Archives for the 'Food Safety' Category
Revised Senate Food Safety Bill Includes Important Amendments
Friday, August 13th, 2010
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee released a copy of the “manager’s amendment” to the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) which is, in essence, the bill as reported out of the HELP Committee late last year as modified by a long and arduous set of negotiations that have taken place since that time to work out particular issues.
The manager’s package has the support of HELP Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY) as well as the four lead sponsors of the underlying bill, Dick Durbin (D-IL), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Richard Burr (R-NC).
The manager’s amendment will be adopted if and when the bill comes to the Senate floor in September when Congress returns from its summer recess.
The full manager’s package is available at http://help.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/WHI10337.pdf.
The Congressional Budget Office has scored the Manager’s package version of the bill as costing $1.6 billion over the next five years.
In releasing the new version of the bill, Senator Harkin said, “For far too long, the headlines have told the story of why this measure is so urgently needed: foodborne illness outbreaks, product recalls and Americans sickened over the food they eat. This 100-year-old plus food safety structure needed to be modernized. I am pleased that after a great deal of time and effort from members on both sides of the aisle, we have a strong, bipartisan proposal that will overhaul our current food safety system – a system that right now fails far too many American consumers. I am confident that the remaining details will be worked out and am hopeful that the measure will come to the Senate floor as soon as possible.”
Most sustainable agriculture and family farm groups think the Senate bill is a very significant improvement over the companion bill passed by the House of Representatives (HR 2749) last year. We’ve been able to help make substantial improvements in the Senate bill through the HELP markup and in changes that will be adopted as part of the manager’s amendment when the bill comes to the Senate floor. Assuming the Tester amendment (see below) can be worked out and agreed to before Senate floor action, we will be able to support the Senate bill. However, we strongly oppose the companion House measure, and stand ready to defend the Senate bill in conference with the House should that prove necessary.
The Managers package includes the following important improvements to the bill as reported out of committee last year:
- The amendment sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pertaining to farms that engage in value-added processing or that co-mingle product from several farms. It will provide the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the authority to either exempt farms engaged in low or no risk processing or co-mingling activities from new regulatory requirements or to modify particular regulatory requirements for such farming operations. Included within the purview of the amendment are exemptions or flexibilities with respect to requirements within S. 510 for food safety preventative control plans and FDA on-farm inspections.
- The amendments sponsored by Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) to reduce unnecessary paperwork and excess regulation. The Bennet language pertains to both the preventative control plan and the produce standards sections of the bill. FDA is instructed to provide flexibility for small processors including on-farm processing, to minimize the burden of compliance with regulations, and to minimize the number of different standards that apply to separate foods. FDA will also be prohibited from requiring farms and other food facilities to hire consultants to write food safety plans or to identify, implement, certify or audit those plans. With respect to produce standards, FDA will also be given the discretion to develop rules for categories of foods or for mixtures of foods rather than necessarily needing to have a separate rule for each specific commodity or to regulate specific crops if the real food safety issue involved mixtures only.
- The amendment sponsored by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) to provide for a USDA-delivered competitive grants program for food safety training for farmers, small processors and wholesalers. The training projects will prioritize small and mid-scale farms, beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, and small food processors and wholesalers. The program will be administered by USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture. As is the case for all of the provisions in S. 510, funding for the bill and for this competitive grants program will happen through the annual agriculture appropriations bill process.
- The effort championed by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to strip the bill of wildlife-threatening enforcement against “animal encroachment” of farms is also in the manager’s package. It will require FDA to apply sound science to any requirements that might impact wildlife and wildlife habitat on farms.
- An amendment proposed by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to amend the traceability and recordkeeping section of the bill that will exempt food that is direct marketed from farmers to consumers or to grocery stores and exempt food that has labeling that preserves the identity of the farm that produced the food. The amendment also prevents FDA from requiring any farm from needing to keep records beyond the first point of sale when the product leaves the farm, except in the case of farms that co-mingle product from multiple farms, in which case they must also keep records one step back as well as one step forward.
Not in the package but still under serious negotiation for inclusion in the bill when it reaches the floor of the Senate is an amendment by Senator John Tester (D-MT) to exempt food facilities with under a certain annual gross sales threshold from preventative control plan requirements and to exempt farmers who primarily direct market product to consumers, stores or restaurants from the bill’s produce standards regulations. Our expectation is this amendment will be successfully negotiated over the coming weeks and will be accepted as part of the final bill once the bill reaches the Senate floor.
