Comment period on proposed leafy green handling rules expires next week

The Comment period on proposed leafy green handling rules ends December 3.  Cornucopia Institute has posted criticism of the proposed rules on its website:

Cornucopia, WI: In response to the E. coli 0157 outbreak last year in bagged spinach, the USDA is considering federal rules that could potentially require growers of all leafy green vegetables to follow specified guidelines in the fields and during postharvest handling. Farm advocates are concerned that small and medium-sized growers will be placed at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

The USDA has released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that they are accepting public comments on.  Members of the public have until December 3 to weigh in on the controversial proposal.

“Such one-size-fits-all requirements, while unproven in terms of their impact on food safety, would be disastrous for wildlife, biodiversity, and for the family-scale farmers who are producing some of the nation's highest-quality produce,” says

Charlotte Vallaeys

, Farm and Food Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy and research group. “If regulations dictate uniform growing practices and food safety measures, which might be appropriate for large-scale ‘factory farms’ but onerous and unnecessary for diverse family farms, we risk losing the very farms that grow leafy greens in a healthy and environmentally sustainable way,” she adds.

The following is from the Federal Register Notice.  There is much more at http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main.  The document number is  AMS-FV-07-0090-0001.

This advance notice of proposed rulemaking invites comments on a potential regulatory program intended to maintain the quality of leafy green commodities by reducing the risk of pathogenic contamination during their production and handling. AMS is considering implementation of a marketing agreement (agreement) in response to heightened public and industry concern about the safe production and handling of leafy greens. Under the program being considered, handlers could voluntarily enter into the agreement, but signatories would then be required to comply with the agreements regulations, which would specify Best Practices for minimizing the risk of pathogenic contamination of leafy greens. The Best Practices could include commodity-specific production and handling guidelines that would be developed in cooperation with the industry and based upon FDA's voluntary Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards in Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards in Fresh-cut Fruits and Vegetables, and other FDA-issued guidance (http://www.fda.gov).