HR 2749 Update!!

This just in from Food Renegade:

HR 2749 Nearly Passes And Spells The End Of Local Food

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 Author: KristenM

Well folks, it looks like Wendell Berry may get his chance to go to jail. Minutes ago the majority of the U.S. House of Representatives voted yes on HR 2749, the so-called “Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.” They came just 6 votes shy of passing the bill.

Of course, HR 2749 is not friendly to small farmers. In fact, it will likely put them out of business. The bill has a number of faults, but the most alarming one is that it finally sneaked the NAIS program into a bill, despite the huge groundswell of dissent among our nation’s public.

And I do mean sneaked. The bill was voted on by suspending the rules, limiting discussion to less than an hour, and not allowing any amendments that could have clarified who these new rules should affect. In the course of the last 24 hours, the language of the bill had been changed three times, and most representatives didn’t have the chance to read the latest version before being required to vote.

The only reason this bill is NOT the current law of the land is that it did not win enough of a majority to pass. If it had been voted on under normal rules, with normal debate allowed, it would have easily been the new law of the land.

Why Should You Care About NAIS?

NAIS promises to require every single livestock animal in America to be identified and tagged — no matter the size of the operation. So, you’ve got a few backyard chickens? Some milking goats? A small free-range pig farm? Say hello to expensive tagging & government paperwork.

HR 2749 was sold to us as a means of protecting our food supply, a way to keep us safer. Congressmen felt rushed to pass it into law so that they could say they did something to respond to our never ending sea of food recalls and the radical increase in food borne illnesses. If I thought it would actually improve food safety, that’d be one thing. But the truth is that NAIS is simply a burdensome tracking system for AFTER the food borne illness spreads. NAIS makes sense for large-scale farms moving tens of thousands of heads of cattle, but for a small producer serving a local, limited market, the law makes no sense at all since that kind of direct farm to consumer channel is easily traceable.

To top it all off, large scale farming operations are actually exempted from tagging each individual animal! Instead, they can tag an entire herd with the same ID. This will save them millions of dollars while effectively putting all their smaller competitors out of business.

What Else Is Wrong With HR 2749?

A careful reading of the bill also reveals that HR 2749:

1. Will create duplicate fees & requirements for certified organic producers.
2. Will erode wildlife habitats in a misguided attempt to keep produce “clean” — when it is clear from the scientific evidence that it is industrialized animals that spread E.Coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella, not wild animals.
3. Will greatly increase the costs associated with safely composting manure and using it as a fertilizer for natural and organic crops.
4. Will interfere with and possibly prohibit small-scale farmers adding value to their products. This includes washing and cutting produce, creating canned jams or jellies, anything really.
5. Will require a costly electronic filing system that may well put farmers using paper records out of business, including many of our Amish brothers and sisters who can not comply with the electronic filing standards without violating their religious principles.
6. Will give the federal government the power to ban raw milk sales.

Basically, this bill — as written, without any amendments or clarifications — will ruin small family farm agriculture and eliminate consumer choice. It may be that the only farms able to survive this new legislation are industrialized farms. In the very least, it will consolidate industrial agriculture even further.

What Can YOU Do?

Right now HR 2749 is going back into committee to be modified and re-written in the hopes of bringing it back to the floor for a regular vote tomorrow, Thursday July 30th. Now is the time to call your representative and tell them to vote NO on this bill when it comes up again. If you’ like to find out how your congressperson originally voted — whether to express your support or disappointment — click here.

And, if you’re like me and less than optimistic about our ability to actually have a say in our legislative process, then tell your representative to AT LEAST demand provisions or amendments in the bill that will protect small scale farmers and producers.

More Food Fascism From the Feds...

HR2749 may reach the floor in Congress for a vote today or tomorrow. It will be very bad for our small farmers, artisan producers, farmers' markets, food co-ops, CSAs, and basically every citizen of our nation if this thing passes. Please contact your US House Representatives and Senators and voice your opposition to HR2749 ASAP!

Artisan Cheese from Pugs Leap Farm May Disappear if Food Safety Bill Passes
by Pascal Destandau of Pugs Leap Farm

Eric Smith and I own and operate a small diversified farm in Sonoma County, at Pugs Leap Farm we milk twenty seven goats by hand and make cheeses we sell at local farmers markets in Sonoma, Marin, Alameda and San Francisco. We have a few chickens and sell the eggs at the markets. In the next few years we hope to take to the markets the fruits and nuts from the orchards we planted. We also grow onions, garlics, chards, salad greens, tomatoes, corn, squash, strawberry and culinary herbs. We intend to add a few beehives next year.

