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Help protect small-scale organic and family farms

SB 510 provisions for an FDA crackdown on food safety regulations, but like its predecessor in the House, it fails to protect local, organic food which would be subjected to a one-size-fits-all set of provisions that would put many small farmers out of business. Designed for large-scale operations, the extensive record-keeping mandates and high fees alone threaten the existence of local food.

Tell the Senate committee not to threaten quality organic and local food production!


Dear Friends,

Our food safety system is broken. Industrialized food production gives rise to serious food safety problems, and our government's ability to regulate corporate agribusiness must be strengthened - without harming small-scale and organic family farmers.

Bills in Congress propose to give more authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate for food safety, inspect food processing facilities, and order mandatory recalls. The House passed its own food safety bill in July. The Senate's bill is in committee and scheduled for a mark-up (committee vote).

Allowing the FDA to crack down on corporate food producers that threaten our citizenry's health is a step in the right direction - as long as legislation contains protections for small-scale, organic and local food systems. Small farms could be forced out of business by increasing costs for record-keeping, testing and other measures they will not be able to comply with. These are our country's safest farms - part of the solution, not part of the problem!

Now is the time to contact Senate committee members (especially if one is from your state) that will make changes to the bill. Our message is: Senate Bill 510 must contain protections for small-scale and organic family farms.
Please call as many committee members as you have time for!


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Messages for committee members:

1. Regulate farms and food processors based on risk - with organic and local systems as the lowest-risk.
--While no farm and processing plant can be completely safe and completely eliminate food safety risks, different production systems carry different levels of risk. Small and medium-sized organic farms are low-risk farms from a food safety point of view, and local food systems are low-risk systems. This fact speaks to a risk-based regulatory approach, particularly given limited federal dollars available for system-wide regulation and the need to prudently target the use of those funds.
Organic farms are already controlling pathogens and improving food safety in various ways that conventional, industrial-scale farms do not. Specifically, food safety regulation for organic and small-scale producers should focus on education and training, not one-size-fits-all food safety standards.

2. Protect organic farmers from conflicting food safety regulations.
--Tell your Senator to ensure that the bill directs the FDA to integrate any food safety standards with the existing federal organic standards. No farmer should be forced to choose between organic certification and food safety rules, and the two should be streamlined to avoid unnecessary additional burdens and incompatibilities.

3. Protect wildlife, biodiversity and habitat from misguided food safety regulation.
--Likewise, the food safety bill should ensure that FDA food safety standards do not conflict with existing federal conservation, environmental and wildlife standards. Farmers should be encouraged to adopt conservation practices on their farms - in fact, many conservation practices such as vegetated buffer zones and wetland preservation have been shown to reduce the presence of foodborne pathogens on farms.

Take Action Today - Call Senate Committee Members
For a list of members, visit http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/11/action-alert-senate-bill-510-fda-food-safet...



--------------------Sample Letter----------------
It is my desire, as a tax-paying US citizen, to see both Senate Bills 3002 and 510, which grant power to the FDA for supplement and farm regulation, stopped. It is my desire to see explicit provisions for the protection of my rights to buy and sell supplements and for the protection of organic food facilities from further FDA regulation. Moreover, I urge that Congress consider a thorough investigation of the FDA and the special interests that threaten to manipulate the free market, instead of granting them more power over my life.

Sincerely,
(Your name)
Thank you so much for taking the time to help us protect our food supply!
Matt Alvord and the Foods Alive family
http://www.foodsalive.com


If you have friends of family that would help us, please!


 

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