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Organic, Small Farmers Fret over FDA Regulation
WASHINGTON - Small farmers in California who have led a national movement away from industrial agriculture face a looming crackdown on food safety that they say is geared to big corporate farms and will make it harder for them to survive.
Earthbound Farm, an organic grower in San Juan Bautista (San Benito County), packages and sells bags of lettuce. (Craig Lee / The Chronicle)
The small growers, many of whom grow dozens of different kinds of
vegetables and fruits, say the inherent benefits of their size, and
their sensitivity to extra costs, are being ignored.
They are fighting to carve out a sanctuary in legislation that would bring farmers under the strict purview of the Food and Drug Administration, an agency more familiar with pharmaceuticals than food and local farms.
A bill before the Senate is riding a bipartisan groundswell created by recent outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella and other contamination in everything from fresh spinach to cookie dough.
And the small farmers face opponents in consumer groups, victims of food contamination, large growers and the Obama administration, who say no farm and no food should get a pass on safety.
An even tougher version of the legislation passed the House last summer. Now, a behind-the-scenes battle is raging in the Senate over how to regulate small and organic growers without ruining them - and still protect consumers.
If two versions of the overhaul pass, Congress would work to merge them.
The legislation would mandate a range of programs intended to bolster food safety. The FDA would gain greater authority to regulate how products are grown, stored, transported, inspected, traced from farm to table and recalled when needed.
Pinpointing problems
But biologically diverse and organic growers argue that the problems that have plagued the food industry lie elsewhere.
They point to the sale of bagged vegetables, cut fruit and other processed food in which vast quantities of produce from different farms are mixed, sealed in containers and shipped long distances, creating a host for harmful bacteria.
The legislation does not address what some experts suspect is the source of E. coli contamination: the large, confined animal feeding operations that are breeding grounds for E. coli and are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the FDA.
"It does not take on the industrial animal industry and the abuses going on," said Tom Willey of T&D Willey Farms in Madera, an organic grower of Mediterranean vegetables. "The really dangerous organisms we're dealing with out here, and trying to protect our produce and other foodstuffs from, are coming out the rear end of domestic animals."
No one in Congress or the administration has yielded in a bureaucratic turf battle between the Department of Agriculture, which regulates meat, poultry and eggs, and the FDA, which regulates all other food.
The controversy began with the spinach E. coli outbreak near San Juan Bautista in 2006 that left four people dead, 35 people with acute kidney failure and 103 hospitalized. The bacteria, known as E. coli O157:H7, first appeared in hamburger meat in the early 1980s and migrated to produce, mainly lettuce and other leafy greens that are cut, mixed and bagged for the convenience of shoppers.
Contamination
Since then, there have been dozens of contamination cases, leading Congress to rewrite food safety laws by giving much more power to the FDA. But small growers worry that they, and consumers, will suffer in the sweep of reform.
"How do we trust that the FDA is going to know about things that the San Francisco Bay Area has been very progressive on - the field to fork, fresh, grow local, buy local - all of that?" said Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel. "The organic people are feeling that the regulations the FDA may promulgate will be so safety oriented, it'll put them out of business."
Consumer groups say they care about small farmers but that safety comes first.
"Our principle is that food should be safe, whatever the source," said Sandra Eskin, director of the Pew Health Group's food safety campaign, one of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which Monday sponsored a public meeting on the issue with federal officials in Seaside (Monterey County).
"People care profoundly about all these issues: feeding their families, food safety, local agriculture," Eskin said. "It's a passionate discussion and understandably so. Everybody eats."
Tom Nassif, head of Western Growers, which represents large produce growers, said small growers should not be exempt.
"If the small guy who sells to a farmers' market gets a family sick, it's a blip on the radar screen," Nassif said. "There's not a big hue and cry, because it didn't affect hundreds of people. What about those people? Doesn't their food safety count?"
Protocols
The tension that has come with food safety reforms was on display after the spinach outbreak rocked California. Large growers embraced costly science-based safety protocols for all leafy greens - guidelines that federal regulators are considering taking nationwide.
