Food Security-- Why Small Farms are Safer

Date:   9/17/2009 10:49:24 PM ( 15 y ago)

Aug 18 2009, 8:42 am by Josh Viertel
Why Small Farms Are Safer
from the Atlantic online

http://food.theatlantic.com/sustainability/why-small-farms-are-safer-1.php


Small, local farms, of course, are good for food security and food safety, not bad. The 5,000 people who die every year of food-borne illness aren't dying from my spinach, they are dying from Dole's spinach. Regulate small farmers the same way you regulate Dole, and we might disappear. And when it comes to food safety and security, you want more of us, not less. The big guys need to be watched much more closely. The little guys need to be encouraged to flourish.

Historically, the opposite has occurred: food safety regulations have served to consolidate production and drive small and mid-sized farmers out of business. Mandating new methods and technologies drove small dairy farmers out of business in Vermont in the early 1960s, just as new "leafy greens" laws threatened to shut down small and mid-sized organic salad growers in the aftermath of the spinach scare in 2006. Is this tendency the product of well-meaning, poorly thought through legislation, or is it a conspiratorial "let no good crises go to waste" corporate opportunism? Responses vary depending on which struggling farmer you ask.

 

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