Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Updated-With House food-safety bill a done deal, questions remain
Tom Philpott, Grist
The House will vote today on a momentous, controversial plan to overhaul a large swath of the nation’s food-safety system.
The vote comes amid yet another round of recalls. On Tuesday, the FDA announced the voluntary recall of “one lot” of salmonella-tainted cilantro, distributed by a company called Frontera Produce.
The agency did not define how much cilantro makes up a lot, but it must be, well, a lot, because “the lot in question, 118122, was distributed to two retail store chains in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Louisiana, and New Mexico,” the press release states.
Yet again, the sieve-like nature of our food-safety system comes into relief. According to the FDA:
This product originated in Mexico and was procured by Frontera Produce, who [sic] subsequently routinely tested for contaminants as part of their internal food safety program.
So if the cilantro underwent “routine testing” and showed up with salmonella, why did it go out to two (unnamed) grocery chains with operations in five states? Evidently, the tests got done after the stuff went out to potentially thousands of consumers. Nice one! Just a week before, another Texas company issued a voluntary recall on another (pardon the expression) shitload of salmonella-infected cilantro; and California produce giant Tanimura & Antle recalled 22,000 cases of salmonella-tainted lettuce that had already gone out to 29 states.
It is against this backdrop that the House is debating a major overhaul of the U.S. food-safety landscape, or at least that part of it that doesn’t include meat. The bill, H.R. 2749, or The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, would transform the role of the FDA, which oversees food safety of all foods except for meat and eggs, which fall under the (rather timid) purview of the USDA.
…The legislation contains some important provisions for tightening up an absurdly porous food safety system: the FDA would no longer have to rely on “voluntary” recalls but instead will itself have the power to recall tainted food. Moreover, inspections of food-production facilities will be stepped up.
But it also has aspects that would weigh heavily on small-scale farmers and food processors—ones that pose a fraction of the threat that big players pose, and are responsible for a fraction of the recalls, too. One is a $500 per-facility annual fee for processors to help offset the cost of inspections. Few dispute the FDA needs a larger budget; but $500 falls a lot heavier on someone who turns locally grown cabbage onto kraut for a farmers market than on a company that say, makes “peanut paste” for of the nation’s large-scale food corporations.
…I’m told that Wednesday night, as I write this, Representatives are haggling over the final version of the bill due to be voted on Thursday. (Over on the Center for Rural Affairs blog, Steph Larson has a cogent post on the lamentable haste the House leadership is using to ram through this bill.) I hope House members account for the concerns of small producers. We clearly need a new food-safety regime—and in some respects, this bill makes baby steps in the right direction. Underfunded watchdog agencies and laissez-faire enforcement have allowed the corporations that dominate our food system to routinely put millions at risk. But fixing that problem can’t mean stepping on the necks of the producers hard at work building alternative food systems.
(30 July 2009)
See Tom’s update to his article below:
Update: Food safety bill passes
As expected, HR 2749 passed overwhelmingly Thursday afternoon—283-142. Democrats supported it by a margin of 229-20; Republicans clocked in at 54-122.
The version voted on was not substantially different from the one that narrowly missed passage Wednesday. To me, the bill still seems too easy on the food giants that pose the most risk, and a little too hard on the small producers who are creating community-based alternatives to Big Food. During the debate, I watched bitterly as House Ag Committee chair Collin Peterson (D.-Minn.), a pit bull in service of ag interests, declared his satisfaction with the bill. He ticked off the names of the groups that supported or were neutral on it: National Pork Producers, National Corn Growers, etc.
However, as with the climate-bill debate, effecting real change in our food-safety regime—the move to create a system that holds corporate food giants to account for the health threats they create—is going to be a long slog, rife with compromise. A split has opened in the progressive food community about how small-scale producers would fare under the regime laid out by the bill. A coalition of groups, including some I deeply respect like Food and Water Watch and Consumers Union, supported the bill. They wrote in a Thursday letter:
The complaints of certain sustainable and organics groups are unfounded. Great pains have been taken by members on both sides of the aisle, and on several House Committees, to address concerns that have been raised about this legislation.
Above-mentioned National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition maintained its opposition to the end, sticking by the analysis laid out above. The argument seems to be about how the FDA would interpret the bill if it became law—FWW and CU urge us to believe that the agency would go gentle on small-scale producers, and the NSAC emphasizes that the agency could use its new authority to crack down on them.
This debate will continue when the Senate takes up the issue in the fall.