However, a UC Davis study last year by Shermain Hardesty and Yoko Kusunose found that the rules have put smaller growers at a disadvantage because their compliance costs are spread over fewer acres. Hardesty said costs may be as high as $100 an acre.
Large produce buyers such as Wal-Mart and McDonald's have gone much further than the industry standards. They have imposed rules of their own that have forced many California farmers who supply them to fence off waterways, poison wildlife to keep animals out of fields and destroy crop hedgerows that support beneficial insects.
Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said Monday the administration is keeping a "close watch" on these so-called "super metrics," acknowledging that they have harmed the environment but said, "nobody gets a pass on food safety."
Increasing the danger
Willey, the Madera farmer, argued that many food safety rules tend "to push us to embrace a paradigm of sterility," which, in the long run, increases the danger.
"When you create microbial vacuums, they can be even more easily taken over by pathogenic organisms," he said. "In organic agriculture, we depend tremendously on a cooperative effort with beneficial microorganisms. My whole soil fertility system is based on that. Actually, soil fertility planetwide is based on that."
Efforts to modify proposed rules to make compliance easier for biologically diversified farms have been more successful in the Senate than in the House. New language that requires the FDA to consider farm size, crop diversity, organic requirements and other issues has been added.
"While none of these things in themselves solves the cause for concern, they certainly point strongly in the direction of the FDA needing to take into account these considerations," said Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Hoefner called the House bill a one-size-fits-all approach that would be a "complete disaster" for small farms.
60 Comments so far
Show All"Control the food supply and you control the people." War criminal Henry Kissinger
A logical step by the Fascists running the show to eliminate ANYTHING that may hamper future profits or the continued slow poisoning of the planet.
This article brings up lots of interesting issues. Let's try to keep the paranoia under slight constraint.
Not so sure about paranoia. Think Monsanto's patenting of life forms and their threatening moves towards farmers who do not use their products exclusively.
Joe
I agree....Corporations like Monsanto are behind this in order to stamp out small farms. Just another way to subjugate the people, poison the planet, and rake in profits. Time to riot in the streets.
Let's see, who keeps talking about paranioa. Just calling the kettle black.
I've been told that just because someone is paranoid, does NOT mean that there is nobody out to get them....
When an issue seems to stem from sheer insanity, you can bet that corporate greed is the propelling force.
While I understand the motivations of corporate agriculture to eliminate organic competition, the response of the consumer groups - who clearly understand little about farming and nothing about food safety - is truly disheartening.
The biggest problem with the food safety issue is that too many people do not know how to prepare food - cooked or raw - properly. The idiots who simply open a bag of spinach and dump it in their salad bowls deserve to get sick.
By the way, I have never seen nor heard of any instance of produce-born illness arising from the consumption of locally grown furits and vegetables.
I guess that the next step will be to outlaw home gardening.
q
Once again, your last sentence needs a paranoia alert (or just a silliness disqualifier).
Or maybe you just need to grow up a little bit.
q
Actually, I was wondering the same thing - how long before they outlaw backyard gardens.
After seeing the boiling frog strategy work for many other issues, the corporations and their mouthpieces on Capitol Hill could easily stage a campaign of fear that organic home gardening was enabling pests to proliferate that threatened health and agriculture...you know the rest.
Apparently some of you posters do not know Michele Obama had a garden at the White House and is pushing the idea of home gardens. Let`s get off this baloney that it is us against the big bad government. The scare talk is totally out of control lately.
Inexpensive and easy to use test equipment that could be used on site. The fertilizer people should be required to test all new materials arriving at their processing site.
These bacterias are imported on to the farms and these materials can all be tested before shipment etc. The farmer could use these testing kits on their produce before shipment as well.
The ceation of these testing kits is the key to this situation as I see it.
In a society were everyone is greedy for something for nothing,
imagine all the fake morality and fiction salvations you would
have to do away with before it would be expectable and doable.
For when you start talking about a perfect society the only
logical approach is to go all the way, eat nothing processed
by man or animal that’s what I always say.
