT more hoops. You, as a "Specialist" should certainly be aware of the network of hundreds of regulations and inspecting agencies in every state and county. Certainly, if you do not know about this, your editor, if unbiased, should have pointed out to you to, say, find out if there were any.
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Posted by Pego Rice
04 December 2010 | 07h01
Beyond Food Safety...
My concern about this bill is it possibly being a wolf in sheep's clothing with ulterior motives. Foodborne illness is a concern, but in reality, our food supply is very, very safe. We do not need still further government oversight.
This bill looks and smells like Big Agriculture trying to further squeeze many smaller, but still very professional producers who adhere to best practices. And Big Agriculture seems to have interests that are more frightening than food safety.
When apples and watermelons start appearing seedless, that is a problem. Genetic Modifiction is a worry. Environmental stewardship is also a big worry. Big Agriculture talks the talk, but seems to skirt around true commitment to sustainable farming methods.
Seriously, the government needs to pull back from the private sector which can perform superbly without Big Brother breathing down its neck. We need to stop legislating EVERYTHING.
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Posted by Jane Browe
30 November 2010 | 13h49
Just more idiocy
What a joke. More politicians making idiotic decisions on what they don't know anything about. Food is safer because it come rom a closer smaller source? Oh please.
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Posted by MP
30 November 2010 | 00h12
It's all about the personal touch
Why is food from a small local farmer safer? It's the personal touch. We walk our fields daily and observe what's going on. We hand pick and pack, so we assess the quality of each piece of produce. We eat what we grow, so we know it's good. These are our quality control measures.
Large agribusiness is automated, growing with minimal human involvement. They cut costs to maximize profit, and in doing so run risk. They skimp on testing programs, so the consumer becomes the guinea pig that identifies contaminated food. Will they invest in processes that will prevent it? Of course not. It's all about their bottom line.
Support your small local farmer, and tell big agribusiness they can stuff it!
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Posted by M C Stevens
27 November 2010 | 22h37
The Difference
Facilities and farms can certainly "implement a well-thought-out food safety strategy" and one that the people can literally live with! The farms and all don't necessarily need to have the federal government to accomplish that. Especially given that people are not confident that the federal government can actually fulfill all the oversight that is needed by the mega-corporate food industries.
There are plenty of informed people now who realize that "strict food safety standards" will not be a guarantee that makes food safe. We realize that "safety" also relates to the health quality of foods and that is especially so with animal products.
Here is where the "food safety" gets grounded. One example is dairy products: we have two types of dairy operations that are essentially making two different milks. One is intended for the pasteurizer. The other is directly intended for people. It is primarily in the diets of the animals where we find the real source of the food safety issues. The milk intended for pasteurization primarily comes from ruminating animals that are designed to get all their requirements for nourishment fresh from the pasture. Instead they are in confinement on a grain (and worst) feed diet that causes digestive problems, that makes them sick and that requires drug / chemical intervention to suppress the diseases that come from poor diet, stress and the lack of a sun-infused salad-bar pasture. Sick animals make poor quality milk that then needs to be pasteurized to minimize the pathogens that naturally can survive the lowered immunity that is in that milk.
The other milk typically comes from animals that are out on the pastures eating their correct diet which makes them and their milk healthy with strong immunity to the presence of pathogens which are minimal or virtually extinct as they no longer have the environmental conditions that are required for them. That environment begins inside the animals and that makes all the difference in their health and even in the quality of their manure which also makes a difference whether that manure is deposited over the pasture and integrated into nature to nourish the plant life growing there or whether it is piling up i the stalls that the animals stand in inside confinement operations. Can you begin to see the difference between the two milks? The first milk needs food safety and actually a lot more than "food safety" has in mind. The second milk is so healthy that it has a long history of healing those who have gotten sick form the first milk! Yet S510 (or any other so called "food safety" plan coming out of Washington) with the additional powers for the FDA will be a high risk for the second milk, a real:"food as medicine" given that the FDA is anti raw milk and has a plan to eliminate it within the next 9 years or less.
