Opinion: Putting Food Safety First
January 10, 2013 
One of the predictably difficult areas to negotiate in the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act was where growers with smaller farms fit in. Some said that all farms should be subject to the same rules because all food should be safe. Others argued that because those with small farms had more control of their product they should be exempt. The latter argument carried the day.
But a recent study we highlighted on our website, www.GrowingProduce.com, has challenged that notion, saying smaller farms basically don’t provide food that’s as safe as that from big farms. You can see the study, authored by Steve Sexton, a North Carolina State University economist, through a link in the story, “New Study: Local Food = Less Safety.” (Not to plug our website, but one problem with magazines is they have a finite amount of space. With the website, we don’t have any space constraints.)
Sexton’s point is that consumers’ growing demands for locally produced and safer foods are in conflict, and that retailers’ dependence on smaller, local producers may come at the expense of food safety. Examining the contaminated cantaloupe cases in Colorado last fall and in Indiana this past summer, Sexton states: “Growing reliance on local production sacrifices the benefits of specialization according to comparative advantage and scale economies that more concentrated production affords.”
It’s One For All
As you might expect, the article generated a bunch of comments, nearly all of them along the lines of Sexton being full of you-know-what. (Another benefit of the website is you can tell us what you think, right then and there.) A sample: “Mr. Sexton is an economist … not a farmer or even someone involved in the ag sector … need I say more.”
Most of the people who weighed in said because they farm less acreage they can keep a better eye on it. Not only that, but the guy with less acreage actually has more to lose because he doesn’t have all the insurance and the lawyers. Wrote Nicolas Naranja: “A small 10-acre operation will tend to have one person doing everything and a Salmonella outbreak would likely liquidate everything the person had. No land, no tractors, no money. That’s a pretty big incentive to do things right.”
But the most recent comment, signed “Very Small Farmer, (VSF)” said: “While there are no doubts that some small farms are doing their best on food safety, most of the small farms I have seen would instantly fail any food safety audit. Typically, they are unaware or unwilling to spend anything extra on food safety.”
VSF is exaggerating, but we all know there is some truth there. The upshot is food safety is up to every single one of us, right down to the consumer’s kitchen, where most problems actually occur. But if there’s a problem on the farming end, all growers, big and small, will be diminished.
Please take care.
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