My mom used to process food. She would 'can' it and freeze it, etc. I often thought it was good.
Not the same as big-AG processed food. You know that DA.
My point is that there are lots of different "processes." One can buy some truly worthless (or worse) crap, some so-so, and some quite good. Knowledge and label reading is important.
Your mom started with whole, natural foods and preserved and stored them through safe processes. That is completely different than buying industrially processed foods.
HOW TO DESTROY CAPITALISM -- LIVE HARMLESS
“experts suspect the source of E. coli contamination is the large
confined animal feeding operations that are breeding grounds for
E. coli”
Exactly, as no micro-organism harmful to man is a vegetarian.
For if it lived off of fruits or vegetables, why would it bother man?
And so, what would happen if everyone in America
ate nothing processed by man or animal?
Why, disaster for capitalism, as a full third of the economy
are the meat, dairy, processed food and medical industries,
they would all go bankrupt in a healthy vegetarian society.
And 33% of workers would have to immediately be put to
work building mass transit and repairing infrastructure.
And it would all have to be funded by taxes on rich capitalists.
I believe your heart is in the right place, but your facts are not. Plants can harbor all kinds of horrible organisms and chemicals that can sicken and kill, without any interference by "man or animal."
For example?
q
Ergot in grains, the 'destroying angel' mushroom, rhubarb leaves... If your interested, a little googling will find a whole universe of potential dangers.
Pretty unusual for producers to sell these products as such sale would tend to decrease the number of potential buyers.
E-coli comes from animal excrement, not plants.
Vegetarian animals fed meat!
Improperly handled plants become dangerous. One tiny outbreak of food borne illness from one tiny batch of improperly stored almonds, and now we all have to eat irradiated or steam pasteurized almonds in this country, and our nanny government will not allow raw almonds in the domestic market. It's the giant food processors that want these contracts, not the danger of food borne illness, that make these things happen to us. Always follow the money.
Well, when I was a kid, we ate out of our victory gardens (Pull a carrot, wipe it off on your jeans, eat it.) We played in the yards and pastures, loved sticking our feet into a warm cow patty. We drank from the garden hose, shared our ice cream cones with our friends, even the family dog got a lick. If you dropped your sandwich, you picked it up, brushed it off and ate it. Dad traded rabbit for chicken or other produce. According to the latest wisdom, I should not have lived to be 73. We all had immune systems that would stop an RPG. We were exposed to everything, had few problems.
I feel sorry for those kids growing up today. They aren't allowed to go out and play, If they do, Mama follows them around with boxes of steriwipes. If he touches and animal, he is scolded and his hands are "sanitized." If he picks up something on the ground, it is taken away and his hands are "sanitized." They are never exposed to anything to build up their immune systems, so when they finally meet a bug, they're down. So sad.
Those farms that got us through the war are mostly gone now. Agrabusiness ran them out and bought their land for a song. Just like corporate "personhood," Big Agra can use its enormous power and wealth to defeat the small farmer.
As to controlling the food supply, Look at the CCCP. When they "collectivised" agriculture, all food of any kind was to be turned over to the collectives. What was deemed necessary was reissued to the farmers. If a farmer was rumoured to have kept some food for his family, the army came to his farm and tore it apart. If they found anything, the farmer could be shot as an example. All of this tracking of every animal, every hay bale, etc., is designed so that, when the Executive Order is signed, they can sweep up all the small farmers. Agrabusiness just has to sign a document saying "Raised 500 pigs, sold them to Slaughterhouse 5."
There is no part of our Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex that is not beset by absolute greed for money and power. They even begrudge the small pittance that has been left for us to fight over. Now that they are coming out of the woodwork, they want that, too.
Water is the other thing they are trying to control. This has been done in other countries that have accepted loans from the IMF. US Corporations buy all the water rights in the country and soon few can afford to buy enough water for survival. They are working hard to put something similar here.
If you've ever watched some of the undercover films of Smithfield in the plants they have set up in Mexico, you would see that this is not farming. It is a horror, poisoning the landscape, the ground water!