We also continue to note and emphasize the additional provisions NSAC helped secure when the bill was marked up in Committee last year. Those changes included:
- requiring FDA and USDA coordination (including with respect to organic farming);
- limiting recordkeeping for farmers to just the initial sale to the first purchaser of the crop; and
- language in the produce section directing FDA to create rules that are appropriate to the scale and diversity of the farm, that take into consideration conservation and environmental standards established by other federal agencies, that do not conflict with organic certification standards, and that prioritize high risk crops.
Still pending is an amendment from Senator Feinstein (D-CA) banning the use of Bisphenol A (BPA) in all food and beverage containers. The Grocery Manufacturers Association and other industry groups have come out strongly against the measure. Negotiations are ongoing to work out compromise language, but it is unclear to us what the status is of those talks.
Know Your Farmer Blog and Agency Guides
Sunday, August 1st, 2010
USDA programs can often seem enigmatic and confusing. Many farmers, rural development and conservation groups in need of financial or technical assistance are often either unaware of what USDA programs exist, or lack access to the assistance they seek.
The USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative seeks to remedy this disconnect by strengthening local food systems and improving access to USDA programs.
On Friday, July 30, Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food published a blog, “USDA Programs at Glance,” with links to memorandum outlining programs that can be used to foster local and regional food systems in four areas of USDA: Rural Development, Farm Service Agency, Research, Education & Economics, and Agriculture Marketing Service.
We have reported on the first three as they were issued. The AMS memo is new. According to the memo from Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan (herself a former head of AMS): AMS research and technical assistance in the fields of food deserts and regional food hubs, along with their support and analysis of farmers markets and other forms of direct marketing, access to market news, and help for farmers working to enhance food safety practices, form the backbone of the Department’s effort to provide fresh, nutritious, easily accessible food to the public, with special focus on underserved areas of this country.
The memo provides basic information on ten programs and research areas, including two that were initiated and championed by NSAC – the Farmers Market Promotion Program and the Organic Certification Cost-Share Program.
The USDA blog post indicates they will be adding information on other USDA agencies’ programs related to Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food in coming months.
Summaries of programs created or significantly amended in the 2008 Farm Bill can also be found in NSAC’s Grassroots Guide to the 2008 Farm Bill. Another good place to find accessible USDA program information is ATTRA’s Building Sustainable Farms, Ranches and Communities: Federal Programs for Sustainable Agriculture, Forestry, Entrepreneurship, Conservation and Community Development.
Legislative Roundup: Farm Credit Funding Passes, Other Food and Farm Legislation Could Move
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
[Friday July 30 update to story below -- A measure to fund the Pigford II class action settlement between USDA and black farmers is now expected to come to the Senate floor early next week as a stand alone measure. The Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) is now not expected to be taken up before the Senate leaves for summer recess at the end of next week, though it may come to the floor in September. Whether the Senate takes up the child nutrition reauthorization bill next week is still an open question.]
As is often the case as the summer congressional recess approaches, there is lots of activity on Capitol Hill. With so many moving pieces of interest to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and NSAC member organizations, we are issuing this brief update.
Supplemental Appropriation – Farm Credit Funding, BCAP Cut
On Tuesday, July 27, the House approved a $59 billion war supplemental spending bill by a vote of 308-114 and sent it to the President for his signature. The bill includes $950 million in Farm Service Agency (FSA) farm loan program funding to help meet emergency farm lending needs. The loan funding and several other USDA-related provisions are offset by a $50 million funding cut to the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). NSAC was a strong proponent of the farm loan funding and the offset.
The war supplemental has been pending for months. The bill has bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate, with major disputes centering around how many emergency domestic spending initiatives to tie to the war and foreign aid spending, the centerpiece of the bill. In the end, the Senate’s smaller domestic package prevailed.
The bill includes $33 billion for war operations, $6 billion in foreign aid, $5 billion for domestic disaster relief, and $13 billion in mandatory funding to help Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
The NSAC-supported credit package includes $350 million for direct farm operating loans, $300 million for guaranteed farm ownership loans, $250 million for guaranteed farm operating loans, and $50 million for subsidized guaranteed farm operating loans.
The limitation placed on BCAP, an important farm bill renewable energy program, is warranted in our view based on runaway spending and misplaced priorities, as this program was being implemented by the FSA. With a cap on program spending, the agency will need to continue to give thought to focusing the program to support the most important biomass crop projects possible.
