May Force Many Organic Farms Out of Business!
Despite the intent of the U.S. Congress, factory farms and monoculture farming--with the help of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)--are triumphing.
Good Intentions Gone Awry!
Massive outbreaks of food poisoning prompted Congress in 2010 to pass the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). However, the problems needing solution stemmed largely--not from small, family organic farms--from gigantic, factory farms in the U.S. or from food imported from comparable agribusinesses abroad.
The Clout of Lobbyists
Guess who has more influence in Washington, at the FDA? The big agribusinesses or small organic farmers? The result:
Big Agribusiness Wins. Small, Organic Farmers Lose!
The reason agribusiness wins, even though it must submit to new regulation, is that its increasingly powerful competition--organic farms--loses! With loving attention, ostensibly to the wishes of Congress, and with enormous attention to details needed to regulate only some of the weaknesses of factory farms, the FDA--with no due process--now also forces family farms to comply with onerous, expensive, testing and record-keeping requirements that only huge farms have the wherewithal to cope with!
According to The Sleuth Journal (http://www.http://thesleuthjournal.com/action-alert-fdas-new-food-safety-rules-put-organic-farm):
- The FDA has wildly inflated the number of food borne illnesses that originate from farm production (seed to harvest), rather than contamination that takes place later, in processing/distribution--in justifying supposed economic benefits from the new rules.
- The FDA fails to recognize that some processed crops, grown in certain regions, are the genesis of 90% of dangerous outbreaks! Thousands of individual illnesses come from food processing practices--not farming practices--for fresh-cut/bagged salads, greens, and sprouts. And there are no outbreaks linked to many kinds of U.S.-grown fruits and vegetables. Yet these very onerous rules will apply to all farmers.
- Almost all pathogenic pollution that contaminates ground water and surface water, fertilizers and even air comes from giant Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs (factory farms), not from fruit and vegetable growers. In fact, the riskiest pathogens are found on CAFOs. But the FDA proposes nothing to address sick livestock in animal factories and their pathogen-filled manure that's contaminating surrounding rural communities, farms, and our food supply
Please, FDA
Look More Closely
Reconsider Who Needs Regulating
And How!
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