Food safety bill not as damaging to agriculture as feared

A federal food safety bill piles more burdens on fruit and vegetable farmers but stops short of delivering the wallop initially feared, lawmakers and agriculture experts say.

“This is just a lot of bureaucracy,” Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, said. “That’s not going to make food safer, but make it more expensive.”

Goodlatte and Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, both opposed the bill. It passed the House 283-142 and awaits Senate action.

The measure could have been worse, said Spencer Neale, senior assistant director for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.

Late changes mitigated much of the negative impact the $3.8-billion bill could have had on agriculture, Neale said.

Neale said the initial language would have broadened the scope of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate food safety and activities of farms that are currently regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, with amendments to the bill, farms, restaurants and retail food establishments have been largely exempted from the bill’s requirements, as have farmers’ markets.

“At the end of the day, most agricultural groups supported it,” Neale said.

The bill, Neale said, tries to update production standards for fruits and vegetables. The bill places a $500 fee on food facilities to cover the costs of oversight.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association and the National Restaurant Association are among the supporters of the legislation.

Still, Goodlatte contended, the legislation “does not do the kinds of things necessary to make our foods safer,” but instead adds more unneeded regulations. The U.S., he said, already has the safest food supply in the world.

Goodlatte says the legislation will not require the FDA to spend any additional money on food inspection but will impose “significant regulatory burdens” on small businesses while not holding the agency accountable.

He said the bill “effectively creates a federal license to be in the food business.”

Language to exclude row crop producers and relieve livestock producers from some of the bill’s regulatory burdens was a start, Goodlatte said, but those measures did not go far enough.

“This bill still leaves our nation’s fruit and vegetable producers subject to objectionable regulatory burdens,” Goodlatte said on the House floor before the vote.

Goodlatte, like Neale, expressed concern over a provision that would allow the FDA to quarantine a geographic area if there was “credible evidence” that food posed a health risk.