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Food ‘Sovereignty’ and Food Safety
The numerous recalls listed on this site might actually argue for the need for government oversight because most of the recalls are not linked to outbreaks of foodborne disease, but are the result of routine sampling by regulators that turned up pathogens and presumably worked to get potentially contaminated food off the market or to advise consumers that they might have tainted products at home before anyone became sick.
Outbreaks involving widely distributed food products make national headlines, but that doesn’t mean that local growers, producers and restaurants don’t have food-safety issues or are even relatively safer. People who eat a local baker’s Salmonella-contaminated pastries, or a farmer’s E. coli-tainted strawberries, or a small dairy’s Listeria-contaminated milk and cheese — to name just a few of the multitude of outbreaks this past year caused by small producers — get just as sick as people who eat poisoned food sold by a conglomerate, so is it really any better that an unsafe local food product simply doesn’t make as many people ill?
As strong supporters of the local food movement and of food safety, we think the food sovereignty issue is an interesting and legitimate debate. We frequently hear that some local communities want to challenge state and federal laws regulating food production, but even when we ask we don’t get too many specifics about which regulations are burdensome, and likely should be changed or eliminated if they don’t result in safer food. We welcome more information about which food-safety rules food-sovereignty advocates think are unnecessary.
The courts will eventually tell us if we have any more right to produce and sell local food without license or regulation than we do to build a local house or other structure without regulation and inspection.
As for China, here’s what the New York Times reported about China’s small, entrepreneurial food producers:
” … a stomach-turning string of food-safety scandals this spring, from recycled buns to contaminated pork, makes it clear that official efforts are falling short. Despite efforts to create a modern food-safety regimen, oversight remains utterly haphazard, in the hands of ill-trained, ill-equipped and outnumbered enforcers whose quick fixes are even more quickly undone …
” … producers operate in a cutthroat environment in which illegal additives are everywhere and cost-effective. Manufacturers calculate correctly that the odds of profiting from unsafe practices far exceed the odds of getting caught, experts say. China’s explosive growth has spawned nearly half a million food producers, the authorities say, and four-fifths of them employ 10 or fewer workers, making oversight difficult …
” … Some food is simply unregulated. Pork accounts for two-thirds of the meat eaten by Chinese consumers, but only half of it goes through slaughterhouses that are subject to inspection, he said. The rest comes from pigs slaughtered in backyards, villages or markets and is essentially untested … “
Go here for the full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/world/asia/08food.html?pagewanted=all
Vegetarian, Raw and Vegan with Bill & Sheila
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