Small Farms, Safe Food Just Common Sense

The Center for Disease Control announced yesterday that it still hasn't located the source of the salmonella outbreak that has travelled around the country recently. Last year there was an outbreak linked to Banquet chicken pot pies, made ConAgra. There was the infamous "tomato scare," which actually wound up being the "pepper scare," with imported peppers. There was adulterated peanut butter and pet foods, also imported. 

In 2006 there was a nationwide ban on spinach, grown in California. However, there wasn't an accompanying explanation that locally grown spinach was fine, unless you lived in that valley in CA. Ultimately, the contamination was found in the packaging, specifically the water used in that processing. The water was tainted by a leaching manure from a poorly managed dairy farm that was infecting the well of the processor. 

The FDA and CDC both recommend that people wash their food and avoid eating raw meats, and give extensive suggestions about food preparation. These steps should certainly be heeded, but consideration also needs to be given to the way these foods were raised or packaged. ConAgra is one of the nation's agri-giants, processing food on a massive scale. Intensively managed livestock operations, from milk to poultry, swine to beef, present environmental hazards that affect all those who live next door or down stream from them. There is no way to control the quality of the practices, or packaging, from imported food, except through inspection.

In the wake of these food poisonings the FDA has announced that plans on closing 7 of its 13 inspection labs. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19811664/These include many that deal with import inspection. Importers are finding ways to evade detection, and our food security suffering.

Growing your own food or support local farmers is a great way to promote safe food for your family. You should still wash the food, and your hands and utensils, but if you buy food in its raw form you can see that it's not adulterated with melamine or other by-products. 

While there is a need for large scale agriculture at this time, they should not have control of all the food. Volume has its advantages in lowering prices, but it also raises the potential for contamination. The USDA seems determined to concentrate the food system into the hands of these agri-giants, but at the same time, they are losing inspectors and the richest, healthiest food available. 

Big ag sees this happening. They've been working on it. But consumers are now realizing that the small sustainable farm has the ability to care more directly for each animal. In the event of a problem the potential outbreak is significantly smaller than a nationwide distribution of illnesses. It only makes sense that small farms need to continue to exist so that we can have the choice of where our food comes from. Getting your food directly from the source makes it much easier to judge the quality, and minimize the opportunity for germ introduction. Lastly, learning the skills to prepare and judge properly prepared meats is also important, and like so many things is getting concentrated in the hands of "chefs," rather than the "every person," which is traditional.