Growing Safe Food Act Introduced in Senate

S. 2758, the Growing Safe Food Act, was introduced yesterday by Senator Debbie Stabenow (MI). The legislation aims to “help educate and train farmers and food processors in food safety.” You may recall that earlier this year the House passed a food safety bill that has caused some controversy in the agriculture community for the amount of authority the bill grants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with regards to food production, among other issues.

The bill that matches closest with the House bill is S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, but this bill has been stalled in the Senate do to the time the health care debate is taking. Stabenow claims her bill helps small and mid-sized farms, food processors, and wholesalers “comply with pending food safety overhauls, which is likely to pass once there is room in the Senate schedule.”

Stabenow said in the Helena Bottemiller article on the bill for Food Safety News online, ‘"With all the recent scares over contaminated food, this legislation will help restore consumer trust in the safety of our food supply. . . Providing training to farmers and processors on things like handling practices and safe packaging will go a long way toward restoring this confidence."

The bill’s training program would be run by the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Integrated Food Safety Initiative. Grants will be available to support the training programs and are available to agriculture departments, extension services, trade association, and universities. “According to a statement released by Stabenow's office, ‘Training can be in the areas of handling practices, manufacturing, produce safety standards, risk analysis, sanitation standards, safe packaging, storage, traceability, record-keeping, and food safety audits.”’

The bill does stipulate that existing standards set in law must be accounted for as training programs are developed and begin receiving funds.

To read the Food Safety News article click here.
To read S. 2758, the Growing Safe Food Act click here.
To read S.510, the FDA Food Safety and Modernization Act click here.

Posted: 11/11/09