Some consumer groups are pushing the Senate to vote on its version of the food safety bill passed by the House last year. The bill (S510) would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to order a recall. Currently, it’s up to companies to recall tainted products. The bill would also improve procedures for tracing food back to its source, increase the frequency of FDA inspections of food processors and require on-farm safety standards for produce.
Unfortunately, these reforms would only be a band-aid on the disease-ravaged factory farms where millions of overcrowded and mistreated animals live amongst mountains of their ever-accumulating waste. If we task government regulators with devising a food safety regime fit for filthy factory farms, we’re likely to end up with draconian measures that will hurt local and organic farmers if they are applied to their small-scale, pasture-based farming techniques.
Pasteurizing factory-farmed milk might reduce bacteria. McDonald’s hamburgers might not have as much E. coli if they’re irradiated or injected with ammonia. Battery-caged eggs and chicken might have less salmonella if they’re dunked in chlorine. But, if it comes down to picking our poisons like this, then the health of future generations is in serious trouble.
The only way to safely reduce the incidence of food borne diseases is to get animals out of factory farms and onto pastures big enough to absorb their waste. And, we have to make sure that at the end of their lives, they are butchered on the farm or at small-scale, local slaughterhouses to avoid contamination at the meatpacking plant.
Here are a few things we can to do to get moving in the right direction:
1. Congress should exempt small-scale, direct-to-consumer, local, pasture-based, and organic farmers and food processors from inappropriate food safety regulations. Support Tester-Hagan amendments to Senate Bill 510.
2. Consumers should swear off factory-farmed animal products and eat vegetarian when pasture-raised organic isn’t available. We also need to press the USDA to require pasture for organic chickens, as it has for cows.
3. Regulators should phase-out the worst factory farming practices. To address salmonella, we can start by banning battery cages. The USDA organic standards ban battery cages. Michigan and California are the first states to pass phase-out laws. Banning battery cages can cut the risk of salmonella contamination in half.
4. Localities should lift restrictions on residents raising chickens in their backyards.
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