Our only salvation is going to be our small organic farms and ranches, but our "government" is doing its best to outlaw them in favor of Agrabusiness.
I am now 72 and totally agree with minitrue. I eat very little meat of any kind, love sardines and fish. I like to catch my own fish. I raise a garden every year and do not eat food that is out of season. I can and freeze what I cannot eat and share with my neighbors when I have a surplus of veggies. When I neesd to buy food, I shop at a local organic store. It may not be practical for a large family to shop there, but you should give it a try. After all, food is the most important item you will ever consume. You do not need DVD recorders, and all the new electronic toys now in such abundance. Try some board games and Wonder of wonders, there are free books available in the library. Stop eating what I call mad-cow beef. It is not good for you.
Kitty Lady and minitrue, except for quibbles, I liked your posts. Common sense is so wonderful. I wish it was more 'common.'
Kitty Lady,
I agree with you and Minitrue, I am now 73 and grew up like the two of you. One more thing that should be reintroduced in our school systems is Home Economics which in 1948, was a requirement for all girls in the seventh and eighth grade. I still use what I learned in my Home Ec. class every day. Today, it should be a required course for male and female. It prepared me for life. What was healthy, what was nutritious, what to avoid, how to prepare and preserve food. Nowadays, it seems all the children learn is how to walk to the nearest McDonalds or other fast food emporium.
As I said before, I am 73 going on 74 in August and have no health problems; never have, and I play competitive tennis (USTA and Emerald Cup) five days a week. an hour-and-a-half to three hours per day, year round. My Medicare and supplemental insurance love me because I'm cheap. I get a reduction on my long-term care policy because I'm so healthy! :-)
If you get the right education as to how to take care of yourself, you can live to a ripe, healthy "old" age. I've had a lot of fun getting here, and you can, too.
Minitrue's wife
P.S. (I like sardines, too.) Minitrue was a commercial fisherman at thirteen for four years out of LaPush, WA.
Minitrue ---- how very right you are about many things in your post. It is sad that children are kept in a "sanitized bubble" and never develop the immunity needed to survive and thrive. These proposed "safety rules" are little, I fear, but a cover to both deflect blame from "factory farming" (where it belongs) and to eliminate competition from small holding producers, who have fed the world for about the last 10,000 years. Reason is out the window, as proven by a couple of the comments above from someone who has, quite obviously, never known the joy of a fresh heirloom tomato, produced along with other foodstuffs by one's own hand.
Yes minitrue, it was precisely from one of those Smithfield factory farms in Mexico that the swine flu originated.
First of all, do not feed animal products to vegetarian livestock! This is a major cause of the bacterial outbreaks. Secondly, stop subsidizing the mass agra businesses and enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust Act! 80% ot the food market is owned by 3 corporate agra-busnesses. The food they sell is as addicting as crack, heroine and nicotine. Thirdly, subsidize local organic farming.
One size fits all, overly bureaucratized and high tech solutions to food safety can put small farms at a great disadvantage, as the article states. This problem also applies to regulations about runoff.
There has to be a two-tier approach considering the size of the farm. Regulations must include subsidies or free testing by Dept. of Agriculture or FDA that allow small farms to survive.
Otherwise agribusiness will benefit by driving out local food based diversified farming.
Joe
The bill is more serious than just dividing it into tiers would rectify. It militarizes food. And more, it allows the guy in charge to do anything at all to any one in the country who "holds" food and, get this ... without judicial review.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/s-510-is-hissing-in-the-grass/
Here's a radio show on it with a food and drug expert from Canada, the same man who stopped rBGH.
http://www.superhumanradio.com/components/com_podcast/media/mp3s/SHR_Show_483.mp3
Here is a Political Action Fax Page so people can fax their Senators a form letter asking them to vote No on S 510. The fax service is free of charge and faxes are better than phone calls, emails or snail mail.
Here's a link to the fax page with complete three step instructions
http://www.superhumanradio.com/core/2749.htm
Thanks!
I did not know. Thanks.
Joe
"Consumer groups say…"
Which consumer groups? Who funds them?
