Today I received an action alert from the folks at WORC, who’ve been working to amend the Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 510. The bill may come to the Senate floor as early as Thursday, Sept. 16, so please take action now! Contact Senators Johnson and Thune, or whomever your home state senators are, and ask them to support Montana Senator Jon Tester’s amendment.
I have contacted both South Dakota senators about the bill and received mixed reactions from them; neither of them promised to support Tester’s amendment at the time, which was earlier this summer. Both senators expressed a desire to see our food system made safer, which is admirable; however, both also seemed to believe that small farmers were already exempted from the bill, which is incorrect. I have read S. 510, and as it stands, there are not clear exemptions for direct-sale farmers nor are there exemptions from HACCP for small processors. Tester’s amendment is necessary to prevent S. 510 from crippling our fledgling local food systems.
For more information on S. 510, and to contact your senators no matter where you live, contact our good friends at WORC. Their action page has all the information you need, and they make contacting your senators a snap. Do it now!