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Posted by Chef Jem
26 November 2010 | 11h56
Author response
Thank you for your comments.
I agree with some of them and disagree with others - especially those that suggest I am being manipulated to represent the interests of large-scale food manufacturers!
Let me get this straight: There are many good reasons to buy local food and I try to do so myself as often as I can. I love seasonal markets and artisanal food. I would hate to see them disappear.
But I also expect the food I buy to come from facilities and farms that implement a well-thought-out food safety strategy. I think that that should be a basic requirement of all those who supply food to the public, regardless of size. How is it logical that a food processor 300 miles away from its customers will have to produce food safety plans, while one 25 miles closer will not?
Yes, there are serious problems with the increasingly interdependent large-scale food supply in the United States - and the world. I agree with many of you there. However, smaller food producers are not immune to foodborne pathogens.
Some of the comments that have been posted seem to suggest otherwise, which I think nicely underlines my point about a romanticized view of small-scale food production. In my experience, large and small businesses alike care that their customers don't get sick - but they need to stick to strict food safety standards to ensure that.
My intention in writing this comment piece was to get people thinking and to spark debate - it's certainly done that!
Thanks again to those of you who have taken the time to respond.
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Posted by Caroline Scott-Thomas
25 November 2010 | 16h18
Eyes Wide Open
My gut grunted several affirmative responses to what H Hansen wrote. Thank You!
Although I'd be interested in knowing her reply I don't expect to hear anything from "miss Scott-Thomas".
It appears to me this thing called ''food safety" is in truth a multi-complex issue that really needs to be broken down into basic parts and then responded to accordingly.
I can see at least three or four spheres involved here. Call them what you will but they include the government, the food (and other) industry and we the people. I am in the "people" sphere. I have worked in the food industry and I left it for greener pastures that I have found in the "people" sphere. In one sense I don't care what the food industry does because I have as little as possible to do with that. However I care about the people who are farmers and growers who make the food I live by! I am very careful about getting my food from people sources I trust and from people friendly sources. I have never had a ''food safety" problem with the farmers and growers I know and the other "people-friendly" sources.
On the other hand corporations need the "oversight" that supposedly the federal government can give. In any case corporations need oversight from the people sphere and that my dear friend is where I believe the roots of this problem are.
I do not expect "government" to provide the kind of oversight that corporations need and that people can be happy with. There is a gap here and I think it can only be filled from the people sphere. I think there is some movement in that direction that is already happening. More and more people are choosing to do food differently than they have before. I could elaborate on that! These people are largely self governing and self- regulating the food system that they are supporting. I believe this is the future of food. In any case it is the future that I am choosing not only for myself but for all else who like what this system has to offer. A really big part of this system is community! There is no community with a corporation. They are in truth a soul-less fictional entity that must be monitored and held accountable to the people.
Any food safety legislation coming out of Washing DC needs to be understood within the limits of Congressional powers. Those powers are over what Congress owns, permits and has lawful jurisdiction over and one of those areas is federally granted businesses. Farmer Joe, the farmer Joes I know, are not the property of the federal government. Farmer Joes need to know this and not volunteer themselves into federal regulations when they have no business there! If Caroline or any other reported has genuine concern about ''food safety" with farmer Joe then she will have to look elsewhere to have her concerns addressed. And, IMO, she will have no problem in finding the other options for assuring real food safety with farmer Joe's goods.
Without Prejudice
and without the "United States",
Chef Jem
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Posted by Chef Jem
25 November 2010 | 12h51
Who's being fooled?
Who is being fooled by claims that the Food "Safety" Bill is fundamentally about safety? I'm not! This bill is simply a back-door salvo to create a playing field so horrifically tilted that the small, local farmer who actually knows his or her produce and who answers to their customers and the environment, rather than to shareholders, will no longer be able to compete.
