I’ve finished reading all 117 pages of H.R. 875 and can’t express my opposition strongly enough.  I promised to share my thoughts about it with a few folks locally.  I ended up writing about a page and a half, though it could have been much longer.  This is what I’ve written as a flyer of sorts to share, and wanted to share it here as well:

Given the recent peanut butter salmonella scare, a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the “Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009″ (H.R. 875) probably sounds like a good idea.  The bill seeks to “adopt and implement a national system for the registration of food establishments and adopt and implement a national system for regular unannounced inspection of food establishments,” among a few other things.  Sounds good, right?  Except what exactly is a food establishment?

  • A category 1 food establishment is defined “as any establishment that slaughters for the purpose of producing food, animals that are not subject to inspection under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or poultry that are not subject to inspection under the Poultry Products Inspection Act.” Raise your own cows, pigs, or chickens, you’re included in the above definition. No where is the home gardener, small farmer, or market gardener excluded from the regulations proposed in this bill.
  • Category 2 deals with seafood producers.
  • A category 3 food establishment, “processes cooked, pasteurized or otherwise ready-to-eat seafood or other animal products, fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form, or other products that pose a risk of hazardous contamination.” Sell eggs to your neighbor that’s an otherwise ready-to-eat animal product, grow your own fresh produce, you are a category 3 food establishment, no where does it specifically apply to retail or commercial growers.
  • A category 4 food establishment covers anything not covered in the previous categories. Just to make sure they don’t miss anything.
  • A category 5 food establishment means any that “stores, hold, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale.” Thinking of selling extra beets, onions, or carrots from your garden at the local farmer’s market this summer? You’re a category 5 food establishment according to H.R. 875.

The language of the bill is ambiguous and does not exclude the vendors at farmers markets or the home gardener.  Should this bill pass into law, you’d have to register your home garden, market garden, farm, ranch, orchard, etc. within 90 days.  Fees for registering will, of course, be set by the administrator of the program which will fall under the Department of Health & Human Services umbrella.  Besides registering you’d be required to “implement recordkeeping and labeling of all food and food ingredients to facilitate their identification,” “be randomly inspected” from as often as once a month for category 3 food establishment, to annually for category 5 establishments, and “have ongoing verification that processes are controlled.” 

Think you could get by without registering your home garden?  The law would allow the government to ” administratively detain and seize any food regulated under this Act that the Administrator has reason to believe is unsafe, is adulterated or misbranded, or otherwise fails to meet the requirements of the food safety law.”  Not registering means you’re failing to meet the requirements of this food safety law and your food could be seized.  Unannounced inspections of your neighbor’s registered operation could bring attention to your garden or farm.

Even if the legislation is changed to specifically exclude the home gardener who only grows food for themselves, it could mean certain death to our small farmers and farmers markets, as the registration fees and other requirements of this proposed bill are likely to be high and onerous for small organizations to pay and follow. 

Please read the entire text of H.R. 875 and discover for yourself how the government is seeking to control your food. Write to your legislators and encourage them to oppose this legislation.  Remind our elected officials that a victory garden was once considered patriotic and should be elevated to that status once again.