Section 105

Section 105 of the food saftey bill now waiting in the wings to be voted upon when everyone is busy elsewhere...

'(1) In general - Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture and representatives of State departments of agriculture, sall publish a notice of proposed rulemaking to establish science based minimum standards for the safe productionad harvesting of those types of fruits and vegetables that are raw agricultural commodities for which the Secretary has determined that such standards minimize the risk of serious adverse health consequences or death."

So in other words when people tell you that the law will have no impact on farmers they are not lieing. Because really who knows what those rules will be? But if they take as a model some of the rules coming out of grocrey store requirements for greens, many small farms will be unable to meet those requirements, if for no other reason then they do not have enough land for the buffer zones, which are a couple hundred feet deep. I posted about this in July.

You can probably tick off any item which has recently had recalls as the first targets, these will include at a minumum greens, spinach, cilantro, peppers, and tomatoes... That list includes some of the higher value items to a small farm, and more will certainly follow. Just something to think about.