The US is ranked among the top five worst global offenders in food safety. Yet only 5% or so of our food comes from small, local, true family farmers. So how can they POSSIBLY be causing our food safety woes? And on what evidence do they stand accused of feeding their customers, who may know them personally (or with whom they at least speak face-to-face at the local stores and farmers' markets), volumes of tainted produce?
Ms. Scott, you are normally an excellent reporter. However, I'm very surprised that you apparently did not read the Food Safety Bill. Did you know it criminalizes seed saving? Are we really more at risk of being laid ill from Grandma's fresh heirloom corn grown on her small plot, than we are from ingesting Monsanto's GE corn grown in sterilized soil, bathed in Roundup and other herbicides, sprayed with pesticides, and prevented from spoiling by being doused with fungicides?
What have you to say about issues such as the slaugher of "downer" livestock at large, "USDA Approved" processing plants? About fruit and vegetables being contaminated by human waste, thanks to industrial farmers using illegal laborers and not furnishing porta-potties and hand sanitizer in their huge fields? About the outbreaks of Listeria due to unfixed problems in complex and aging processing plants? About Monsanto's old White Paper stating that the company's goal was to become the sole controller of the global food supply? Could THOSE possibly things have any impact on food safety, or the desire to eliminate the growing competition from the clean foods movement?
Come on, let's hear both sides of the story. And let's see who comes out clean when ALL the facts are properly laid out.
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Posted by Jennifer Christiano
25 November 2010 | 03h05
Author
I would like to ask the author, miss Scott-Thomas, if she truly believes what she writes or whether this article is written for those interests with ample resources who are all too willing to use her journalism skills to protect/promote their agenda? The difficult, most challenging thing to do is to ask the tough questions that serious journalists ask. To do the foot work, the prying, the poking in places the powerful would rather be left alone. The system that processes food large scale has serious inherent problems that there are no answers or solutions for S 510 unamended or not. I believe they, large food, is rightfully scared at the alarm and concern over what they do, how they do it, the lack of control over a system so monstrous and unwieldy its inputs are quickly absorbed into impossible traceability. Who produced that tainted burger, that one batch of egg, peanut butter produced from countless, pehaps even thousands of, sources? How can large scale manufactured food compete with a system where purchaser knows producer know by name, who's food operations are fully open/transparent. A producer who's methods, techniques inspire rather horrify, reulse. They know they can't compete with the very traceable, accountable pride and craftsmanship of these folks who truly love what they do. The small direct food system is inherently accountable, very traceable! They know they cannot compete with me, my small scale farmer friends when terms are so unfavorable to them - impossible! They know they cannot compete with producers with me, my farmer friends who do what we do as much for genuine care for our farms, the earth, the people we grow for. They know they can't compete with the mutal appreciation, respect and loyalty that is rich, that is cultivated in this exhange based on relationship not balance some fraction of a cent profit on some corporate balance sheet 1000s of miles away. Why do these large operations do what they do? Why write such an article Miss Scott-Thomas? For who and for what reason do you do what you do?
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Posted by H Hansen
24 November 2010 | 21h53
Food Industry Spin
What really concerns the industrial food complex, besides exempting small farmers, is that the Tester Amendment, requires FDA to conduct a study that looks at the incidence of foodborne illness in relation to the size and type of the facility, as well as the risks associated with commingling, processing, transporting, and storing food, "including differences in risk based on the scale and duration of such activities." In other words, for the first time, FDA will have to collect and evaluate data on how different management practices affect the risk of foodborne illness.
Local food will prove to be safer.
Right now the "Food Industry" is working hard to demonize local food in an effort to gain complete control of the market place. We need to watch S510 up to the very end. Who knows what they will try to slip in at the last hour.
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Posted by Farmer Brad
24 November 2010 | 21h12
Disingenuous
As a food-industry specialist you are supposed to be well aware of the issue and the facts. The fats of these issues are that the top foods producers are getting most of our tax money and they are also causing most of our health crisis from food-borne illnesses. To write an article completely ignoring all that?