This looks like to me, a twisted way for Big Ag to stamp out the movement of locally grown food by small farms, under the guise of food safety.
Don't worry, soon the Tea Baggers will be fighting this Big Ag paid-off Government assault on small farms. Not.
What are you talking about? They are fighting it. Everyone is.
Everyone's food supply is threatened by the corporations, with Monsanto leading.
Tea party people, libertarians, conservatives, democrats, foodies, justice groups, poverty groups, etc. etc., are fighting it. 87 groups joined with R-Calf against it.
Read the gory details on it. S 510 Is HIssing In The Grass
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/s-510-is-hissing-in-the-grass/
This article shows us how misguided the people who live on our own Olympus (DC) are and how disconnected they are from the real world out there. Part of the problem is that many of them do not understand the cycle by which their food reaches their plates and they do not understand the dangers inherent in industrial agriculture. Those of us who grow a significant portion of our own food or the small farmer understand that all of nature works in balance, and when that balance is disrupted through CAFOs or chemicals, we create a place where bacteria and viruses can thrive. We do not need more regulations - what we need is the break-up of the big agribusiness operations that are destroying nature. We can only get this done by gathering together consumers and small farmers and concerned citizens and start educating our communities on where their food comes from and how it is currently produced vs. what organic producers can do. FOOD, INC. was a start, but there has been little or no local follow-up.
I have been working on establishing a new kind of school - one where the students not only learn ALL the academic subjects that they used to learn in schools for free, but also learn the old skills of organic agriculture and community. I am finishing up the fund-raising information, but the basic information is available on my website (http://www.letfreedomring.community.officelive.com) and on a two-part video on YouTube (search Devon Noll and look for Common Sense Initiative School videos). Education may be the only hope of preventing bills like S520, or NAIS, or any of the other myriad bills sponsored by Monsanto and Big Agribusiness from either passing or even seeing the light of day. If these bills pass, we must work to have them repealed and you should be asking the candidates if they support such legislation and if they would repeal it if elected.
Kitty Lady Oregon and Minitrue are correct in how eating the right kinds of food can improve the immune system. And I would add that with the sterilization and mutation of our food supplies, we have seen a corresponding rise in the superbugs that used to be so rare. Nature mutates organisms to adapt to their environments and that includes bacteria and viruses. If we are not eating foods that naturally work with our bodies to fight off these germs, then we are more likely to get such superbugs as swine flu or spinal meningitis, and we will not have the natural ability to help medical science fight these diseases. For people who have allergies or asthma, the eating of locally grown foods that are grown organically can help to address the problems, and attendant costs of such illnesses.
We must work to educate our neighbors and our communities on where their food comes from and how it is processed. We need to work to flood Congressional offices with letters, faxes, phone calls, e-mails, visits (both in DC and local offices) and demand that the organized assault on our food supply be stopped and that Big Agribusiness, starting with Monsanto, Conagra, ADM, and Cargill, be investigated for endangering the public health and anti-trust violations. AND WE MUST ABSOLUTELY EDUCATE THE NEXT GENERATION ON HOW TO WORK WITH NATURE, NOT AGAINST IT, TO CREATE A SANER WORLD!
HEAR, HEAR!!!!
Minitrue and his wife
Good to read so many supportive comments. Backyard gardens? They're already illegal in the gated communities where I live. Gardens attract rodents. They also demand lots of feces.
Gardening is one of the reasons I "maintained my sovereignty" and renounced the benefits of the Florida community that built around me. I keep chickens and rabbits and use their fecal productions on my 12 vegetable gardens and 10 fruit trees. I have three large trash containers full of kitchen refuse and earthworms. I also tend two hives of honeybees. No doubt there's e. coli about. I regularly brew 55 gallons of rabbit and chicken manure tea.
I regularly feed my rats poison and trap and shoot the larger critters. We eat the eggs, produce, and fruit without sterilizing x-rays or preservatives. Our trips to the food market are for things we cannot make or grow at home: vinegar, olive oil, etc. But I'm retired and can spend my time doing these things. I'd rather not golf.
