Food safety - what's ahead

If you are glass half-full, every-gray-cloud-has-a-silver-lining type of person, there may some redeemable value to the FDA/CDC handling of the salmonella outbreak investigation and oversight. The thought is this; the mistakes that FDA has made will be taken into account when Congress and the next Administration give the FDA new powers and resources to regulate the fresh produce industry. Surely there will be a modicum of common sense that the FDA’s power to harm industry in profound ways because of wrong theories and premature conclusion will argue for limits on FDA’s power.
Industry and association lobbyists will press for greater accountability on account of the FDA in future outbreak investigations, and compensation for industry losses in this one.
First of all, the industry must enumerate what the FDA has done wrong with the investigation. At first blush, this may appear to be easy. After all, tomato retail sales numbers for June noted in a previous blog post speak to the damage suffered by the supply chain.
Some even say the episode shows that the “market” can better handle issue of food safety; let’s leave the government out of the equation. Another thought is that food safety oversight should belong to the Department of Agriculture.
Let’s face it. The “the market” argument may place on message boards and think tanks, but Congress will have no part of it. That train left the station with Herbert Hoover. And there is no way with a Democratic majority that produce food safety is assigned to the USDA.
As soon as industry leaders air their grievances at federal missteps, they may soon feel the spotlight of inquiry themselves.
Indeed, “what’s gone wrong” is not a one-sided complaint. As long and apparently wrong the investigation has been so far, the FDA and members of Congress can respond that one of the reason that it has taken so long and fallen so short is the lack of an industry wide traceability system.
As much as lobbyists will argue that it has been the FDA’s investigative methods and theories are much more to blame, this argument cannot be made with 10 second sound bites on network news.
Industry leaders believe the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 has provided the industry with some breathing room to implement an industry led produce traceability initiative. The Bioterrorism Act requires industry players in most circumstances to know the “one up and one back” record of the produce they buy and sell. Thus, traceability in its crudest form is already the law.
The Produce Traceability Initiative is expected to release its timeline for industry adoption in August, and Congress may well defer to this effort up to a certain point. But in the end, it is hard to believe that produce traceability will be “voluntary”; I would assume that any food safety legislation will put a hard deadline for mandatory industry implementation.
There is strong hope within the industry that Congress will take up the issue of compensation for growers and others who have suffered losses as a result of the outbreak investigation. If the cause of the outbreak is found to be something other than tomatoes, I would heartily agree that compensation is called for. I asked Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado about the compensation issue and she said she hasn’t heard of any conversations yet about the possibility. “We don’t have a lot of money lying around here.”


So when does this all happen? Perhaps a couple of food safety provisions – related to mandatory recall authority and traceability – could be tucked in an omnibus spending bill this fall. Next year, particularly if Obama wins the White House, Democratic lawmakers will make a push for a single food safety agency.
Remember the time that produce industry leaders said they wanted strong federal oversight of food safety? Members of Congress have noted that industry is “clamoring” for regulation and are about to deliver it in spades. It will be hard to raise a hand to object and be asked, “Isn’t this what you said you wanted?”
Perhaps the most troublesome issue to lawmakers will be “local growers.” What kind of exclusions - if any – will be carved out for small producers in food safety and traceability legislation? Industry lobbyists will argue correctly that all food should be accounted for. While “local” growers are perhaps reaping the biggest benefit from ebbing consumer confidence in commercial fresh produce, they may also play a valuable role to the trade by limiting the legislative zeal of lawmakers who would be loathe to pass laws that would hurt small producers..