Pigford Settlement Funding
Included in the most recent House-passed version of the supplemental appropriations bill, but deleted from the final product, was $1.15 billion for the Pigford II settlement between USDA and black farmers. That measure was originally attached to a tax extender bill that has not made it through the legislative gauntlet yet, and then it was stuck onto the supplemental in the House.
Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he will try to add the Pigford settlement funding, and another class action settlement between American Indians and the Department of the Interior over the government’s mishandling of trust accounts, onto a small business bill the Senate is considering on the floor this week. It is not yet clear whether this third attempt to find a vehicle for the two settlement accounts will be successful. NSAC supports the funding and the quickest possible resolution of the matter.
Ag Disaster Aid
Speaking of the small business bill, Senate Agriculture Chair, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), has secured the agreement of the Majority Leader to attach her emergency agricultural disaster funding measure to the small business legislation. That measure was also attached to the tax extender bill earlier in the year, but now is seeking a potentially faster moving vehicle. A vote is expected later this week.
The measure includes $1 billion for bonus direct commodity payments for farmers who suffered a greater than 5 percent loss in production, a provision that has proved controversial, yet remains in play. The measure also includes specific disaster funding for cottonseed, aquaculture, Hawaiian sugar, livestock, and specialty crop producers.
Food Safety and Child Nutrition Bills
As regular readers will know, food safety and child nutrition reauthorization legislation has been chugging along slowly for the past two years. With time running out on this session of Congress, it is not yet clear if a way will be found to pass these bills and get them signed into law this year. The measures are both among the most bipartisan bills pending in Congress, which, all other things being equal, should improve their chances of passage. Nonetheless, netiher has proceeded smoothly, and both are looking for Senate floor time before the August recess begins.
The Senate food safety bill (S. 510) was voted out of Committee late last year, but has been stalled since then due to behind the scenes negotiations over amendments ranging from family farms and local food systems, to banning the use of the chemical additive BPA in food containers, to the re-importation of drugs from Canada.
The House passed it’s companion bill a year ago and has been waiting for final Senate action before they can proceed to a conference committee to settle on the final form of the legislation. Even if the Senate passes a bill soon, it is unclear whether enough time remains in this session for what could be a long conference negotiation.
The pending Managers Amendment to the Senate bill contains a number of provisions strongly supported by NSAC. NSAC also supports two amendments still being negotiated by Senator Brown (D-OH) and Senator Tester (D-MT), though we will withhold final judgment until negotiated text is closer to being agreed upon.
A child nutrition bill was approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee in March and a companion bill by the House Education and Labor Committee in July. Both bills include mandatory funding for the Farm to School program. The Senate bill costs $4.5 billion over 10 years and is paid for through offsets, including the controversial proposed cut to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The House bill costs $8 billion over 10 years, but House Democratic leadership is still in the process of looking for funding offsets and have thankfully indicated to us they will not scale back farm bill conservation programs to pay for the child nutrition increase.
While further House action on the bill is not likely until September, Senate Majority Reid said this week that he would explore whether floor time might be made available for the Senate nutrition bill. Senator Lincoln intends to take to the floor each day to explain to her colleagues the importance of taking up the bill. Her floor statement from Tuesday, July 27 is posted here.
We will continue to provide readers with new information on the food safety and child nutrition bills as it becomes available.
FSIS Names Advisory Committee on Meat & Poultry Inspection
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
On Thursday, July 15, USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service announced the reestablishment of the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI) and the newly appointed members of the committee for 2010-2012.
Established in 1971, the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI) advises the Secretary of the USDA on federal and state meat and poultry inspection programs. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requires the Secretary to consult with a committee for advice on meat, poultry and egg inspection and safety programs. The twenty-person committee is appointed by the Secretary and each member serves for 2 years. The committee makes recommendations through the Under Secretary for Food Safety to the Secretary of Agriculture. You can read more about the committee structure on the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) website.
Congratulations to active NSAC participant Steve Warshawer of Mesa Top Farm, Beneficial Farm CSA, and La Montanita Coop in New Mexico and the National Good Food Network for his appointment to this advisory body! Steve will serve along side representatives of academic institutions, state agriculture departments, food companies, and non-profits including the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Consumer Federation of America. We know Steve will be a strong, reasoned farmer and good food voice on this important committee.
FDA Calls for Comments on Antibiotics Use Guidance
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
On Monday June 28th, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a draft guidance entitled “The Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobial Drugs in Food-Producing Animals,” calling for public comment during the next 60 days.
