The nation’s new food safety regulations, just passed by Congress, are intended to make the food supply safer.
But the rules won’t apply to all food producers. Small farmers — particularly those who sell directly to consumers — won a last-minute exemption.
Eric and Joanna Reuter, who own Chert Hollow Farm near Columbia, Mo., were relieved.
The exemption, Eric Reuter said, was an attempt to preserve a sense of personal responsibility between the farmer and the consumer.
“It’s not a question of small or big farms, or organic or not organic farms. It is simply a question of how that marketing works,” he said. “And we only need regulation to step in once that relationship becomes strained or distant enough so that that is no longer possible.”
The new law gives the Food and Drug Administration power to impose stricter growing and harvesting standards, and increase safety inspection visits. And, the FDA will now require producers to draw up detailed food safety plans to reduce contamination risks before food goes to market.
But, thanks to that last-minute exemption, not producers who distribute 50 percent of their product to customers within 275 miles and who make less than $500,000 in gross sales annually.
These small farms will continue to be vetted by state regulations.
Reuter said federal oversight wouldn’t have made their food any safer — though he acknowledged food that comes from the ground isn’t always harmless.
“Food is dirty. Food is something that is going to have problems now and then. We can’t sanitize food production. Small farms are not perfect either. We can make mistakes. Anywhere in the system can make mistakes,” Reuter said.
Many large producers are unhappy with the exemption for small producers.They say foodborne illnesses know no bounds.
“We think it sends the wrong message to consumers because of the exemption of small growers for reasons based on sales, geography and types of customers — instead of risk and science,” said Wendy Fink-Weber, with the Western Growers Association, which represents large and small growers in California.
“So when it comes to making a choice of purchasing fresh produce grown under a strict set of safety standards … which ones would you buy?” she said.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition was one organization behind the effort to exempt small farms from the regulations. The group asserts that raw produce is not inherently dangerous and small farms do not cause the major, nationwide outbreaks of food illnesses.
“If the farmer’s name, address and phone number on the product, or if the consumer bought it from a farmer’s market from a farmer that they know where they’re from, then that is inherent traceability,” saidFerd Hoefner, the coalition’s policy director. “And we don’t need to go through very costly traceability efforts.”
Costly, right. That’s another thing.
The new food safety regulations were just authorized by Congress, not funded — which means another round of debate through Congress next year. What becomes effective immediately, however, is the FDA’s authority to immediately recall products suspected of carrying pathogens that make people sick. Other than that, the food industry will have to wait and see how long it will take before the new rules become safely funded and digested.