Well, who is paying you to write? and is it only the one?
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Posted by Pego Rice
24 November 2010 | 20h11
More reasons to exempt local farmers?
There are certainly more reasons to exempt local farmers and smaller farmers. At the forefront of my mind at the moment is the availability of food locally when big producers are not able to get their products shipped in or a nationwide recall of tainted food results in the unavailability of something. Both of these situations have been common and nothing supports having a strong local food system like purchasing from your local producers. I'm in the middle of a snowstorm in the Rockies and would sure like to think that my local farmers and neighbors will be there next year and into the future with food I can count on. Not having ANY food seems like a bigger risk to me, than having food that could "possibly maybe potentially" make me sick. Also don't forget that you are perfectly welcome to ask questions of the people who make your food! Knowing them and how they do their work and answer your questions is one of the best ways to contribute to the safety of your food!
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Posted by KB
24 November 2010 | 18h47
Way Out Of Line!
Local food producers work hard and earn an honest living. Adding more regulations to an already difficult job would put many out of business, and you would no longer have the options of fresh local food. Is that what you want?
If you are worried about local food, then don't buy it. But leave the rest of us the options without the regulations.
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Posted by Marjory Wildcraft
24 November 2010 | 17h56
Kudos to comments
I am a local food manufacturer and registered with the FDA - the purpose of which was described to me as guaranteeing that no terrorist could corrupt the food I produce. And like most local producers, I carry a massive amount of insurance to handle any mishaps - of which I'm certain there will never be.
It is unbelievable that people might not be allowed to save seeds! And I know from reading all the horrors of the Monsanto demon, ruining farmers throughout the world with their round-up ready altered food. I may never eat corn again. I can see us local farmers in the future having an underground railroad type vigilance - just to have freedom of food choices. This whole thing is stupid and takes away our freedom to choose. Wasn't there a civil war fought over such principals? If the FDA truly wanted to do a better job protecting us - they would. This isn't about protection - this is about obstruction. The FDA has to be among the most inept organization in the country - second only to the EPA. Corruption run amok. One only has to look at the very long list of food and drug recalls in recent years to know that. If they don't have the money to effectively inspect products coming to the consumers, how in the world will they be able to back up this stupid legislation? This is a waste of time and effort - but definitely has a bent to put local producers out of business. What else could it be? The big guns are worried about the competition I guess. People want good food - they can't get it at the grocery store anymore. Who can trust big business to do the right thing when all they do is throw more poison into the mix - so meat tastes like cardboard and frozen vegetables are substandard, where milk is punched up with chemicals and even our pet food isn't safe and canned food should carry a skull and crossbones on the side of the label. America - the new China - where it's all about the money and to hell with the quality.
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Posted by Linn
24 November 2010 | 16h17
Do I trust the Government with my Food Safety?
The answer is NO!
Again and again the government has proven unfit to monitor or regulate the foods that we eat.
What local food provides is an eye to eye link to that ruddy faced farmer. Buying food in the grocery store offers no such link. How easy is it to ignore where and how food arrives so nicely packaged on the shelves. How do you think you get such great shelf life? Hmmmm....I wonder.
When I hear that 2% of the seafood imported into this country is actually tested or monitored by the FDA, what in the WORLD makes me think their monitoring or regulation of my produce, meat or dairy will be any safer than that seafood.
I mean seriously, the FDA cannot keep up with what they have on their plate so how is expanding that part of the government going to benefit me. It is NOT!
Further, classifying seeds as food and then regulating the possession and sales of them is just a big food industry ploy.
I don't trust the government officials, elected and not, in any event. It's the biggest scam ever. No party is for you, so you better start getting involved and see to your own health and welfare. The government is not fit to have control over our food choices.
