As a member of a local community-sponsored organic agriculture group, and a home gardener (in the Pacific NW in US) I, too, have been following the dialog on the internet about this and related bills, and have been talking to the farmers here about it. It does seem to me that the initial reporting on this has been a bit hysterical, though I could be proven wrong at some point, given the pervasive control that seems to eventually prevail with the PTB. There are opinions across quite a range on the internet about it. Here are a couple from organic farm groups, followed by a couple links to articles with a more alarmist tone. If someone out there knows more clearly what the deal is, please add to this!
The Slow Food USA Blog
H.R. 875
Posted on Fri, March 27, 2009 by Jerusha
Everybody’s asking: “what’s up with H.R. 875 ( a bill proposed in response to recent large-scale and well-publicized food safety problems)? Why am I getting hysterical emails and phone calls?” On this matter we direct you to our trusted colleagues.
1. Food and Water Watch breaks down the bill clearly and effectively, letting us know what it does and doesn’t do. Their verdict=don’t panic, but do pay attention.
“There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for one size of agriculture – the largest industrialized operations. That’s why it is important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers different from agribusiness. And the work doesn’t stop there – if Congress passes any of these bills, the FDA will have to develop rules and regulations to implement the law, a process that we can’t afford to ignore.
But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food safety system is not an approach that works for consumers, who are faced with a food supply that is putting them at risk and regulators who lack the authority to do much about it.”
2. Tom Philpott, over at Grist urges those of us in the sustainable food movement to resist baseless hysteria and focus on what’s there, quoting the Organic Consumer Association and saying “Quite sensibly, the OCA wants Congress to avoid “one-size-fits-all legislation.” Regulations that make sense for a 1000-acre spinach farm could push a diversified operation that includes spinach in its crop mix out of business. Sustainable-food advocates should oppose H.R. 875 until it adds scale-appropriate language. But effective opposition does not mean indulging in fictional rants about it. There’s no evidence that the bill aims to end farming; insisting that it does destroys credibility.”
In fact, it sounds like H.R. 759 is more pernicious, and actually, much more likely to pass (word on the street is that H.R. 875 doesn’t have legs). We recommend writing your legislators about your desire to see scale-appropriate language added to both bills--perhaps including exemptions for small farms. However, it is important that we avoid hysteria and untruths, and focus on the facts.
Per the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) :
“For now, what you can do is call your Congress member and Senators and them them that any produce safety bill MUST BE:
* Scale-appropriate. Federal law should support producers at each level, not impose a one-size-fits-all approach that runs small farms and farmers markets out of business.
* Risk-based. Measures to mitigate produce safety risk or to implement safety solutions must be based on actual risk assessments for different products and scales of farms, not assumptions based on an industrial food model.
* Science-based. Specific measures to mitigate produce safety risk or specific metrics included in produce safety solutions, must be based on sound science, specific to the growing conditions on individual farms. Funding research to develop a science-based approach to on-farm produce safety should be a priority
* Provide tiered compliance alternatives. Compliance with produce safety measures should be tiered to reflect farm size, market served and risk, for instance, a 2-acre fruit and vegetable producer selling exclusively through farmers markets or CSAs within 50 miles of the farm vs. a several hundred acre producer shipping produce to multiple outlets in multiple states. A tiered compliance program would include training on on-farm produce safety for all producers, with larger producers choosing to comply with more rigorous certifications to meet buyer specifications, not federally-mandated standards.
* Focused on education, not regulation. On-farm food safety should center around education and incentives rather than mandated regulations with punitive measures for non-compliance.
_http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_food/blog_post/hr_875/
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Why I’m not Panicking About HR 875
Sharon March 14th, 2009
I’ve gotten a lot of emails about HR 875, recently, asking me to weigh in, which meant that I actually had to go find the text of HR 875, and read it. This falls in the category of top 10 things I hate about writing - having to read anything created by committee, but I soldiered through it for y’all.
And I admit, there are some reasons to be a little troubled by this bill (and one not to be - from what I see, its chances of passing are very, very slim) - for example, some state laws about on-farm slaughter may be overridden by this. The national trackback capacity seems to reinforce the worst excesses of NAIS. However, it isn’t up there on the “signs of the apocalypse countdown” either.
The rhetoric has been overblown to a destructive degree. As Tom Philpott points out at Grist:
“I’ve been reading hysterical missives about H.R. 875 for weeks. I could never square them with the text of the bill, which is admittedly vague. For example, the bill seeks to regulate any “food production facility” which it defines as “any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.”
But then again, the USDA already regulates farms. And “24 hours GPS tracking of … animals”? Not in there. “Warrentless government entry” to farms? Can’t find it.
More recently, reading around the web, I found more reasoned takes on H.R. 875. The bill may not be worth supporting — and from what I hear, it has little chance of passing. But it hardly represents the “end of farming,” much less the end of organic farming. The Organic Consumers Association, an energetic food-industry watchdog, recently called the paranoia around H.R. 875 the “Internet rumor of the week.”
The Organic Consumers Association has this to say:
The Organic Consumers Association is not taking a position for or against this bill, but encouraging its members to write to Congress to urge it to enact food safety legislation that addresses the inherent dangers of our industrialized food system without burdening certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations.
Quite sensibly, the OCA wants Congress to avoid “one-size-fits-all legislation.” Regulations that make sense for a 1000-acre spinach farm could push a diversified operation that includes spinach in its crop mix out of business. Sustainable-food advocates should oppose H.R. 875 until it adds scale-appropriate language.
But effective opposition does not mean indulging in fictional rants about it. There’s no evidence that the bill aims to end farming; insisting that it does destroys credibility.”
Tom has this just right. Overstatement does not help our cause - this is one of the reasons I avoided writing much about the Manna Storehouse raid - because the internet version of this, in which a wild eyed SWAT team attacked innocent coop owners was, ummm…exaggerated. The best evidence I can find suggest that a Sherriff’s deputy did prevent the family (who had openly engaged in civil disobedience by refusing to conform to existing regulation for food sales - last I checked, when you flout laws you consider unjust, you probably will get a visit from said enforcers) from going anywhere while their facilities were being examined, but the SWAT team waving uzis around was no where to be found.
Now I am not happy about the way our existing laws favor industrial agriculture. I am not happy about the ways that government regulation has regulated small farmers out of existence. I don’t like HR 875, and am glad it doesn’t stand much of a chance of passing. I don’t like the assumptions that underlie HR 875, which implies that all agriculture should be regulated uniformly, and that the risk from small farms is equivalent to the risk from massive industrial farms, neither of which are true.
But I think the best way to defeat things like HR 875 are not by exaggerating their danger, but by addressing their limitations in a balanced way. So much of the job of small farming advocates is undermining the lies told by industrial agriculture - and they tell a lot of lies. We can’t afford to tell lies - they’ve got the money and resources to magnify any mistake, any falsehood, any mis-statement. We can’t afford, even honestly, to not make our case on the right grounds.
_http://sharonastyk.com/2009/03/14/why-im-not-panicking-about-hr-875/
A couple other links to articles about HR875 which are more sinister/ alarming in tone:
_http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-s-dream-bill-HR-by-Linn-Cohen-
_http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/GMO-Clones-the-FDA-HR-87-by-Barbara-Peterson-090408-575.html