HR2749 (The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009) which is currently making its way rapidly through the House of Representative will put us out of business.

HR2749 calls for:

a yearly registration with the FDA with a $500 fee

full HACCP plan for every type of produce sold or processed, for us that mean one plan for the dairy, one one for cheese making, one for transporting and retailing at the market, one for the fruits and vegetables, and another one for the nuts

FDA approved methods by which crops are raised and harvested. The most likely outcome will be along the lines of the leafy green ordinance, scorched earth and exclusion of any wildlife.

I have twenty two years experience in research and development and in technical operations, at a managerial level, in the pharmaceutical and personal care products industry. I therefore know very well the resources

needed to create and maintain a full HACCP plan. Creating one plan would take me about 100 hours and maintaining it would take 2 hours per day of production. Based on quotes I obtained in 2006 for laboratory testing, I estimate that I would need to budget $15,000/year just for the microbiological testing of the cheeses. The International Dairy Food Association (IDFA) has published some guidelines for HACCP which were used by the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) when it developed a voluntary dairy HACCP program in parallel with the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO). To follow those guidelines I will have to start testing every batch of milk for drug residues, I will also have to tests for pesticide residues and mycotoxins. I am still in the process of researching what amount of testing will be needed for compliance and it is still unclear if I will be allowed to do my own testing or if I’ll need to send samples to a certified laboratory. This will be decided when the regulations are written.
Stopping feeding cattle a high grain diet would be much more efficient than an HACCP plan to eliminate E. Coli O157:H7 from our meat supply. The same for silage and Listeria. The practice of feeding antibiotics for faster weight gain has been linked to the presence of antibiotic resistant strains of salmonella in chicken, turkey, beef and pork. Recently MRSA has been found in pork meat.

The enforcement of HACCP plan for all food producers will do nothing to address those problems. Furthermore HACCP plans are very industry friendly and rely on self regulation and self regulation does not work. For example in 2006 from January to June, Cadbury knowingly shipped products tainted with salmonella; Cadbury’s defense is that the levels in the chocolate were too low to cause illness.

On July seven the White House appointed Michael R. Taylor Advisor to FDA Commissioner. The press release mention that it is his third appointment at the FDA and that Taylor will work to:

Assess current food program challenges and opportunities

Identify capacity needs and regulatory priorities

Develop plans for allocating fiscal year 2010 resources

Develop the FDA’s budget request for fiscal year 2011

Plan implementation of new food safety legislation.
The press release failed to mention Mr. Taylor connections with Monsanto.

Mr. Taylor began at the FDA in 1976 as a litigating attorney, he left to join King & Spalding where Monsanto was his personal client regarding food labeling and regulatory issues.. He returned to the FDA as Deputy Commissioner for Policy from 1991 to 1994, overseeing FDA’s policy development and rulemaking, including the implementation of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act and issuance of new seafood safety rules. This was a new position created for him and he instantly became the FDA official with the greatest influence on GM food regulation, overseeing the development of government policy. He was part of the team that issued the very industry-friendly policy on food biotechnology and that approved the use of Monsanto’s genetically engineered growth hormone in dairy cows. He introduced the the concept of substantial equivalence as an appropriate method for determining safety. This is the basis for the lack of safety testing and the non labeling of GMO containing food. The same concept was used to prevent dairy products to be labeled as rBGH free.


Mr. Taylor left the FDA in 1994 for the USDA. In 1996 he went back to King & Spalding and in 1998 he was appointed vice president of Public Policy by Monsanto.

I am very concerned that Mr. Taylor will use his position to issue very tech heavy, industry friendly regulations that will place an unbearable burden on small producers and family farms.
Food safety is compromised by industrial farming practices not by sustainable farming. The cost of cheap food has been food safety. My personal check list for food safety is: no GMO, no trans fat, no high fructose corn syrup, no food colorants, no artificial flavors, no rBGH, no meat, eggs or dairy from CAFO’s. The short version is do not eat anything with a bar code.

Size based regulations are possible. In the new FDA egg safety regulations producers with less than 3,000 laying hen are exempt, producers with more than 3,000 but less than 50,000 have 36 months to comply, producers with more than 50,000 have 12 months to comply.