New Food Safety Legislation and Non-Industrial Scale Food Production

The Cornucopia Institute has recently released information on the pending food safety legislation. With the Obama administration and its culture of change combined with the recent PCA scandal policy makers are looking to make serious changes to how they food safety system operates.

Several bills aimed at fixing the broken food safety system have been proposed. Of these bills, the FDA Globalization Act (HR 759) appears most likely to be voted on, with elements of the other bills, including the Food Safety Modernization Act (HR 875) and the Safe FEAST Act (HR 1332) possibly incorporated into the bill. HR 759 HR 875 HR 1332

Many in the sustainable agriculture world, be they backyard gardeners, small conventional farmers, or organic farmers, are concerned with the one size fits all approach of the proposed legislation. According to Cornucopia:

All three bills would require new food safety rules for farms and food processing businesses. Therefore, as with most legislation, the real battle [for non-industrial farmers] will be in the rule-making process that follows the passage of the bill.

Cornucopia realizes that this is not going to create an outright ban on all forms of agriculture than industrial agriculture. However, it will be important to keep an eye on this legislation as it is likely to have some effect on all food production. Questions to consider: How will the USDA's National Organic Program and the certification and inspection process that it already has in place be impacted by these policy changes? How will small scale farmers (conventional and organic) be impacted by a heightened regime of inspection? Problems resulting from a centralized food system dependent on massive distribution have created large food poisoning outbreaks such as the PCA Salmonella outbreak. Should additional burden be placed on small farms that produce and distribute locally? Blog post by Peter Hemberger, William Mitchell College of Law student.