Food safety regulations eat away at small farmer wallets

Food safety regulations eat away at small farmer wallets

Recent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses have some grocery stores demanding tougher safety regulations, but the standards may make it more difficult for East Tennessee farmers to stay in business.

"We're trying to get ready for this food safety on fruits and vegetables," Steve Longmire said, pointing to construction on a new packing facility for his Grainger County tomatoes.

Longmire remembers growing tomatoes with his grandfather.

His family has been in the tomato growing business since the 1940s, but a lot has changed since then.

"All the plugs we do out there need to be this kind - weatherproof," Longmire said.

That's because the facility needs to be hosed down daily in order to pass a food safety audit now required by one of the vendors where Longmire sells his tomatoes.

Another requirement is that produce cannot be exposed to open air once it's packed.

"What they're doing on the front of the dock is enclosing it to where the trucks, when they back up, won't be loaded into open air," Longmire added.

The food safety audits are becoming a common requirement for major grocery stores, following outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella.

The audits don't differentiate between large industrial farms and small family farms like Longmire's, so small farmers are having to make major changes to the way they've grown, packed, and sold their produce for years.

"They're looking at every single section of their operation and basically having to change it," said Grainger County UT Extension Agent Anthony Carver said.

For Longmire, it's coming at a baseline cost of $150,000, which doesn't include hiring a new employee to oversee all the paperwork that's required.

"We're going to do whatever it takes to get in line with it, but it's hard," Longmire said. "For years and years, we've looked after our stuff. We're getting classified the same as a guy who grows 500 or 1,000 acres. Here we are growing 15 acres. To the best of my knowledge, no one's gotten sick off our product and same with Grainger County."

Right now, all the work is a choice, but it may soon become mandatory for everyone.

Both the U.S. House and the Senate are working on legislation that would make food safety audits mandatory for everyone who sells produce.

"If this comes down to the small producers, they'll stop producing, because they will not go into debt hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply. They can't afford to do so and continue to be a farmer," Carver said.