The use of antimicrobials, including antibiotics, whether in people or animals, hastens the development of resistant microbes, including bacteria. Public health leaders call for caution in the use of medically important antibiotics (those antibiotics used in human medicine), in order to preserve the drugs’ effectiveness for future use.
Antimicrobials are used in animal agriculture for three purposes:
1) to treat diagnosed disease in an animal or a limited group of animals;
2) to promote growth; and
3) to prevent disease prophylatically.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that 70 percent of all antimicrobials in the US are used as feed or water additives for pigs, poultry and cattle for the non-therapeutic purposes of growth promotion and prophylactic disease prevention.
Leading public health organizations around the country and around the world, including American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases Society of America, and World Health Organization have spoken out against the routine use of medically important antibiotics in animal agriculture for these non-therapeucitic purposes.
The FDA’s draft guidance states that growth promotion is not a judicious use of medically important antibiotics. It argues, however, that some feed and water administration of medically important antibiotics for disease prevention is “necessary for assuring the health of food-producing animals.” The agency observes correctly that “some may have concerns” with this conclusion.
Critics contend that whether the subjective intent is growth promotion or routine disease prevention, routinely providing medically important antibiotics to animals through feed or water is the very same practice. Moreover, critics note that non-therapeutic use of antibiotics offsets for overcrowded, stressful, and unsanitary conditions at large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). By contrast, animals raised in more appropriate conditions, such as those on pasture-based systems, rarely, if ever, require antibiotics.
The FDA seeks to address the potential for abuse by recommending greater veterinary involvement. It notes, however, that there is a shortage of large animal veterinarians, which can make consultation and oversight challenging. The agency therefore proposes a phased-in approach to including increased veterinary oversight, and asks for public comments on how such as phase-in would work. The agency states that it does not want to “disrupt the animal agriculture industry.”
Comments on Docket No. FDA2010D0094 can be submitted during the next 60 days through regulations.gov.
Press coverage of the guidance included the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times.
Food Safety Talks: An Interview with NSAC’s Ferd Hoefner
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
By Patty Cantrell, Senior Policy Specialist at Michigan Land Institute, a consultant for the National Good Food Food Network & Co-Chair of NSAC’s Marketing, Food Systems and Rural Development Issue Committee
As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on new food safety regulations, the National Good Food Network (NGFN) has posted a series of interviews with leading participants in the process. Patty Cantrell interviewed four policy insiders about the pending legislation and related issues. Posted below is the series’ final interview with Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Click here to read other interviews with Robert Guenther of the United Fresh Produce Association, Tony Corbo of Food and Water Watch, and Brian Snyder of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. See additional information at the NGFN’s Food Safety Working Group page.
Food Safety Interview with NSAC’s Ferd Hoefner
Why has NSAC been so engaged in food safety deliberations in Washington? What have been your key priorities?
Fundamentally farmers are worried, with good reason, about what a new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory regime is going to look like on the farm, and that has percolated up through our membership organizations to make this a very high priority.
It’s not from a position of being against food safety legislation but from trying to make sure that whatever comes out is not top-down, command-and-control regulation that does not fit farming realities.
Our top priority is to make sure we don’t wind up with one-size-fits-all regulation written for mega, industrial-style, specialized farming that assume the same rules could apply to the vast majority of farms, which are smaller and more diverse.
Close behind in priority is making sure the rules mesh with conservation and environmental policy, and with organic certification rules and other labeling and certification programs out there.
Lurking behind these specific issues is the very real concern that the new regulatory regime could have the effect of further consolidating the industry and putting more farms out of business, as we’ve seen in other areas of agriculture and the larger economy when widespread regulation kicks in.
How that happens is partly how regulations are generally written in a one-size-fits-all way. It’s partly the increased cost of complying with expensive regulations, which can make the difference in staying in business or not for those running on very tight margins. Then there’s the very real political effect as many of these rules become detailed and complicated. The big economic actors employ lobbyists from the best K Street firms to keep track and influence the process; they are at every meeting and know every player. Small and mid-scale players simply cannot afford to do that.
What is your opinion on the current state of the legislation, both the House-passed Food Safety Enhancement Act 2009 and the Senate bill on its way to the floor, S510?
In the Senate bill we feel we have made significant headway. The language in the produce section makes it clear that regulators should concentrate on the highest risk situations and the highest risk crops and processes. That’s incredibly important. There’s also very strong language related to conservation and environmental regulations and how they relate to food safety, as well as the interplay between food safety and organic standards. And importantly, when the bill passes, it will include language that requires FDA to go through a risk analysis and rule making, subject to public comment, to determine which farms fall under the legislation’s new requirements.
