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Many
of you have been hearing about HR 875, a food
safety bill that has been introduced in
Congress. Although much of what has
circulated the internet is not accurate, HR 875
does pose serious problems for sustainable farmers
and their consumers. Unfortunately, there are
already four other "food safety" bills that also
pose serious problems: HR 814, HR 759, S
425, and S 510. HR 814 is essentially a
mandatory NAIS bill, while the others focus on
produce, processed foods and game under FDA
jurisdiction.
Consumers
who buy nutrient-dense foods from local,
sustainable farmers can feel secure about the
safety of their food. The same is not true
for the majority who buy their food in grocery
stores from mass-production industrialized
operations. We understand the pressure that
Congress faces to improve the safety of that
mainstream system. But it is critical that
the laws not interfere with the right to choose
local foods or with our farmers' ability to raise
safer, healthier foods!
Small
sustainable farms are fundamentally different from
factory farms, and should not be regulated the
same way! All of the proposed food safety
bills suffer from a "one-size-fits-all"
approach. And even though the bills'
sponsors might intend for them to apply only to
food crossing state lines, the federal agencies
regularly take a broader view of their
jurisdiction. The FDA's and USDA's past
actions clearly show that Congress must place
strict limitations on these agencies, or they will
impose burdensome and unfair regulations and
enforcement actions on small
farms.
We
don't know which of these bills will move forward
to committee hearings -- or perhaps another bill,
not yet filed, will be the one to move
forward. So we encourage everyone to send a
clear message: Protect our farms from bad
regulation! |
TAKE
ACTION
Call
your U.S. Representative and Senators. If
you do not know who represents you, you can find
out at
www.congress.org or by calling
the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Ask
to speak to the staffer who handles food safety
issues.
Talk
with the staffer about why you support local
foods. Tell them you oppose the five bills
listed above. Ask that they support a food
safety bill that focuses on the real threats to
food safety, such as uninspected imports from
China and lax inspections of massive
slaughterhouses and other factory processing, and
ask that any new laws explicitly exempt small
farmers. Explain that this issue cannot be left to
the agencies' discretion, and you want a clear
focus on the broken factory farm system and not on
small, sustainable farmers.
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UPDATE
- CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON
NAIS
Last
Wednesday, the U.S. House Subcommittee on
Livestock, Dairy and Poultry held a hearing on
NAIS. The questions and comments of several
of the Subcommittee members revealed that they
view NAIS as a food safety program and critical
for animal health in case of a "catastrophic
outbreak." One member said, in essence, that
the costs to farmers financially and in loss of
privacy must be weighed against the "cost in human
life" if NAIS isn't implemented.
Yet
USDA continues to provide absolutely no scientific
evidence to support the claim that NAIS will do
anything at all to improve animal health or food
safety! What NAIS will do is impose
government surveillance and significant expense on
animal owners for no real benefit to the
public. The only ones who will benefit from
NAIS are the meat packers and exporters, tag
manufacturers, database managers and other large
corporations.
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You
can send written testimony to the Subcommittee
before Friday, March 20. Send your testimony
to the Hearing Clerk, Jamie Mitchell, at
Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov
Put
"March 11 Hearing - Animal Identification
Programs" in the subject line. Keep your
comments clear, polite, and
concise.
And
be sure to send a copy to your Representative and
Senators! A copy of your letter to the
Subcommittee makes a great follow-up to the phone
call we suggest above.
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Pete
Kennedy, FTCLDF Interim
President
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