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ACTION
ALERT!
September
15, 2010
FOOD SAFETY LEGISLATION MUST PROTECT
FAMILY
FARMS, SUSTAINABLE & ORGANIC AGRICULTURE
CALL YOUR SENATORS
TODAY AND URGE THEM
TO SUPPORT THE TESTER AMENDMENT
The Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) could reach the Senate
floor as early as tomorrow. NSAC has been able to win several
improvements to the bill but more changes are needed to avoid serious harm
to family farm value-added processing and the emergence of local and
regional food systems.
S.510 would
considerably ramp up FDA regulation on farms that even minimally process
their crops and sell them to restaurants, food coops, groceries, schools
and wholesalers. An amendment sponsored by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)
would exempt small farm and small food processing facilities as well as
small and mid-sized farmers who primarily direct market their products to
consumers, stores or restaurants within their region.
Please call your Senators
today and ask them to support the Tester Amendment.
It's easy to call:
Go to Congress.org
and type in your zip code. Click on your Senator's name, and then on
the contact tab for their phone number. You can also call the
Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator's
office: 202-224-3121. Once connected ask to speak to the legislative
staff person responsible for agriculture. If they are unavailable
leave a voice mail message. Be sure to include your name and phone
number.
The message is simple. "I am a constituent of
Senator___________ and I am calling to ask him/her to support the
Tester Amendment and to include the Tester language in the Manager's
Amendment to the food safety bill. The Tester Amendment will exempt
small farm and food facilities and farmers who direct market their
products to consumers, stores or restaurants. We need a food
safety bill that cracks down on corporate bad actors without erecting new
barriers to family farms and the growing healthy food movement. Our
continuing economic recovery demands that we preserve these market
opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms.
Report your Call:
Click here
to tell us how your call went.
Learn More:
Most sustainable agriculture and family farm groups think the
Senate bill with changes won by NSAC is a very significant improvement
over the companion bill passed by the House of Representatives (HR 2749)
last year. The changes listed below will be included in the bill
that goes to the Senate floor for a vote. We can't support the
Senate bill, however, unless the Tester amendment is also adopted.
We strongly oppose the companion House measure, and stand ready to defend
the "good amendments" to the Senate bill when it goes to conference with
the House later this year.
The best way to ensure that the Tester provision is included with the
final bill that emerges from conference is for it to be included in the
Manager's Amendment as it goes to the floor of the Senate. The
Manager's Amendment includes all of the language that has the support of
the three Democrats and three Republicans who are sponsoring the bill.
Please call your Senator and request that the Tester language be added to
the Manager's Amendment.
The Manager's Amendment to S.510
already includes the following important improvements to the bill that
have been backed by NSAC:
- Sanders (D-VT)
amendment (requiring FDA to write regulations to determine low risk
on-farm processing activities that can be exempt from regulatory
requirement);
- Bennet (D-CO)
amendment (to reduce unnecessary paperwork and streamline requirements
for farmers and small processors);
- Stabenow
(D-MI) amendment (to create a USDA-delivered competitive grants program
for farmer food safety training);
- Boxer (D-CA)
amendment (to eliminate anti-wildlife habitat language from the bill);
and
- Brown (D-OH)
amendment (on traceability requirements, including exemptions for direct
marketing and farm identity-preserved marketing).
For more information on the Senate Food Safety bill, read our latest
information alert here
and our Food Safety Policy Brief here. | 