The FDA comment period for the Food Safety & Modernization Act ends tonight at 11:59 pm EST. If you're not a farmer, why should you care?
Well, if you're a consumer of local produce and products like maple syrup, pies or organically raised meat, you may see fewer producers and less variety from those producers if these regulations take effect as written.
If you believe in fresh, local, sustainable food, and support the family farms and small organic farmers in your county and state, please read on and take action tonight.
I have not seen anything about the Food Safety & Modernization Act here on DailyKos. It first came to my attention through the efforts of Shenna Bellows, our Democratic candidate for US Senate (ME). As she's traveled the state talking to voters, she's heard from many small farmers who would be affected by these onerous regulations. As so often happens when Big Ag helps to write the rules, the smaller players get put at a disadvantage.
Find out more about the Act and how it affects small farmers and consumers.
Below the fold, Shenna's comments to the FDA on how the rules would affect Maine farmers.
I write to urge you to significantly revise the FDA rules for the Food Safety Modernization Act to eliminate onerous requirements that threaten Maine’s small farms.
Maine’s farms are a vital part of our state’s economy. Young people are moving to Maine or staying in Maine in record numbers to start farms. These farms are diverse – often incorporating vegetables, livestock and fruit in the same operation. The farms are a key component in Maine’s farm to table movement, supplying fresh, local food for a thriving restaurant industry in cities like Rockland and Portland. Farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture (CSA) shares and local cooperatives are bringing affordable, local food directly to consumers. Maine farms support our local economies in important and diverse ways.
Unfortunately, the draft regulations would treat local farms in Maine much like corporate agribusinesses, subjecting local farms to complicated and costly requirements. Many of the requirements are simply not feasible for small farmers. For example:
The regulation that prohibits the storage of vegetables in a building where condensation drips from the ceiling would essentially prohibit the use of greenhouses and cold frames to supply fresh produce to consumers during the winter months in Maine;
The reclassification of farms that offer a variety of other goods – maple syrup, baked goods and meats – as “facilities” and the resulting registration fees and paperwork would likely prohibit small farms from expanding into any value-added operations; and
The requirement to engage in expensive water testing every seven days of water used from rivers, streams and lakes to water crops is prohibitively expensive and impractical for small farmers in Maine.
The estimated costs of the Produce and Preventive Controls Rules are in the thousands of dollars to each farm, capital that Maine’s agricultural entrepreneurs could ill afford. The impact of such regulation could mean the closure of dozens of operations. The impact on our local economies would be devastating.
Maine’s farms not only support the economy but also healthy communities. Fresh fruit and vegetables are critical components of a healthy diet. Food safety is important, and being able to buy locally sourced food in our communities is a key part to improving food safety in our communities. Certainly, everyone can agree to a reasonable amount of regulation of the nation’s largest agribusinesses, which are packaging food on a massive scale for distribution across the country. To treat local farms in the same way that large agribusinesses are regulated defies commonsense. Small, local farms have an excellent historical tradition of supplying safe and healthy food to our communities. The relationship between farmer and community provides a level of trust and confidence in the food supply that no government regulation can replace. Unfortunately, the proposed rules would make it more difficult for community members to know local farmers, making it difficult if not impossible for consumers to directly monitor food safety and make choices accordingly. Regulations should be scale-appropriate.
Finally, the proposed rules undermine sustainable conservation practices and organic farming. The proposed rules contradict existing regulations for certified organic production, creating a confusing and indeed impossible regulatory scheme for farmers to have to interpret and attempt to follow. Furthermore, the rules fail to promote conservation practices like co-management that recognize the importance of biodiversity and site-specific conditions. In this sense, the rules are a significant lost opportunity because sustainable conservation practices can reduce food-borne pathogens. The proposed rules should promote rather than restrict innovations on small farms that conserve biodiversity, water, soil and energy in our communities.
The set of proposed rules is an example of government regulation at its worst – harming Maine’s many small farmers to benefit a few large agricultural corporations. We all want our food to be safe, and the truth is our food in Maine is very safe. The proposed FDA rules would have the unintended consequence of undermining food security in Maine. The concentration of our food production in the hands of the few poses a far bigger threat to our national food safety than whether my local apple orchard also sells pie.
For the sake of Maine’s local economies, conservation of our precious natural resources and food safety, I urge you to reject the proposed rules and work to devise regulations that recognize the wonderful complexity and diversity of food production in rural states.
Sincerely,
Shenna Bellows
Please submit your own comments tonight. And enjoy those organic turkeys, homegrown squash, and locally made apple pies for many Thanksgivings to come!