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Posted by Vicki Jamison
24 November 2010 | 16h03
Like Comparing Apples and Oranges
Just how anyone can think that a small direct market type farms' handling of fresh produce from field to customer's hands poses the same threat as large corporate farms' operations' handling of produce from field, to box, to truck, to processing plant, to traincar, to truck, to warehouse, to processing facility, to warehouse, to truck, to store shelf, some 1000+ miles and who knows how many days/months away and gas/chemical treatments, from where it was picked is the same - is beyond me. They must be turning a blind eye to reality, or not be aware of just how much mainstream food is handled and shuffled around. There is little to NO risk in a direct to customer type farm - there is a HUGE risk in a conveyor belt, multi-step type process which is EXACTLY what the S510 bill was written to help clean up. That, and of course to turn over our food supply....grow your own, know your farmer.
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Posted by Marie
24 November 2010 | 14h41
Support your local farmer!!!
Whether you agree, or not... Whether you want to buy your food from your local farmer, or Walmart... we should all have the choice.
If the goverment implements regulations that put the small local farmer out of busines, I will then have no choice in where I get my food. As a consumer, I want to buy my food from someone I know and trust.
In my opinion, buying local eliminates my concern for food safety and the handling of livestock for food consumtion. If you have ever witnessed the difference in factory farming and local/small farming the, the choice is easy.
Protect our rights to buy local.... support your local farmer and tell your Senator to pass the amendment put forward by Senator Jon Tester
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Posted by Suzie Medford
24 November 2010 | 02h07
Local is safer
The solution is to know your producer and that means local. The movement to local foods is massive and this bill is meant to eliminate the competition with cumbersome and expensive regulations. Having eaten locally for decades, I have yet to have any issue with locally produced foods. Nor have any of the thousands of people I know who shop local.
The food contamination is coming from large confined animal feeding operations and large production facilities. Just look at the records and that proves it.
And this bill defines seeds as foods and will give away our right to choose our food supply, remove our rights to save our seeds and share our garden produce and seeds with our neighbors.
Read the bill and you will see that the ability to recall foods is still voluntary unless it is 'deemed necessary' by the FDA or Food Czar. We all know who runs those departments... former food and drug executives. The new Food Czar is a former employee of Monsanto... that corporate producer of genetically modified seeds that can withstand (or so they say,) massive amounts of toxic chemicals that have been linked to health issues. Why do you think that they have joined Bill Gates and other large corporations to store original seeds in Norway?
Wake up and realize that local is the ONLY way to survive the coming food supply collapse. Just look at the rising costs of foods and the lower availability of them in your stores. We must stand for our local producers or we may just be out of luck. That is unless you are wise, grow your own food and have a good relationship with your local producer.
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Posted by Susan Jennings
23 November 2010 | 22h14
Why---the asnwer is simple
It has nothing to do with local or small, it has everyting to do with infrastructure. As Charles Perrow pointed out, we can never control any enterprise well enough to eliminate accidents---that is why he calls them "normal". What we can do is organize systems in such a way that accidents don't become "catastrophes." and the best way to do that is to eliminate complex "tightly coupled" systems. It is in tightly coupled systems that accidents become catastrophies. Process spinach from a small farm in a huge, processing facility that processes thousdands of pounds of spinach from numerous farms and accidental contamination from anyone of the small farms can contaminate the entire batch sickening thousands of people. Had the same spinach been processed in a modest sized community processing facility, it might have affected a few people, problem could have been detected and corrected rapidly. So why put small farmers, selling locally, out of business with costly regulations when they are not the principle problem? See Charles Perrow, NORMAL ACCIDENTS, and THE NEXT CATASROPHE.. As he notes, we should "at least stop blaming the wrong people."
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Posted by Fred Kirschenmann
23 November 2010 | 19h13
Food Safety Sham
Why should small farms be exempted from food safety practices? How would we feel if small restaurants were exempt from health department rules?
Anyone who produces food can cause harm. While one small farm may endanger fewer people, what about thousands of small farms with no food safety rules?
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Posted by David Sasuga
23 November 2010 | 16h50
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