In my previous post, I skimmed the surface of the massive regulations which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed to reduce human exposure to pathogenic organisms originating from fresh fruits and vegetables. The draft Produce Safety and Preventive Controls (for handling facilities) regulations are the first steps towards implementing the Food Modernization Safety Act (FSMA) of 2010.
Implementing the Food Modernization Safety Act: Fresh Fruit & Vegetables
The Produce Rule in the new Food Modernization Safety Act applies to fruits and vegetables that are normally consumed raw.
Implementing the Food Modernization Safety Act: A Broad Overview
After years of stalemate between public health, consumer, agricultural and food service interests on Capitol Hill, Congress approved the FSMA’s sweeping expansion of federal oversight in 2010. This post and the two to follow will provide basic background for answering key questions leading into a discussion of the merits of our increasingly centralized and standardized food production and handling systems.
Protecting the Viability of Organics from the Purists
This post delves deeper into how one false impression in particular is fueling the sense of loss behind organic’s mid-life crisis. Specifically, we’ll examine how the exclusion of synthetic materials, which some within the organic community would elevate to a cardinal principle, actually threatens to drive farmers out of certification, if not out of business entirely.
Understanding the Wisdom of Rachel Carson
For better and for worse, the popular understanding of organic agriculture in America is inseparable from the environmental and human health risks associated with pesticides.
The History of Organic Agriculture: Final Installment
Part 11: I couldn’t resist this title for the concluding chapter in our history of organic agriculture. This lyric from the rambunctious odyssey of the Grateful Dead also conveys the myriad twists and turns that have carried organic agriculture from the countercultural fringe to the White House garden and shelves of Walmart.
Organic Certification Standards for Poultry: An Insider’s Look
Part 10: Beyond the intricacies of the production standards themselves, the story of organic poultry certification also includes one of the more fascinating sagas in the relationship between the organic community, the agribusiness establishment and the federal government.
Organic Agriculture and Organic Certification: Not So Ying and Yang
Part 9: This installment in our history of organic agriculture will explore the challenges and contradictions of setting livestock standards using the scandalous abuse of the requirements for pasture to illustrate the very real limitations of organic certification.
A loosening of the Organic Standards: Synthetic Substances
Part 8: We must travel back to the 1980s to appreciate why and how the anti-synthetic and anti-agribusiness provisions were written into the USDA organic certification standards.
