OMG New Bill Could “Outlaw Organic Foods”
April 9th, 2009
|
| Share |
Given that there have been a number of high profile food recalls and forborne illness outbreaks in North America, it’s not surprising that the US government is looking to revamp food safety regulations. Since the turn of the 20th century, food safety has only improved in the US as time has gone on and inspection and safety standards have become more rigorous. That is, until recently. The CDC has found that the past three years have seen an increase in foodborne illness and a general reduction in food safety. This is an alarming reversal of the long standing trend of improvements in food safety.
Thus the US congress is mulling new legislation intended to improve food safety standards and inspection of agricultural products. I can honestly say that I don’t know enough about the bill to know whether or not it has any potential for improving things, but it is certainly an area that needs some action taken. But many in the “organic food” cult don’t seem to think so.
Here’s what one “letter to the editor” has to say:
Food Safety Modernization Act would ruin agriculture
Tricia Trenary, Culpeper
Published: April 9, 2009The destruction of our natural farming system has not only contributed to disease in this country but has in many cases made it impossible for our immune systems to remain healthy.
We must take action to prevent HR 875 (the Food Safety Modernization Act) and ones like it from passing. This bill is put up by Monsanto and other monolithic corporations trying to seize totalitarian control over all agriculture. It was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, and is ultimately about one thing, defining only their own GMO (Genetically Mutated Organism) products as “safe.”
What makes the bill so dangerous is that it is heavy on penalties, including prison time, while at the same time being incredibly vague about what would actually trigger those sanctions. HR 875 is nothing but a Trojan horse, with an invading army to be designated later, in the form of a bureaucratic administrator (most likely a corporate lobbyist shill) with the lawmaking power to make up their own definitions so that all competitors are either driven into bankruptcy or locked up.
There are problems with food safety we can talk about, but HR 875 is not going to make us safer. It must be stopped.
Tricia Trenary
Culpeper
Ms. Culpeper is not alone in her alarmist sentiment against the bill, a number of activists and organizations are up in arms over the legislation. Despite claims to the contrary, the legislation is not receiving any major support from large agribusiness. The legislation also only applies to the national food supply and won’t be applied to home gardens or anything of the sort. Despite this, many groups are claiming it will. The US Green Party (yes we have one of those) is one of the most vocal opponents.
The reality is that it only applies to food intended for interstate commerace, so the old lady’s vegitable stand down the street is not going to be in any way effected. The Green Party and others are all hot and bothered because the bill would not improve standards for “dangerous” pesticides and fertalizers but would target pathogenic bacteria – the kind of stuff that actually can hurt and kill people. It seems that this is a problem for the organic side? Why on earth would that be? Perhaps it doesn’t jive with the “If it’s natural it can’t hurt you” mentality?
What is amazing to me is how many people out there writing editorials and comments seem to think that the modern food system is a failure and that “factory farms” are to blame for food safety problems. Despite recent issues, the food supply is still safer now than it was decades or centuries ago and modern agriculture is far from a failure. Some have even suggested that we need to outlaw “factory farms.” It’s amazing to me anyone would even propose that and the implications are chilling. At one time, automobiles were made in small “coach builder” establishments and few could afford a car, but today they’re made in factories. At one time steel came from blacksmiths and not steelmills and at one time food was also produced in small, local establishments. But those were back in the days when starvation was not a distant nightmare but an everyday worry.
There is one thing I really don’t like about this bill: It would create a new agency, spinning it off from the FDA. The new federal agency would be responsible for agricultural product safety and part of the Department of Health and Human Services. As things currently are in the US, food safety and inspection systems are already redundant. The FDA and the US Department of Agriculture both inspect foods and apply their own differing standards and criteria, which are noit always consistant. Some products are under the jurisdiction of the FDA and others the USDA and there’s not necessarily much rhyme or reason to it.
So while I support better agricultural regulation, how about we just roll it into the existing USDA framework and not create a new agency? Last time we tried that with the Department of Homeland Security, which was supposed to take over and improve the standards for FEMA. Unfortunately, although FEMA was pretty ineffecent before being placed under the control of a new agency, it turned out to be considerably worse under the new one. Can we please stop creating agencies? Please?
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 11:04 pm and is filed under Agriculture, Bad Science, Conspiracy Theories, Enviornment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
April 9th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
All anyone needs to know about this legislation is that the Green Party is against it. I can’t think of a more ringing endorsement of the bill.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 12:56 am
DV82XL said:
Yeah, although I’ll have to research it more. It’s needed legislation to reform food safety standards, but the problem with any legislation like this is it’s such an opertunity to mess things up worse. Also, the simple fact that they want to create yet another agency really irks me. Putting agricultural activities under a new department in Health and Human Services will only complicate things more. I maintain that creating a new office or agency is generally the last resort. I don’t see why the existing ones can’t deal with better regulations.