The House bill passed a whole year earlier, and we were not as organized to influence it. The House bill includes very few of the protections present in the Senate bill. For example, the Senate bill states that if farms have to retain records for traceability purposes, they must do so only for the receipt for the point of first sale, for whoever buys it from the farm. We think that’s a very important principle. In the House bill, many farms would have to somehow know, and prove, what happens to their product all the way to the supermarket. We maintain the farmer should not be responsible for knowing what the wholesaler did with their product, what the distributor did, what the aggregator did, and what the final retailer did.
How to pay for FDA’s new inspection duties is a contentious question. What does NSAC think about provisions in the legislation for covering FDA’s costs?
Cost is a big issue and it’s hardly been mentioned in the House or the Senate. We know the price tag on this thing is high if FDA is really going to do everything involved, all the extra inspections and all the work on imports, for example. The FDA’s budget has been going up pretty steadily the past three to four years, but it’s nowhere near the $2 billion jump the agency is projected to need for this.
If the bill passes, there will be a lot of press releases about ensuring the American food supply is safe. But actually, other than some more purely policy components like mandatory recalls, which is a really important advance in the bill by the way, most of the other components will have to wait until FDA has implementation money appropriated by Congress in future funding legislation.
The House bill applies a flat $500 registration fee to all food facilities, whether you’re a Kraft cheese whiz plant or you are Grandma Jones who makes apple butter and sells it at the farmers market. It’s the most regressive flat tax proposal to come out of the Pelosi-Waxman-Dingell, democratic liberal leadership in quite a long time. They normally wouldn’t dream of a regressive flat tax regime, but that’s exactly what they did under heavy pressure from the Grocery Manufacturers Association and others.
The Senate bill does not have fees, which is part of an agreement from a bipartisan team of Senators working on it in committee. It will be a big issue between the Obama Administration, with Health and Human Services and FDA supporting fees, and the Senate saying the only way it will pass is if it has no fees. We will support no fees or progressive fees, but adamantly oppose the House-passed regressive flat tax.
What do you think of the concept of “identity preserved” foods as a category separate from products that contain food commingled from many sources? Local food and sustainable agriculture advocates have brought this concept forward as a way to differentiate food that comes to market through face-to-face or very short supply chains.
The concept is fairly new, even though its been growing as a trend over the last five years. More and more consumers want to know who the farmer is behind their food, and farmers are finding that that is a valuable value-added marketing strategy.
Our argument relates to the fact that, under current FDA rules, if you’re direct marketing more than 50 percent of your processed farm product, then you don’t fall under the regulatory regime. We ask what the difference is between that and farms that preserve their identity in the market through labeling. Preserving a farm’s identity should get the same treatment as direct marketing. But that’s not the case yet in the legislation.
Traceability is the watchword in food safety negotiations. How do you believe traceability can be achieved in the commingled commodity food stream?
Figuring out which processing plant a food product came out of is probably do-able, and we already do some of that. It’s really different when you’re trying to tell which of thousands of farms supplied products to a processing or packing plant. That’s where it becomes much more difficult, and that’s the reality of massively commingled products in our current food system.
However, when the traceability system does succeed, as it did recently with romaine lettuce from a farm in Arizona, it didn’t make any difference. The industry is concerned with indiscriminate shutdowns, but in this case of knowing exactly which farm was the source, FDA still shut down farms on an area-wide basis. You have to ask what is actually the purpose of a tracing system when, after tracing an outbreak to a specific farm, it makes no difference in the reaction of regulators.
This example raises another question relating to causation; once you know where it came from, if you don’t know how it got there, maybe the traceability information required isn’t that important. Yet the legislation calls for producers to employ potentially costly technology to capture all of this information, technology that hasn’t been developed yet.
That’s another thing that’s kind of crazy, and this is a criticism of the House bill: It’s very unusual to pass legislation saying this is the way it’s going to be, and to get there we have to invent a new technology, and once it’s there you will have to use it. That is getting the cart way before the horse.
What is your perspective on exemption proposals for certain farms?
From the very beginning of this debate, a huge concern has been with how smaller, more diversified farms with shorter supply chains, causing few problems, could get caught up in regulations written for industrial-size operations.