_Food, Inc._ is a wonderful film and the best tribute one can make to it is to create home alternatives. My grandfather used to farm out his farm. He kept pigs on rented unused land. He likewise grew single crops on others. If I couldn't "get away" with keeping what I've got, I'd get into guerrilla farming like he did.
Well, HEY and HOWDY, fellow Floridian. I've got just about the same set up on my 2.5 acre FARMette.
Just added meat rabbits this year and have the first litter of kits.
Added 20 extra laying hens. And a rooster for flock sustainability.
Have 2000 sq.ft. of veggies, fruits, herbs, and a one year old orchard.
As to this small farmer legislation?
Cheeze It, It's the Food Police!
This spring we also added extra rows to help the food banks out in our community.
With our nearest neighbors we made some lists. Tools we had, skills we could share.
Started 6 years ago (had a lot to learn about growing in FL)...
Carry on!
Great job, but ditch the rat poison. It spreads through the food chain. The critter also experiences an excruciating death. Properly baited and placed traps will usually result in a near instant, verifiable death.
"If the small guy who sells to a farmers' market gets a family sick, it's a blip on the radar screen," Nassif said. "There's not a big hue and cry, because it didn't affect hundreds of people."
The above sentence is exactly why we should be going towards the small producers not the large producers.
I have known people who soaked a bale of straw with water and chemical fertilizer for a few weeks and then grew fine looking vegetables in that straw.
The soil agribusiness uses was once as fertile as any on earth. Now it's probably not much better than a bale of straw.
Vitamins? Minerals? Iron, Chromium? Manganese? Iodine? Folic Acid?
I suggest everyone take their vitamins.
"Folic acid" -- If your gonna "take your vitamins," watch out to not get too much folic acid. It has harmed people's health and killed quite a few. Instead of taking too many pills or "processed" foods full of added vitamins, if you can get good fresh food (best: grow your own) then you are fortunate. And to those of you who talk about the government banning home gardening, remember that some moderates or conservatives might read this silliness and assume many liberals are wackos. We liberals laugh at a lot of stupidities from right-wingers. Why give them ammunition to call liberals paranoid fools?
"And to those of you who talk about the government banning home gardening, remember that some moderates or conservatives might read this silliness and assume many liberals are wackos."
This isn't about traditional stereotypes of left and right, and neocon so called "free market" apologists and dupes think that progressive thinkers are wackos anyway, so why worry about it.
The government banning home gardening isn't silliness at all. It's almost inevitable, as long as that swinging door between multinational business and our government keeps swinging.
Already Monsanto has the power to create and hold patents on the world's plants, to the point that folk healers in third world countries are being prevented from giving out traditional herbal cures.
Inform yourself before hanging labels. Just because the real news of biotech is suppressed in our corporate owned and operated mainstream media, we still have the internet where information can freely be found. If Monsanto weren't guilty of every vicious tactic for controlling agriculture, why would Brazilian farmers openly unite to declare war on Monsanto? That is among this year's news.
One thing I recall from my Childhood were the family gatherings into the woods to pick blueberries, gooseberries, Saskatoons, Chokecherries , Raspberries and strawberries.
We would see all manner of cars parked at the side of the road and the outings were always a lot of fun. I was rather poor as a picker as I tended to eat more then I put into the bowl.
I returned to the farm several years back where I grew up and asked my aunt if it was "Saskatoon season" as I had a hankering to eat some. She used to have a pile of wild saskatoons out behing her lake.
As it turned out she indicated that they no longer grew there. They died out after after the county strated spraying the sides of the roads with pesticides to kill the weeds.
I guess they felt the various "weeds" were eyesores and had to go. I wonder how many families still have these outings in these modern times where all these berries can be bought in a store, shipped to us from thousands of miles away.
By the way wild strawberries are smaller then a fingernail and they taste 8000 times better then those store bought things. They tended to grow in cow pastures and I distintly recall picking around old dried up cow patties. No one ever got e coli.
I wonder. Would the FDA ban the harvest of wild fruits and berries for the protection of the peoples health?