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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/27/MNKM1D3C5H.DTL">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/27/MNKM1D3C5H.DTL</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Organic,
small farmers fret over FDA regulation<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="mailto:clochhead@sfchronicle.com">Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle
Washington Bureau</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=date><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Tuesday,
April 27, 2010<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/04/27/MNKM1D3C5H.DTL&o=0&type=printable"><span
style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.gif@01CAE607.A8CD0B10" vspace=1
alt="Earthbound Farm, an organic grower in San Juan Bautista (..."></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><strong><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><span
id=articlebody>(04-27) 04:00 PDT Washington</span></font></b></strong> -- Small
farmers in California who have led a national movement away from industrial
agriculture face a looming crackdown on food safety that they say is geared to
big corporate farms and will make it harder for them to survive.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The small
growers, many of whom grow dozens of different kinds of vegetables and fruits,
say the inherent benefits of their size, and their sensitivity to extra costs,
are being ignored.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>They are
fighting to carve out a sanctuary in legislation that would bring farmers under
the strict purview of the Food and Drug Administration, an agency more familiar
with pharmaceuticals than food and local farms.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>A bill
before the Senate is riding a bipartisan groundswell created by recent
outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella and other contamination in everything from
fresh spinach to cookie dough.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>And the
small farmers face opponents in consumer groups, victims of food contamination,
large growers and the Obama administration, who say no farm and no food should
get a pass on safety.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>An even
tougher version of the legislation passed the House last summer. Now, a
behind-the-scenes battle is raging in the Senate over how to regulate small and
organic growers without ruining them - and still protect consumers.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If two
versions of the overhaul pass, Congress would work to merge them.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
legislation would mandate a range of programs intended to bolster food safety.
The FDA would gain greater authority to regulate how products are grown, stored,
transported, inspected, traced from farm to table and recalled when needed.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Pinpointing
problems<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But
biologically diverse and organic growers argue that the problems that have
plagued the food industry lie elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>They
point to the sale of bagged vegetables, cut fruit and other processed food in
which vast quantities of produce from different farms are mixed, sealed in
containers and shipped long distances, creating a host for harmful bacteria.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
legislation does not address what some experts suspect is the source of E. coli
contamination: the large, confined animal feeding operations that are breeding
grounds for E. coli and are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
not the FDA.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It
does not take on the industrial animal industry and the abuses going on,"
said Tom Willey of T&D Willey Farms in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Madera</st1:place></st1:City>, an organic grower of Mediterranean
vegetables. "The really dangerous organisms we're dealing with out here,
and trying to protect our produce and other foodstuffs from, are coming out the
rear end of domestic animals." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>No one in
Congress or the administration has yielded in a bureaucratic turf battle
between the Department of Agriculture, which regulates meat, poultry and eggs,
and the FDA, which regulates all other food. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
controversy began with the spinach E. coli outbreak near San Juan Bautista in
2006 that left four people dead, 35 people with acute kidney failure and 103
hospitalized. The bacteria, known as E. coli O157:H7, first appeared in
hamburger meat in the early 1980s and migrated to produce, mainly lettuce and
other leafy greens that are cut, mixed and bagged for the convenience of
shoppers. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Contamination<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Since
then, there have been dozens of contamination cases, leading Congress to
rewrite food safety laws by giving much more power to the FDA. But small
growers worry that they, and consumers, will suffer in the sweep of reform.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"How
do we trust that the FDA is going to know about things that the San Francisco
Bay Area has been very progressive on - the field to fork, fresh, grow local,
buy local - all of that?" said Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel. "The organic
people are feeling that the regulations the FDA may promulgate will be so
safety oriented, it'll put them out of business."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Consumer
groups say they care about small farmers but that safety comes first.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Our
principle is that food should be safe, whatever the source," said Sandra
Eskin, director of the Pew Health Group's food safety campaign, one of the Pew
Charitable Trusts, which Monday sponsored a public meeting on the issue with
federal officials in Seaside (Monterey County). <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"People
care profoundly about all these issues: feeding their families, food safety,
local agriculture," Eskin said. "It's a passionate discussion and
understandably so. Everybody eats."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Tom
Nassif, head of Western Growers, which represents large produce growers, said
small growers should not be exempt.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"If
the small guy who sells to a farmers' market gets a family sick, it's a blip on
the radar screen," Nassif said. "There's not a big hue and cry,
because it didn't affect hundreds of people. What about those people? Doesn't
their food safety count?"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Protocols<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
tension that has come with food safety reforms was on display after the spinach
outbreak rocked <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>.
Large growers embraced costly science-based safety protocols for all leafy
greens - guidelines that federal regulators are considering taking nationwide.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>However,
a UC Davis study last year by Shermain Hardesty and Yoko Kusunose found that
the rules have put smaller growers at a disadvantage because their compliance
costs are spread over fewer acres. Hardesty said costs may be as high as $100
an acre.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Large
produce buyers such as Wal-Mart and McDonald's have gone much further than the
industry standards. They have imposed rules of their own that have forced many <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State> farmers who
supply them to fence off waterways, poison wildlife to keep animals out of
fields and destroy crop hedgerows that support beneficial insects. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Deputy
Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said Monday the administration is
keeping a "close watch" on these so-called "super metrics,"
acknowledging that they have harmed the environment but said, "nobody gets
a pass on food safety." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Increasing
the danger<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Willey,
the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Madera</st1:place></st1:City>
farmer, argued that many food safety rules tend "to push us to embrace a
paradigm of sterility," which, in the long run, increases the danger. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"When
you create microbial vacuums, they can be even more easily taken over by
pathogenic organisms," he said. "In organic agriculture, we depend
tremendously on a cooperative effort with beneficial microorganisms. My whole
soil fertility system is based on that. Actually, soil fertility planetwide is
based on that."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Efforts
to modify proposed rules to make compliance easier for biologically diversified
farms have been more successful in the Senate than in the House. New language
that requires the FDA to consider farm size, crop diversity, organic
requirements and other issues has been added. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"While
none of these things in themselves solves the cause for concern, they certainly
point strongly in the direction of the FDA needing to take into account these
considerations," said Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National
Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Hoefner
called the House bill a one-size-fits-all approach that would be a
"complete disaster" for small farms.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=dtlcomment><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at <a href="mailto:clochhead@sfchronicle.com">clochhead@sfchronicle.com</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</span>
<p id=url><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/27/MNKM1D3C5H.DTL<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p id=pageno><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This
article appeared on page <strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">A - 1</font></b></strong>
of the San Francisco Chronicle<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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