I am actually doing research for a post on food safety standards and how it applies to “organic” agriculture and foods. Interesting info. The opposition to irradiation for one thing is a big issue. It has a measurable impact on food safety – a negative one.
This seems to be a very hot button issue, but any time you acuse organic methods of being less safe you get a hissy fit claiming that you’re discriminating or that other produce can be tainted or whatever. I mean, even implying it seems to get a response like you’re being a racist or something to even question it.
However, what I’ve been reading from some studies indicates to me that foods made with the “organic” restriction have a higher probability of being contaminated by human pathogens. That’s not to say they’re unsafe. Both organic and conventional foods have a low probability of contamination, but it seems “orgaic” might be slightly higher.
It seems that the regulations leave organic growers with less effective and consistent pest control and pests can contaminate foods. Also, the use of biological-based fertilizers especially from animal sources can be a pathway to introduce pathogenic microbes. Pig manure is commonly used and the composting process is not perfect in rendering it sanitary.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 1:25 am
“The reality is that it only applies to food intended for interstate commerace”
Read up on abuse of the Commerce Clause. You’d be astonished what has been held to affect “interstate commerce”.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 2:14 am
It has my support. If the hippy crowd says Monsanto is behind it I know it must be a good thing.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 2:32 am
Well, they may have a point, here in BC, the government recently passed a law saying that all cattle have to be slaughtered at licensed, inspected slaughterhouses, even though all the food disease outbreaks that have occurred since I came to Canada have happened at big slaughterhouses. eg. the recent Listerosis outbreak Local Ranchers are really hurting, since they now have to pay lots of money to have their cattle trucked 100s of kilometers for slaughter. Before, lots of people bought really fresh meat straight from the farm. I still do, because I know some guys, and the taste difference compared to store bought meat is pronounced.
No one is saying that this will ban people’s vegetable gardens, but it will put in enough paperwork that small farmers, who don’t have a dedicated legal team unlike the big Agri-Corporations, will not be able to cope, will start getting hammered with fines for incorrectly submitted paperwork and go under.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Yeah, like I said, I’m not entirely sure if this legislation is really the way to do this. I am 100% in agreement that there needs to be some kind of reform of the system and some of the aspects of the bill might have merit, but I don’t really know.
The paperwork issue and legal aspects are definitely worth concern. The government has a way of making for a lot of unnecessary paperwork.
My own feeling on this is that the current system is pretty good, but needs to be improved. The current system should be fixed as opposed to replaced. It makes my skin crawl every time a new government agency is created. God we have so many of them… many of which seem to do the same thing as others.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Metatron said:
Because now that we have a problem that we are going to demand some action from the government on to guarantee food safety, the best thing to do is to have animals slaughtered at unlicensed abattoirs that don’t get regular inspections from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Of course these places will also act to instate a voluntary recall before the outbreak was linked to their plant like the evil big agri-corporation Maple Leaf Foods did.
Did it occur to you that the rule changes were because it was recognized that things had become too lax?
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I’m sharing your post in Google Reader.
———————–
One of my regular blogs finally ran upon the food safety legislation issue. I have read some requests for petitioning representatives before, but really couldn’t figure out what the deal was.
I’m really skeptical of Dr. Buzzo’s account to be honest. But still, if this only applies to inter-state commerce, I don’t much see how it could be that damaging to local farms. Even if it doesn’t affect any small farms soon, the creation of a new agency certainly troubles me (I’m not alone in thinking that). The agency is clearly unnecessary, and the potential for it to gobble up more power in the future is going to loom over all our heads.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Alan said:
Considering that there have been moves in the past to regulate local farms based on the fact that “if people buy locally, this will affect interstate commerce”, I’m really not as optimistic about this. From some of the wording, a regulator that wanted to get nasty could theoretically fine people for their vegetable gardens.
Primary red flags based on a quick reading (not mine, unfortunately, but a friend who I have always found reliable – I’m in finals and have zero time for the next couple weeks to wade through legalese):
-Affects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
-Affects anyone producing meat of any kind including the processing wild game for personal consumption.
-Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal. There are no specifics which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
-Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
-Section 206 defines what will be considered a food production facility and what will be enforced up all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
Many of these issues would be alright if reasonable people on the gov’t side don’t overreach. The problem is that the odds of that are slim to nil, based on historical evidence.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think the Green Movement sucks because nonesense they spout off. But this bill is a disaster waiting to happen. Another exp. of overreaching goverment meddling. My father-in-law owns a large farm and he thinks this is a bad deal. I belive there needs to be reform but with the goverment agencies we already have.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
On a tangent, DHS was not meant to “fix FEMA” – it was created to provide an umbrella for all the disparate agencies related to Homeland Security, to allow for information sharing and co-oridination.
