There has been a lot of debate lately about recently introduced food safety bill HR 875. Many people are concerned that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for industrialized operations and small farmers, gardeners and farmers markets may be negatively impacted. Here are some facts:
A few things that HR 875 DOES do:
- It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of the FDA by splitting it into 2 new agencies -one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.
- It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of insoection on the risk of the product being produced -it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees
- It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.
- It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.
A few things that HR 875 does NOT do:
- It does not cover food produced by teh USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish)
- It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.
- It does not regulate backyard gardens.
- It does not regulate seed.
- It does not call for new regulations on farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.
- It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce.
- It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods.
HR 759 is more likely to move through Congress than HR 875, and HR 759 contains several provisions that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:
- It extends traceability recordkeeping requirements that currently apply only to food processors to farms and restaurants, and requires that the recordkeeping be done electronically.
- It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.
- It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to fund inspection efforts.
- It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish F+Good Agricultural Practices for produce.
It’s important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the practices that make diversified, organic and direct market producers different from agribusiness. But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food system is not an approach that works for consumers.