As you read this, there is a bill before the U.S. Senate that has the potential to change the U.S. food industry more than any other law ever passed by the U.S. Congress. In the name of "food safety", the U.S. government would be given an iron grip over the production, transportation and sale of all food in the United States. Hordes of small food producers and organic farmers could potentially be put out of business. If this bill becomes law, the freedom to grow what you want, eat what you want and to share food from your gardens with your neighbors could be greatly curtailed. It would give the FDA unprecedented discretion to regulate U.S. food production. A version of this bill was already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last summer, and now S. 510, also known as the
FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, is in front of the U.S. Senate and it is expected to pass easily.
Because of how vaguely it is written and because of how much discretion it gives to the FDA, it is potentially a very, very dangerous law.
So who is actually in favor of it?
Well, big food corporations and big agriculture are actually very much in favor of this bill.
Why?
Is it because they are so concerned about food safety?
No.
In fact, virtually every major case of food contamination in recent U.S. history has come from large-scale industrial agriculture or large-scale industrial food production.
The real reason why they are backing S. 510 is because it will devastate their primary competition - small food producers and organic farmers.
In recent years, the demand for organic food has skyrocketed as the American people have learned the truth about how our food is actually made. Big agriculture and the giant food producers are losing profits as Americans increasingly vote with their wallets.
So now the food giants are using "food safety" as a way to get market share back. It is an open secret that many of those involved in drafting this bill and in pushing it through Congress have ties to food industry giants.
Thousands of small food producers and organic farmers will have their very existence threatened by this bill. It imposes a bureaucratic nightmare on all food producers that the big corporations will be able to handle easily but that will cripple much smaller operations.
Already, many farmers can see the writing on the wall. One small farmer recently described the mood among her fellow small farmers to the
Wall Street Journal....