One controversial exemption amendment from Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) takes a somewhat meat axe approach to it, saying here’s the gross income threshold and everybody under it goes a different direction. We support the intent, and if a substantive, more nuanced agreement can’t be reached before the bill goes to the floor, we’re going to support it on the floor because the principle is incredibly important.
The gross sales threshold in the Tester amendment is actually far more practical than existing rules to exempt all farms that direct market more than 50 percent of their product. Either way there is a significant exemption, and the question becomes which is the better, more practical, verifiable and effective exemption. Hands down that is the Tester approach.
That said, we will continue to urge Sen. Tester to adopt a more refined position. A more refined position would take on a variety of things that have not really been addressed yet.
For instance, farm facilities that market with their identity preserved on the product could be made exempt. The HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) section of the bill currently includes a variety of agricultural exemptions, but not one for small farms determined to be adequately regulated at the state level. The performance standards section is not open to public comment, and we think it should be; that’s where the rubber hits the road of how to apply standards and what rules apply to highly diversified operations. Also in the inspection section, there is language that, even if you’re considered a very low risk, FDA will inspect you every four years. Again, that’s hundreds of thousands of farms that will have to go through inspection even after FDA has determined they’re low risk. We think that’s kind of ridiculous; it’s one of the things that drives up the cost of the bill unnecessarily and ultimately reduces positive food safety outcomes.
What about food safety activity outside of this legislative process (i.e. California Leafy Greens Agreement)? What’s your position?
FDA and USDA both currently have leafy greens regulatory or quasi-regulatory proceedings going on, prompted in part by calls for nationalizing the California agreement.
We wonder why two different agencies are running two parallel processes and what their plan for resolving differences is. We also think, in some respects, it’s putting the cart before the horse. Our presumption is that if FDA promulgates new regulations, they will have to rewrite them after the legislation passes to comply with its provisions.
Our position, and the position of the National Organic Coalition, which we’ve worked with very closely, is that if there’s going to be a regulation then FDA should write it because FDA is the regulator. USDA has a different role.
USDA is working on a leafy greens marketing agreement. Marketing agreements have their purpose (marketing) and food safety regulations have their purpose (food safety). Confusing the marketing purpose with the food safety purpose kind of muddies the water.
If you could write your own food safety bill from scratch, what would be your top three provisions?
Our top provision is to focus on how we create a food system that promotes healthy nutrition and safe food, which is not the system we have now. Our number one priority is proactively working towards that improved food system rather than trying to retrofit food safety rules around a very broken food system.
More germane to the current bill itself would have been to start off by having a separate section for operations like ConAgra, Kraft, Cargill, and Peanut Corporation of America and a separate section for farms, dealing with them in all of the unique characteristics that make farms very different from a Kraft plant. But as written, the legislation tries to apply the same rules across the board.
If we had had a separate agricultural section, we would now be dealing with robust provisions for certification and training, things that can very quickly improve the food safety reality on the ground. Education and training and certification can address problems much more quickly than command-and-control provisions that, at best, will take a long time before they’re funded and then enforced. Granted, those provisions are not appropriate for the Peanut Corporation of America type operations, but that’s exactly the point; these are two different kettles of fish and should be treated that way.
Third, and we’ve made some headway on this, is the need for food safety rules that are supportive of and coordinated with conservation rules. We need to turn back as quickly as possible from what has happened in California with the industry-led leafy greens agreement. Outcomes of that agreement are contrary to everything we know about soil and wildlife biology. There’s no reason why we can’t have better conservation and food safety; they go together. The notion that they are in opposition should be put to rest.
First FSIS Public Hearing On Controversial Guidance
Friday, June 18th, 2010
On June 14, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) held the first of three public meetings to discuss and receive comments on their controversial HACCP Systems Validation Guidance document aimed at small and very-small meat and poultry facilities. View the FSIS Press release here.
The guidance document issued in March of 2010 is intended to clarify existing requirements and provide implementation assistance. Stakeholders raised concerns that the guidance document fails to clearly state how facilities must comply with the regulations and that the requirements place disproportionate burden on small-scale processors. Critics also highlighted the inconsistencies within FSIS documents and the lack of transparency in the regulatory process. All comments can be viewed on the FSIS website.
The agency will receive comments on the original draft through June 19 and will hold two more public meetings, one in the Midwest and one on the west coast (details should be on the FSIS website soon).
FSIS will then consider comments and issue a second draft of the guidance document in July, available for viewing in the Federal Register. We have been told to expect a revised guidance document that substantially changes the major items that have been cause for most of the controversy.