(That’s why the Deparment includes not just FEMA, but the Coast Guard, Immigration and Customs, the Secret Service, and the (new) TSA.)
The DHS was created by act of Congress years before the latest FEMA debacles in hurricane response*, so there was no fire under their feet to “fix it”.
(* Though closer analysis of the issue reveals that FEMA’s problems there were more related to long-term response than the immediate reaction, contrary to common perception.)
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
DV82XL said:
Well Maple Leaf foods was inspected, and it didn’t help very much did it?
Instead of actually getting the system to work, i.e. more thorough and regular inspections on the places that have to get inspected anyway, and tougher penalties if they find something,(neither of which was done at Maple Leaf), they go after small farmers that personally know their customers and have a very good record as far as food safety goes.
It’s the same as the way the government constantly tries to go after homeschoolers, because they say that children have “qualified” teachers, even though homeschooling delivers measurably superior results than most of the dreadful public schools in North America.(I’m not trying to flame anyone here, but public school standards in North America really are very low, compared to the rest of the First World)
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Metatron said:
Ya, and I can remember 18 years ago when one of these independent farmers was sell raw milk here in Quebec (because pasteurization kills the nutrients, of course) until several kids got meningitis, and one died. I as remember my cousin getting a tape worm from ‘farmer’s sausage’ bought from a country farm, so spare me the song about how much more caring they are.
At Maple Leaf Foods the system failed; I just don’t see how the cure less is oversight.
The real cure to the issue though is more use of food irradiation, which had it been applied post packaging to the prepared meats would have eliminated the problem altogether.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
DV82XL said:
I can’t comment on Quebec, since I’ve never been there, but the guys here in BC were quite willing to slaughter and process animals right in front of you, to show you their procedures and I was quite satisfied with their standards. As for the pasteurization stuff, if you use the logic that if something is potentially unsafe, ban it!, then you might as well ban, skiing, motor sport, hockey and pretty much every recreational activity apart from lying on your couch and watching TV. It’s your choice what you put in your mouth. A fair solution would be to have big red warning labels, like:”Warning! This food comes from an unlicensed facility! Consume at your own risk!” Then consumers can choose what they want.
Quote Comment
April 10th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Metatron said:
Up to a point I agree with you, and would prefer a label-based solution.
However I am not sure I see a parallel between activities which are a known and obvious danger, where in many cases that very danger is part of the appeal, and eating a steak. When I sit down to a meal, as a tax paying Canadian, I have an expectation that the food I am feeding myself and my family with is safe. When I go downhill skiing with them, I recognize that we are engaging in an activity where one of us might get hurt. The other factor is that skiing is an optional activity – eating is not
But even labeling laws need enforcement, and there’s the rub if you’re going to have a large apparatus to enforce that aspect of the law, why not one that will do quality assurance? My grandmother would never cook a chicken she hadn’t slaughtered and cleaned herself, because she wanted to examine the lungs for lesions; I rather not return to those ways, thank-you very much.
Quote Comment
April 11th, 2009 at 2:42 am
DV82XL said:
If the government simply sent inspectors over to farms that slaughter meat free of charge and checked up on them periodically, I would be AOK with that. However the current procedure for meat in Canada(and what that law proposes to do for everything in the US) is that in order to even be inspected, you have to pay for permits, have very specific(and expensive) equipment and deal with enough complex government paperwork that is complex beyond the abilities of anyone without a law degree. That means that only large, centralized companies can realistically comply. It should be my choice as an adult to take the “risk” of eating “potentially” unsafe meat(or in the US case pretty much all food products).
This actually ties into the skiing example quite nicely. When I ski, I consciously evaluate the Risk/Pleasure ratio and decide that the pleasure is worth the risk. In the same fashion, I should be able to purchase (really) fresh meat(or in fact whatever food I like) that is from a “risky” source, if I feel that the pleasure I get from it(and let me tell you, the difference in pleasure from truly fresh meat, compared to the store bought variety, has to be tasted to be believed) is worth the Risk, it’s my risk to take. Anyone who doesn’t want the Risk(or doesn’t find the taste difference to their liking, there are some people like that), can go to Superstore and buy a nice, safe(or as recent experience tells us, not really) and inspected piece of meat(or poultry or whatever).
