ACTION: FWW Petition & Info on Leafy Greens Hearings

September 18, 2009

Forwarding the message.

National Organic Coalition

www.NationalOrganicCoalition.org

Dear Neil,Next week begins the first of seven public hearings regarding a proposed National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement [see Federal Register Notice], that would lay out food safety rules for the growing and marketing of leafy greens. See below

for more information about the process and SIGN THE PETITION from NOC member, FOOD & WATER WATCHThe National Organic Coalition (NOC), in collaboration with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has been working hard on both the proposed legislation (both HR 2749 and now S.510) and participating in these hearings so that food safety guidelines for sustainable, organic, and small farms are reasonable and scale

appropriate.

___________________________Don't let corporate farms dictate the

rules!

Don't let scorched earth policies push

small farms out.

Tell USDA Food Safety Rules shouldn't

be written by the industry!

Is the solution to E. coli contamination in spinach a scorched

earth policy that only the biggest farms can follow? We don't think so, but that's just what

corporate agribusiness is suggesting.

Food safety is serious, and while we need real policy, it shouldn't be

written to promote industrial farming.

Can you sign a petition to stop the produce industry from writing its

own food safety rules?

Shortly after the E. coli outbreak in 2006, the "leafy

greens" industry in California

got together to try to fix its image, creating something called a marketing agreement

for lettuce, spinach, and other leafy greens grown in the state. Problem is,

the standards developed by the California

marketing agreement board required drastic measures that were most suited to

large-scale producers. These measures

included trying to keep all wildlife off of farms. Small farms and those that tried to

incorporate water quality protection, wildlife habitat preservation, or organic

methods found it hard to comply. Even

though the marketing agreement is voluntary, it sure doesn't seem that way to

farmers if all of their buyers require participation.

Now the biggest players in the produce industry want to take

this flawed model national -- they are asking the USDA to let them create a

national version of the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement.

Repeated food safety problems show the need for a

conversation about what safety standards are appropriate for foods like leafy

greens, but letting the industry create its own rules and turn food safety into

a marketing tool is not going to get us there.

Tell USDA you don't want the produce industry to write its

own food safety rules.

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/741/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1438

Thanks for taking action,

Sarah, Alex, Noelle and the Food Team

Food & Water Watch

goodfood(at)fwwatch.org

______________

INFORMATION FROM THE FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE [page 45565, vol. 74, No. 170, Sept. 3, 2009]HEARING DATES: 1. September 22 through 24, 2009, Monterey, California. 2.

September 30 through October 1, 2009, Jacksonville, Florida. 3. October 6, 2009, Columbus, Ohio. 4. October 8, 2009, Denver, Colorado. 5. October 14 and 15, 2009, Yuma, Arizona. 6. October 20, 2009, in Syracuse, New York. 7. October 22, 2009, in Charlotte, North Carolina. All hearing sessions are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. and will conclude at 5 p.m., or any other time as determined by the presiding administrative law judge.