Fruit And Vegetable Producers Ask Congress To Quash Small Farm Exemption From Food Safety Measures

The United Fresh and 22 other fruit and vegetable industry organizations have petitioned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to hold a conference with Senate counterparts to iron out what the groups called “substantial differences” between Senate and House versions of food safety legislation. The Senate bill passed December 2, and the House bill passed in July 2009. According to United Fresh, the Senate version contains an amendment exempting certain food producers because of size or “regional proximity.” The exemption changes the underlying framework from science and technology to “political ideology." The signatories argued that exempting small farms from federal food safety standards “undermines the intent of credible federal food safety systems … based on risk and science, not arbitrary criteria.”