Senate Passes Food Safety Bill with Manager's Amendment

Just in, the Food Safety Modernization Act, SB 510, was passed by the Senate this morning along with the critical Manager's Amendment which protects small farms.

The bill marks the most sweeping overhaul of food safety regulations in nearly a century. It will require improved planning and record-keeping by food producers and processors and will allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make mandatory recalls of contaminated food. The bill exempts small farms from the regulation.

The legislation follows a spate of national outbreaks of food poisoning involving products as varied as eggs, peanuts and spinach in which thousands of people were sickened and more than a dozen died. (1)

Food illnesses affect one in four Americans and kill 5,000 of them each year, according to government statistics. Tainted food has cost the industry billions of dollars in recalls, lost sales and legal expenses.

The bill places greater responsibility on manufacturers and farmers to prevent contamination - a departure from the current system, which relies on government inspectors to catch contamination after the fact.

The measure also gives the FDA authority to recall food; now, it must rely on food companies to voluntarily pull products off the shelves. And it gives the FDA access to internal records at farms and food production facilities.

The bill sets standards for imported foods, requiring importers to verify that products grown and processed overseas meet safety standards. Public health experts say this is urgently needed, given the increase in imported foods. The FDA has been inspecting only about one percent of imported food products.

The bill would also require the FDA to regularly inspect farms and food processing facilities, something it does not currently do.

There has been a lot of controversy around this Act, which many said would threaten small organic farmers, famers markets and even backyard gardens. An important group of six amendments, grouped and called collectively, "The Manager's Amendment", was finally approved after two weeks of debate between consumer groups who had originally opposed a portion of the amendment and sustainable agriculture groups who supported it.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, who worked hard for the amendments, reported that the bill will now be sent to the House for their consideration.

The New York Times reported today that, "Despite unusual bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and a strong push from the Obama administration, the bill could still die because there might not be enough time for the usual haggling between the Senate and House of Representatives, which passed its own version last year (HR.2749) without the amendments. Top House Democrats said that they would consider simply passing the Senate version to speed approval."

“The Manager’s Amendment” essentially removes all the obstacles to preserving the viability of small organic farming and organic farms in back yards. Essentially, it says that organic farmers and growers will not need to register their farms with the FDA if the operation has less than $500,000 in gross sales and its products are sold primarily to customers within 400 miles.

More detailed information on the six amendments that each became part of the Manager’s amendment can be found here.

According to the Washington Post, "Boosters of sustainable agriculture and the local food movement want small farmers to be exempt from the regulations, which they say could force small operations out of business."

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), himself a farmer, negotiated language into the bill last week to exempt small farmers who have annual sales of less than $500,000 and sell the majority of their product directly to consumers, restaurants and retailers in their state or nearby.

"The risk that they pose is small," he said. "They have the ability to meet their consumers eyeball to eyeball. They're not raising a commodity; they're raising food. There's a pride of ownership."

If the FDA had reason to believe a small farmer was producing unsafe food, it could revoke the exemption for that farmer, according to the provision.

The darlings of the local food movement, authors Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, weighed in on the debate last Tuesday and endorsed Tester's proposal, calling it "the right thing to do."

There's no question that improving food safety is in everyone's interest. Down to Earth is pleased that small organic farmers were protected via the Manager's amendment, and hope that the House preserves these protections.

You can contact your Representative to ask them to pass the Senate version of the Food Safety Modernization Act. It’s easy to call: Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code. Click on your Representative’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number. You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Representative’s office: 202-224-3121.

The message is simple: “I am a constituent of Representative___________ and I am calling to ask him/her to vote for the Food Safety Modernization Act as passed by the Senate. We need a food safety bill that cracks down on corporate bad actors without erecting new barriers to more local and regional food sourcing. Size and practice appropriate food safety regulation for small and mid-sized farms and processors is vital to economic recovery, public health, and nutritional well-being. “

Be a good citizen today and help to preserve your right to healthy food!