For additional background, read NSAC’s first blog about these meetings here. Or visit the FSIS webpage about the guidance document.
FSIS Announces Public Hearing on Controversial Guidance
Friday, June 4th, 2010
On June 4, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced a series of public meetings in response to the release of their controversial guidance document back in March on HACCP Systems Validation for small and very small meat and poultry processing facilities.
The first public meeting will be held on June 14 from 8:30-1:00 at the USDA’s Jefferson Auditorium. To pre-register, go to this page on the FSIS website.
Comments on the original draft guidance are due June 19. FSIS plans to review comments and then issue a revised draft guidance document in the Federal Register sometime in July. That new draft will also be open for public comment, and FSIS plans to do two additional public meetings during the comment period.
The draft guidance was controversial in part due to an overreliance on testing. Indications are that will change in the next draft.
The topic has been taken up by the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network. You can read their views and to see a copy of their letter to FSIS here. The network is a leading force in helping small and mid-size meat processors strengthen and expand to better service the growing number of farmers and consumers interested in local, grass-fed, humane, organic and other alternative products.
In an attempt to clarify its intent and deal with the controversy, FSIS has issued a helpful fact sheet.
The issue arose at yesterday’s National Rural Summit, with a farmer expressing her fear that the rule could shut down their local plant, and USDA Secretary Vilsack responding that this is not at all the intent of the guidance. He said the guidance has been misinterpreted but also indicated that changes will be made.
The Department is to be applauded for providing further opportunity for public comments. Hopefully the next iteration of the guidance will not only clear up the problems, but also mark the beginning of the next step toward strong USDA support for rebuilding a dispersed meat processing sector in response to the growing interest in sustainable livestock production.
Moving Legislation – What’s in it for Food and Agriculture
Friday, May 21st, 2010
With the financial regulation bill approved in the Senate and moving to conference with the House-passed bill, and with the one week Memorial Day recess just a week away, several key legislative items are starting to move quickly. A brief review follows, highlighting what is in the bills for food and agriculture.
Budget Resolution – A full-fledged congressional budget resolution outlining spending and deficits for next year and beyond now seems totally dead in the water. When Congress fails to pass a budget resolution, the alternative is a so-called “deeming resolution” specifying spending levels for the following fiscal year. Unlike the budget resolution, the deeming resolution does not include funding and deficit projections for the 5 and 10 years following, making it a somewhat easier vote in an election year at a time of high deficits.
The latest read on the deeming resolution is that it would likely freeze domestic discretionary spending in 2011. There will very likely be an attempt to attach it to the supplemental appropriations bill (see below). If the deeming resolution cannot hitch a ride on must-pass legislation in the very near future, it is also possible there may be an informal agreement to simply accept its spending outlines as a given. One way or the other, an agreement must be reached so that the appropriations committees can start in on their annual funding bills.
Once the overall spending outline has been agreed to, the appropriations subcommittees will battle over how big a slice of the overall budget pie they will receive to work with. Agriculture did fairly well in that respect last year, but with the likelihood of a freeze, the bidding could prove tougher this year. The subcommittee allocation, which should be set in early June, will be the first key determinant in the ability of the food and ag spending bill to respond to sustainable agriculture priorities. NSAC is encouraging agricultural leadership to fight for a fair allocation.
Supplemental Appropriations Bill – Both houses of Congress will be taking up the $60 billion supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 4899) next week. In addition to emergency funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and for a variety of US natural disasters, the Senate version of the bill includes an important funding increase for direct and guaranteed farm operating loans and guaranteed farm ownership loans. Without the supplemental funding, USDA’s Farm Service Agency will run out of loan funds next month for the rest of the year.
Also included in the Senate bill is an $18 million appropriation for emergency forest restoration for lands damaged by natural disasters. The bill pays for the $31.6 million cost of increasing lending authority by $950 million and the $18 million forestry item by cutting spending for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) by $50 million, capping BCAP at $552 million for the year. BCAP was originally intended to be a fairly small program, but spending for it has skyrocketed under a very broad interpretation of the law by USDA. NSAC strongly supports the credit provision.
The major debates on the supplemental bill will center on fights over costs and how much of the bill or new additions to the bill — including an upcoming move to add $23 billion for emergency support to keep teachers from being laid off due to local budget cuts — should be offset with spending reductions in other programs.