This proposed legislation would take that choice away from every single American, and even though I don’t live there, I’m still concerned about it(due to the huge impact that events in America have in Canada)
Quote Comment
April 11th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Metatron said:
I grew up on a farm and I hunt, and by now I have probably slaughtered more animals and prepared more fresh meat that most people, and frankly, its not that much different than the store-bought cuts, so I think most of the fresh meat experience is physiological, notwithstanding the fact that most meat needs aging before it has any flavor at all.
Secondly let us not forget that Maple Leaf foods had issues with cold cuts, not raw meat, so comparisons here aren’t valid.
Lastly you are free to do what you want in that regard here in Canada, I know of no legislation that prevents the private sale of foodstuffs, what is really being restricted is the reselling of meat which which as been slaughtered at unlicensed abattoirs, which is something a bit different, and is definitely an area where consumer protection laws need to apply.
Quote Comment
April 11th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
DV82XL said:
As I said, some people find no difference between store bought and fresh, some do. I fall into the latter category. Maybe it is psychological, but I don’t think so and it should still be my choice even if it is.
DV82XL said:
I may have been a bit vague in my explanation, It’s a BC Provincial law that prohibited farmers and ranchers from slaughtering their own meat and selling directly to the public. Now, several years after the passage of the law, the nearest legal slaughterhouse for the local farmers and ranchers is still +- 200km away, and they are really hurting. The locals tried to set up a local slaughterhouse, but it was too expensive. Now you see cattle trucks, with cows packed in like Sardines, driving by all the time. If there ever was totally unnecessary cruelty, that’s it.
Now imagine that being extended to the entire food system in the US (and Canada soon after that most likely).
Quote Comment
April 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Metatron said:
Some double blind testing should be able to fix that.
Quote Comment
April 11th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Metatron said:
Well I did a bit of research into this and it would seem that these laws (because BC is not alone) were a result of the BSE scare and efforts to get export markets reopened for Canadian beef. Apparently when the shipment of live animals was halted, an effort was made to reopen export markets to the sale of butchered products, and to this end Canada had to align its regulations with those of other FTA countries.
I have also read the stories that you mention about strapped farmers having to ship their animals to licensed slaughterhouses, and the hardship that initials, but it is strange that they were not complaining when they could sell livestock to abattoirs in the U.S. prior to the ban, so I have to wonder just how much of that is posturing for other ends.
Now I am no big fan of layers of useless regulation, but here is a case where as a country we just don’t have a choice. It’s too bad people like you cannot buy meat they way you like it, but we a huge industry to consider, that depends on external markets that set the rules.
Quote Comment
April 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
DV82XL said:
What do you mean by this? I don’t quite get you.
Everything else you said does make a lot of sense.
Quote Comment
April 12th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Prior to the BSE scare, most Canadian cattle were sent alive to slaughterhouses in the States, this practice was stopped by the U.S. for fear that an infected animal could enter the country undetected. However they were still accepting the import of meat that had been butchered and inspected up here, from animals less than thirty months old. The problem was there wasn’t the capacity in most areas to process all of the livestock on hand. Consequently feedlot operators had to ship animals farther, and in a buyers market to get them slaughtered under the 30 month window.
Naturally they were not happy about this.
Quote Comment
April 12th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I think there is a fundimental misunderstanding of the regulatory process here……
Regulations are needed because 20% of the folks will try and cheat. With enforcement you can drop this down to under 5%. Regulations can be a pain to comply with, however they are in place to PROTECT legitimate operators from the scammers. Because the scammers are so sneaky regs sometimes need to impose fairly strick conditions on the legitamate operators to catch the bad guys.
As a regulator I have to remind even my own staff that when you bust somebody you should not feel sorry for him – you should feel sorry for all the legimate operators who followed the rules and the scammer took advantage of.
I have 160 gas stations in my territory. 159 of them follow the rules. 1 of them does not. It is NOT FAIR to 159 operators that this one bastard cheats.
Regulations are (or should not) be in place to stop people from doing things we don’t like – they are only in place to prevent people from being impacted by somebody who isn’t truthful. Last time I was in BC they had “licenced” “unlicenced” restrurants. I only ate at the licenced ones, but the unlicenced ones didn’t bother or impact me in any way – they were part of my decision making process. If somebody lied and said they had a licence and didn’t they should be penalized for taking advantage.
I await your flames.
Quote Comment
April 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Chris Brown said:
Chris, I tend to agree with you, however “licensed” “unlicensed” restaurants in Canada refers to the right to sell alcoholic beverages. It has nothing to do with compliance to health regulations.
Quote Comment
April 12th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Now why would I go into a resturant that didn’t have beer in Canada?
Quote Comment
April 12th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Chris Brown said:
Clearly you are a man of good taste and clear thinking, there Bruce. Why indeed would anyone want to eat in a place without beer?
Quote Comment