NEWS | PRESS

Food Safety Legislation Updates
This is fast becoming a hot topic. Find recent updates and links below. Visit the NSAC website - a great source for Food Safety Legislation action alerts, press releases, and more.

• French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) evaluates nutritional and sanitary quality of organic food
  Food security, nutritional quality and safety vary widely around the world. Up to now, industrialized production methods have clearly shown severe limitations. The AFSSA performed an up-to-date exhaustive and critical evaluation of these issues. Read full review.


• NSAC's Food Safety on the Farm is now available
  The brief examines some of the current legislative food safety proposals that have been introduced in the 111th Congress, as well as admin. developments within the Obama Admin., the FDA, and the USDA. The paper concludes with NSAC's policy recommendations grounded in the experience and interest of small and mid-sized family farmers...more.


• Keeping America's Families Safe: Reforming the Food Safety System
  FDA - October 22, 2009 - Statement of Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. Commissioner of Food and Drugs Food and Drug Administration - Department of Health and Human Services - before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions U.S. Senate...read statement.


• Agricultural Marketing Service Hearings - Ohio Testimony
  OHIO, October 6, 2009 - Read the testimony of MOSES Board Member and Organic Farmer Chris Blanchard of Rock Spring Farm, at the Ohio Ag. Marketing Service Hearings.


• Bridging the GAPs
  36 page pdf by Food and Water Watch and IATP on "Strategies to Improve Produce Safety, Preserve Farm Diversity and Strengthen Local Food Systems".


• Meet your greens, part 3: Taking the stand against the veggilantes
  ETHICURIAN, October 4, 2009 - This is the third in a series about the USDA hearings on an industry proposal for a food-safety marketing agreement for leafy green vegetables...more.


• Testimony at the Agricultural Marketing Service Hearings
  CALIFORNIA, September 24, 2009 - Read the testimony of Steve Etka, National Organic Coalition, during the Agricultural Marketing Service hearing to consider the proposed National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. You can also watch video of the hearings!


• Protect Local Farmers
  YES MAGAZINE, September 17, 2009 - When the spinach contamination epidemic was happening in the fall of 2006, and supermarkets were pulling spinach from their shelves under order from the FDA, many local produce growers experienced a sharp increase in sales...more.


• Leafy Greens Food Safety Program Costs
  September 22, 2009 - UC Small Farm Program Research Brief (16 page PDF) addressing the costs to growers to comply with California's Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement and other food safety programs.


• Attend a Food Safety Hearing
  The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will hold seven public hearings in September and October to hear public comments on a proposed national leafy green marketing agreement. The hearings stem from the 2006 E. coli outbreak linked to bagged spinach and the subsequent adoption of a California marketing agreement for handlers of leafy greens. The agreement is widely seen as problematic for small and mid-sized farms, for diversified and organic producers, and for wildlife and biodiversity. The USDA added hearing sites in response to an NSAC and National Organic Coalition request to ensure that they hear from a more diverse cross section of vegetable producers. The closest hearing to the midwest is Oct. 6, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, Room D130, 400 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio...more.



• New Leopold Center FAQ Answers Questions about Selling Local Food
  Ames, Iowa, August 24, 2009 - With the help of food safety experts and Iowa food regulatory officials, the Leopold Center has compiled a new summary of "Frequently Asked Questions on Food Regulations for Small Market Food Producers.". People interested in selling their products via an expanding array of direct markets may find this online resource helpful.


• Who's Your Farmer?
  MOFGA, August 17, 2009 - Op-Ed written by Russell Libby, Executive Director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. A small assessment/check-in of where we are in the food safety legislation debate.


• Food Safety Bill Defeated, then Passed
  NSAC, July 30, 2009 - On Wednesday, July 28, the House brought H.R. 2749, The Food Safety Enhancement Act, to the floor under a suspension of the rules with very limited debate and no amendments allowed. None of the amendments endorsed by National Sustainable Agriculture Coaltion (NSAC) and the National Organic Coalition (NOC), were substantively incorporated into the final bill. The vote tally was 280-150, 6 votes short of the 2/3 majority needed to pass the bill under suspension.
  
  Almost immediately after the vote, House leadership asked the Rules Committee to hold an emergency session, still allowing no amendments, sending the bill back to the floor, but this time only requiring a majority vote. On Thursday afternoon, the House again brought H.R. 2749 to the floor, this time with a slightly more extensive debate time followed by an anti-climatic simple majority vote. The bill passed the chamber with a final vote of 283-142.


