Cornucopia Institute: FDA Food Safety Rules Threaten to Crush the Good Food Movement
Posted: September 24, 2013
Categories: Food in the News
Click image for PDF of the Cornucopia Institute’s white paper on proposed food and farming regulations by the FDA.
Recently introduced regulations from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have drawn criticism from small and medium-scale American farmers.
A white paper from the Cornucopia Institute concerning the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which was passed by the US Congress three years ago and is now set to be implemented by the FDA, claims that the FSMA will drive small farmers out of operation. The white paper is particularly critical of regulations meant to control salmonella in eggs produced by outdoor flocks, which it argues unfairly imposes burdensome regulations on small farms doing less than $500,000/year in business.
According to Mark Kastel, Co-Director of the Cornucopia Institute, “the added expense and record-keeping time will potentially force many small and medium-sized local farms — owner-operated, selling at farmers markets directly to consumers or to local grocers and natural food co-ops — out of business.” The report claims that this is especially unfair, as most abuses responsible for salmonella outbreaks “are mostly emanating from industrial-scale farms and giant agribusiness food-processing facilities.”
The Cornucopia Institute is currently encouraging farmers and citizens to contact the FDA via a proxy letter in order to encourage the agency to reconsider what it feels to be key deficiencies in the proposed regulations.
Among the key changes proposed is a greater emphasis from the FDA on food processors rather than farms alone and on manure contaminated with deadly infections pathogens that has been responsible for polluting air, water, and farmlands. Also highlighted are industrial-scale egg houses “confining thousands of hens in filthy and dangerous conditions,” a key factor in the 2010 salmonella outbreaks, according to Cornucopia.
Read the full news release about the FDA regulations here.