In a nutshell, what is bad about this bill is it is about to be passed without being completed. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be granted wide discretion and authority to regulate all US-based food producers and processors. The language of the bill leaves so much up to be fleshed out at a later time the FDA could, for example, easily wipe out anything from organic farmers to your kid’s lemonade stand.
What is scary for smaller food producers and processors is they could, in the eyes of the FDA, be indistinguishable from their multi-billion dollar competitors. They could be expected to keep the same kinds of records, follow the same procedures or even pay the same licensing fees. To put that in perspective, my friend who sells home-made jams on etsy.com could be forced to pay the same licensing fees and use the same equipment as Welches or Smuckers.
Not to say Welches or Smuckers are “bad,” but their resources, precautions, and processes are vastly different from one person making food in her kitchen. If the FDA were to treat my friend and companies like Smuckers equally, there just won’t be people like my friend making and selling food anymore. We’ll end up with all our food choices being limited to what comes from large food companies.
As bad as this bill sounds, it isn’t meeting much resistance in congress or the senate. In all likelihood, it will be passed by the end of the year. We won’t know to what extent the FDA will exercise their new powers for many years to come.
For more information:
What’s so bad about the Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 150
What is scary for smaller food producers and processors is they could, in the eyes of the FDA, be indistinguishable from their multi-billion dollar competitors. They could be expected to keep the same kinds of records, follow the same procedures or even pay the same licensing fees. To put that in perspective, my friend who sells home-made jams on etsy.com could be forced to pay the same licensing fees and use the same equipment as Welches or Smuckers.
Not to say Welches or Smuckers are “bad,” but their resources, precautions, and processes are vastly different from one person making food in her kitchen. If the FDA were to treat my friend and companies like Smuckers equally, there just won’t be people like my friend making and selling food anymore. We’ll end up with all our food choices being limited to what comes from large food companies.
As bad as this bill sounds, it isn’t meeting much resistance in congress or the senate. In all likelihood, it will be passed by the end of the year. We won’t know to what extent the FDA will exercise their new powers for many years to come.
For more information: