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18 Jul: Food Safety ACTION ALERT: Stop the FDA’s War on Small-Scale Farmers and Food Producers

Washington, DC – You may recall back in 2010 we worked to stop passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The bill was an effort by Congress to appease angry consumers fed up with a spate of incidents of food contamination (like that year’s salmonella outbreak and recall of eggs) resulting from the unhealthy livestock farming practices of industrial…

22 Jun: FDA “Protectin?g” the Public from Locally Grown, High Quality Food: An Interview with Deborah Stockton

Powerful corporate interests  have become proficient in colluding with the state to shield themselves from having to compete in the free market. In this podcast, Deborah Stockton, Executive Director of the National Independent Consumers & Farmers Association speaks with Michael Ostrolenk about how the heavy-hand of government over-regulation is forcing many small, independent farms across the United States to close.  The…

29 Jan: The Food Safety Law: The Way Forward!

Passage of this bill won’t change much unless the bill is funded. In this economic environment, it will be difficult to get the $1.4 billion required to implement this bill without some revenue generator, which this bill does not include. There has already been talk from Republicans in the House that they will not fund the bill. The government is currently under a continuing resolution (CR) which expires on March 4. So one of the first challenges for the new Congress is how they handle the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. Therefore, it is unlikely that anyone will get an increase in this environment. Some lobbying from states is also anticipated since they’ll be able to seek a variance from the produce safety standards as long as they can show that they have procedures in place to reach the same goals.