Organic food ‘no better for health than factory-farmed food’ says report
Valerie Elliot, The Times
Organic food is no healthier than other produce, according to the Government’s food watchdog.
The largest ever review into the science behind organic food found that it contained no more nutritional value than factory-farmed meat or fruit and vegetables grown using chemical fertilisers. The findings challenge popular assumptions about the organic industry, worth £2 billion in the UK. Consumer groups said that shoppers may now think twice before buying organic.
The report, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, was carried out by experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who studied data collected over 50 years.
Organic groups were incensed by the findings. The Soil Association accused the FSA of ignoring up-to-date evidence and pre-empting EU research for political reasons. Lord Melchett, its policy director, said that he had urged the FSA to delay its report. “They have jumped the gun,” he said.
The FSA researchers were led by by a public health nutritionist, Dr Alan Dangour. They found that there was no significant benefit from drinking milk or eating meat, vegetables, fruit, poultry and eggs from organic sources, as opposed to the products of conventional farm systems.
Pro-organic groups criticised the findings of the year-long review, which cost £120,000. They said that the conclusions, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, failed to take into account the impact of pesticides and herbicides. Organic farming bans artificial chemical fertilisers and has stricter animal welfare rules than conventional farming.
Dr Dangour said that, as a nutritionist, he was not qualified to look at pesticides. “There is a possibility that organic food has less pesticide residues, but this was not part of the review,” he said. “Potentially this may be an area for further research.”
…A study of 52,000 papers was made, but only 162 scientific papers published between January 1958 and February last year were deemed relevant, of which just 55 met the strict quality criteria for the study, Dr Dangour said.
Twenty-three nutrients were analysed. In 20 categories there were no significant differences between production methods and the nutrient content. The differences detected were most likely to have been due to differences in fertiliser use and ripeness at harvest, and were unlikely to provide any health benefits.
The Soil Association challenged the conclusions that some nutritional differences between organic and conventional food were not important. It said it was particularly concerned that the researchers dismissed higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic food — such as 53.6 higher levels of beta-carotene and 38.4 per cent more flavonoids in organic foods — according to the mean percentage difference of samples analysed.
…In reaching their conclusions, the report’s authors were accused of pre-empting a Brussels study being carried out by Carlo Leifert, Professor of Ecological Farming at Newcastle University, which is due to be published this year.
Professor Leifert told The Times that his research found higher level of antioxidants — which help the body to combat cancer and cardiovascular disease — in organic foods. He said that the FSA did not want to admit that there was anything good in organic food. “The Government is worried they will then have to have a policy to make organic food available to everyone,” he said.
(30 July 2009)
You can access the full report here.
Related: the Soil Association’s initial response, which will be expanded upon later:
FSA report on organic food – our response. Many people seem to buy organic food not just for any purported health benefits, but because they back more sustainable agricultural and animal rearing practices, and want to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. -KS
Bill would restrict antibiotics in food animals
Stacy Finz, San Francisco Chronicle
A New York congresswoman is trying to rally support for a federal bill that would restrict antibiotic use in food animals just months after a similar measure tanked in California.
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that as much as 70 percent of the antibiotics used in the United States are given to healthy animals. Conventional farmers and ranchers routinely feed antibiotics to their herd to help the animals use their food more efficiently and bulk up faster. They say the medication also helps ward off pathogens that could sicken or kill their livestock.
But scientists and doctors fear that the overuse of these drugs makes them less effective in fighting bacteria in humans and animals. Microbes that develop immunity to the drugs will multiply and flourish.
…If passed, the legislation could drastically change farm practices in this country. Many consumers already have turned to antibiotic-free meat and poultry because they want products that have been raised naturally and out of an industrial farm setting.
“The present system of producing food animals in the United States is not sustainable and presents an unacceptable level of risk to public health, damage to the environment, as well as unnecessary harm to the animals we raise for food,” Bob Martin of the Pew Environment Group, a division of the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts, told the House Rules Committee.
Michael Apley, a clinical pharmacologist, veterinarian and professor at Kansas State University, said there is no doubt that keeping animals in close quarters “can allow some diseases to spread more rapidly.”
“But we couldn’t produce half of what we produce if we let them graze on pasture.”
Apley agrees that bacteria resistance needs to be addressed, but he believes the bill may be too draconian, especially when it comes to using antibiotics as a preventative measure against deadly bacteria.
(31 July 2009)
It will be interesting to see how far this bill gets in Congress considering how hard the big ag lobby will be coming out against it, as it undoubtedly will. -KS