Tax Extenders Bill — The $200 billion “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act” (H.R. 4213) is also moving rapidly toward floor consideration in both houses. It extends a wide variety of targeted tax expenditures as well as unemployment benefits. The bill also carries emergency aid to local government, emergency disaster relief, a summer jobs program, a multi-year postponement of the scheduled cut in Medicare physician payments, and a major reform in the size of fees recovered from oil companies in the wake of oil spills.
For agriculture, the bill includes $4.6 billion to pay for settlements in the Pigford (black farmer) and Cobell (American Indian) lawsuits. NSAC supports the inclusion of the long overdue funding for the settlements.
The bill also includes a $1.5 billion agricultural disaster relief package, including the controversial $1 billion in supplemental direct payments to producers with a 5 percent or greater lass in production.
In the tax extenders portion, the biodiesel production tax credit, small agri-biodiesel producer credit, and biomass diesel tax credit are all extended for one year, at a cost of $868 million. The charitable deduction for contributions of food inventories is extended for a year ($78 million cost).
Portions of the bill, including many big ticket items, have exemptions from “pay-go” rules and hence do not have to be offset under current congressional rules. Other parts of the bill do, however, need offsets, and that is where the “tax loophole” closing part of the bill’s title comes from.
The bill would force investment fund managers to pay regular rather than capital gains rates on a portion of income receive as “carried interest,” stop employment tax avoidance by professional service businesses, and close a wide variety of abuses of the foreign tax credit system for multinational corporations. Together, the loophole closers yield close to $60 billion in offsets.
With many politically important provisions expiring in coming weeks, there will be huge pressure to get this bill finished before the Memorial Day recess, so there should be lots of action next week.
Child Nutrition and Food Safety Waiting in the Wings – While the supplemental and tax extender bills, along with House-Senate conference on financial regulation, are front and center right now, waiting in the wings for Senate floor time after the recess are the Child Nutrition Act re-authorization bill and the Food Safety Modernization Act. There are no promises at this point for floor time for either measure, though both regularly appear on lists of bills needing floor consideration this year. Either or both of them could possibly be on the Senate floor between the Memorial Day and July 4 recess weeks, though nothing at this point is certain.
In the meantime, a draft of the House version of the Child Nutrition bill is expected next week, with markup in the House Education and Labor Committee expected sometime during the month of June.
Food Safety Bill Still Pending in the Senate
Friday, May 7th, 2010
S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, is expected to be considered by the Senate right after the Memorial Day recess, according to Senate staff. The bill is the first significant effort to increase food safety in decades and gives the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) new enforcement authority over industry and will also have a significant impact on farmers.
For the most part, sustainable agriculture and family farm groups consider the Senate bill an improvement over the measure passed by the House of Representatives last summer. After the Senate passes the bill it will head to a conference committee where the differences between the two bills will be reconciled.
The “manager’s amendment” for S. 510 that will go to the Senate floor soon includes new language since last November’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee mark up giving FDA flexibility in implementing regulations for small and mid-sized farms and instructing FDA to have an open rule-making process to determine which on-farm processing activities, subject to current FDA bioterrorism regulation, are of low risk and therefore do not need to fall under the new regulatory requirements in the bill. That provision is one of four provisions incorporated into the manager’s amendment as a result of the work of NSAC and its allies.
The Committee is still negotiating over two amendments offered by Senator Tester (D-MT) that would exempt farm and non-farm facilities with gross sales of less than $500,000 from requirements that they write comprehensive food safety plans and traceback and record keeping requirements, and would exempt farms that direct market at least half their product from new FDA produce farm regulations. NSAC continues to be engaged in the deliberations over these amendments and we hope they will included in some fashion in the final bill.
Senator Feinstein (D-CA) has a bill pending as an amendment banning the use of Bisphenol A (BPA) in all food and beverage containers. The Grocery Manufacturers Association and other industry groups have come out strongly against the measure and a vote on Feinstein’s amendment is a vote that many Senators would prefer not to make.
A third amendment, sponsored by Senator Brown (D-OH) would expand traceback and recordkeeping requirements in the bill, but would ease those requirements with respect to farms. That amendment has been subject to negotiations for some time now without reaching a conclusion. NSAC remains engaged in the debate over this amendment as well as the underlying provision. Our bottomline on the traceback and recordkeeping issue with respect to farms is that no farm (whether or not the farm is a facility) be subject to more than “one forward” recordkeeping requirements to the point of first sale, and that food that is direct marketed or that is farm identity-preserved marketed be exempt.
NSAC will post again on this bill closer to the time it is scheduled for Senate action, or if there are any major new developments in the meantime.