Power to Small Farmers

A major victory for small farmers - here:

"The Senate is currently considering a sweeping bill that aims to make our food safer. But the makers of "non-industrial" food—small, local, and family farms and processors—are fighting to preserve exemptions to regulations they say could put them out of business.
For starters, it gives the FDA the power to order companies to recall food. (Currently, and and almost unbelievably, companies make that decision on their own, under government and consumer pressure.) It expands its ability to write regulations about how and where food is grown. It requires processors to keep more detailed records of what came from where and what happened to it, so that the FDA can trace outbreaks more easily. It gives the FDA more resources for inspectors. And it requires all processors to have hazard-control plans. (One big caveat: The FDA does not oversee most meat and poultry. The Department of Agriculture does that, and its regulations are not changing.)
In this battle, at least, the little guys have won out so far. "Food production in America is already too centralized, so we've got to fix this bill so it doesn't put a nail in the coffin of family-scale producers," said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who sponsored an amendment exempting most small farms from certain onerous parts of law. "The folks who sell their produce directly to the local market—whose customers can see them eyeball-to-eyeball and know where their food is coming from—shouldn't be forced to deal with expensive new regulations aimed at big industry-scale producers." Foodie gurus such as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser argued for Tester's amendment.
As it now stands, the bill includes the amendment, which has been slightly modified: If a farmer sells less than $500,000 in produce a year, and sells most of it to consumers, restaurants, or grocery stores (rather than brokers or processors) within his own state or within 275 miles, then it would be exempt from the new regulations. And if products from any given small farm get anyone sick, the FDA reserves the right to revoke its exemptions."