• House Rejects Food Safety Bill with Regressive Fee on Farmers
  NSAC, July 29, 2009 - The House of Representatives today failed to obtain a two-thirds majority to pass the Food Safety Enhancement Act (HR 2749). The vote was 280-150, 6 votes short of the total needed to pass the bill under suspension of the rules with no debate and no amendments. The bill may now come back to the floor at a later date under regular rules allowing for amendments to be considered... more.


• Background and Resources on Federal Food Safety Enhancement Act
  ATTRA, July 27, 2009 -- H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act (FSEA) of 2009 has caused significant controversy among almost all elements of the agricultural community. The FSEA has been approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is awaiting full House debate and vote in the very near future (possibly as early as the week of July 27-31)...more.


• ACTION ALERT! Food Safety Update - Congress To Vote Soon
  It is important that you call your Representative by Wednesday (July 29) midday, and ask them to join the effort to protect small and mid-sized family farmers, the environment, and consumer choice by supporting the provisions in the Kaptur-Farr proposal to Food Safety Bill HR 2749. Find your representative here. Find a list of phone contacts here.
  
  The message is simple. "I am a constituent of Representative___________ and I am calling to ask him/her to support the Kaptur-Farr proposal to HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. I am also asking him/her to vote against HR 2749 unless the proposals included in the Kaptur-Farr letter are included in the final bill."


• Food Safety Discussion on Food Chain Radio
  On July 18, 2009 at 9am Pacific Time, Michael Olson's Food Chain Radio hosts Peter Kennedy from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Tami Wahl from the American Association of Health Freedom for a conversation about the consolidation of government power along the food chain. (A sponsor of HR 2749, Representative Henry Waxman D-CA, has also been invited to participate.) Topics include a look at the new rules and regulations 2749 will place on family-scale agriculture; what impact those rules will have on the nation's food chain; and whether only industrial-scaled producers of processed foods will be able to survive 2749.


• ACTION ALERT! Ask Tough Questions About Pending Food Safety Legislation
  NSAC, July 14, 2009 - There is no question: our food system needs to be safer. But Congress is currently debating food safety legislation (Food Safety Enhancement Act - H.R. 2749) that could compromise small and mid-sized family farmers. If approved, certain provisions could hinder beginning, sustainable, and organic farmers access to markets, require expensive fees, and lead to the dismantling of important conservation practices and wildlife habitat. PLEASE CALL MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE BY WEDNESDAY, JULY 15! Download this doc for more info, including contact numbers and talking points. (Find committee members by state).


• Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safety
  CHRONICLE WASHINGTON BUREAU, July 13, 2009 - Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind...more.


• Good Grief! Could it be true?
  The Consumers Union answers allegations made by the The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FCLDF), a group primarily devoted to preserving the right to sell raw milk, and Food Freedom. Both groups have mounted vociferous internet campaigns to defeat HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act (FSEA), alleging that the bill will hurt small farms...more.


• GAPs: Bringing Good Agricultural Practices to Your Farm
  With food safety a growing topic around the country and in congress, implementing good agricultural practices on your farm is more important than ever. This MOSES fact sheet discusses a few of the basic GAP requirements. Includes additional resources where you can find more GAP info and documentation. Go to Fact Sheet.


• Food Safety Sweep
  ETHICUREAN, June 17, 2009 - A sweeping food safety bill, H.R. 2749, passed unanimously out of the committee....there will be lots more analysis in the coming days, but here's what we've gathered thus far: In many respects, this bill is a vast improvement over the status quo. It requires high-risk food processing facilities to be inspected every 6-12 months (the Georgia peanut plant behind this spring's record Salmonella outbreak had last been inspected by the FDA ten years ago), and it gives the FDA the teeth to require companies to recall contaminated products. (Under current law, the FDA can only ask nicely.) Don't be surprised to see Big Food redouble its efforts to water down the strongest regulations on testing, reporting, and inspections...more.


• Food Safety - How local can you go
  GRIST, June 15, 2009 - The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (FSEA) draft, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Waxman on May 26, 2009 and is expected to move quickly through the House. Consumers, farmers, and manufacturers alike all appear to be for a food safety bill, so the question is not whether a bill will be approved, but whether it will make our food safer...more.


• Food Safety - Different views of the world
  June 12, 2009 - Brief overview of legislation, petitions, etc that are moving forward.