one small farmer's take on the shutdown

ravdin

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ravdin
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We buy a box of produce weekly direct from Terra Firm Farm, in Yolo County, CA. I rather enjoyed this week's newsletter, posted without further comment.

Last year, cantelopes grown on a Colorado farm and sold at Walmart sickened hundreds of people. Thirty three of those people died. The culprit was listeria, a pathogen that is more commonly associated with dairy products than fresh produce. It turns out that the farm used a system to wash the melons that would have allowed them to be contaminated. (Note: TFF does not wash its melons)

Federal investigators found the farm to be liable, its two owners negligent and responsible for the illnesses and deaths. The farm is closed and the owners are now bankrupt. It’s fair to say that the farmers involved have no business growing food for humans. As a business owner, one is responsible for knowing all the potential risks that your product poses to consumers, and take all necessary action to prevent that risk. The farmers failed to do this.

Apparently, though, someone at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided it wasn’t enough just to be sure that those farmers would never again farm. Last week, federal officials arrested them and brought them to court, in handcuffs and leg shackles, to face criminal charges that they allowed contaminated food to cross state lines. If convicted they will go to jail. Nothing in the report of the investigation suggests that the farmers knew the melons were contaminated.

I can easily understand that people who lost loved ones might want to punish those responsible. But I wonder, would the FDA have treated the CEO of Dole — the biggest fruit producer in the world — as if he were a violent criminal if the cantelopes had been produced by that immensely powerful corporation instead of by a small family farm. Probably not. No criminal charges were filed two years ago against the large corporation that was responsible for the contaminated peanut butter that was produced in clearly unsanitary facility.

If the FDA really wanted to prevent microbes on fresh produce from making people sick, they would be helping farmers — especially small family farmers with limited resources — by funding research on new technologies and providing funding to implement practices to address the challenges. Instead, they are putting shackles on bankrupt farmers and creating a climate of fear, as if this will somehow prevent microbes from making people sick. It will not, and the FDA knows this.

Meanwhile, large corporations in our country are manufacturing and selling food that doctors, nutritionists and researchers have clearly proven make people sick and eventually kill them. They develop additives and enhancers that make people eat even more of this food, and the FDA approves them.

Please forgive me for not caring much if the corrupt and ineffective FDA is closed this week due to the shutdown of the federal government. It deserves to be closed permanently.

Thanks,

Pablito
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ravdin said:
We buy a box of produce weekly direct from Terra Firm Farm, in Yolo County, CA. I rather enjoyed this week's newsletter, posted without further comment.
Click to expand...

So because the FDA pressed charges (of negligence, I would imagine) against a pair of farmers who's produce killed thirty three people, the shutdown is a good thing.

That's certainly an... odd way of looking at the situation.
 
ravdin said:
We buy a box of produce weekly direct from Terra Firm Farm, in Yolo County, CA. I rather enjoyed this week's newsletter, posted without further comment.
Click to expand...

wow, they probably are great at composting because that article was garbage.

protip: The executives at the large peanut company were indicted.
 
Pablito doesn't seem to have much perspective. Rather then increase the effectiveness by ensuring fair and equal treatment regardless of the size of the offender, he would prefer eliminating all protections. No Pablito doesn't sound like a very rational person.

But he has a lot of Republican friends in Washington today who think shutting things down is better then fixing them is the correct solution.

It's a lazy way of thinking.
 
US government operates a number of Agricultural experimental stations. History suggests that combining regulatory agencies with anything else ends poorly.
 
On the other hand, can you imagine the rash if unsafe, unsanitary, and adulterated food that would be foisted on us if the FDA dis not exist?
 
Free market forces would probably have worked just as well as FDA enforcement. If your melons are killing your customers, soon you won't have as many customers and will have to go out of business.
 
marplots said:
Free market forces would probably have worked just as well as FDA enforcement. If your melons are killing your customers, soon you won't have as many customers and will have to go out of business.
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Where that breaks down is that supply chains tend to be long enough and mixed enough that customers can't make a connection between who poisoned them and what they purchased. See the hoursemeat issues in europe.
 
geni said:
Where that breaks down is that supply chains tend to be long enough and mixed enough that customers can't make a connection between who poisoned them and what they purchased. See the hoursemeat issues in europe.
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Also, I like to minimize the number of people needlessly dying.
 
ravdin said:
We buy a box of produce weekly direct from Terra Firm Farm, in Yolo County, CA. I rather enjoyed this week's newsletter, posted without further comment.
Click to expand...

From your letter:

If the FDA really wanted to prevent microbes on fresh produce from making people sick, they would be helping farmers — especially small family farmers with limited resources — by funding research on new technologies and providing funding to implement practices to address the challenges. Instead, they are putting shackles on bankrupt farmers and creating a climate of fear, as if this will somehow prevent microbes from making people sick. It will not, and the FDA knows this.
Click to expand...

Where does this funding come from in Libertopia?
 
marplots said:
Free market forces would probably have worked just as well as FDA enforcement. If your melons are killing your customers, soon you won't have as many customers and will have to go out of business.
Click to expand...

How do you think they figured out where the contamination was coming from? What "free market" force would assume that role?
 
What produce have "nutritionists" proven will make people sick?


BTW, in the US, "nutritionists" are, by and large, complete quacks. Dieticians are legit.
 
rustypouch said:
Also, I like to minimize the number of people needlessly dying.
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Yea well, [republican tin hat on] caveat emptor, if that lazy librul shopper cant tell a good melon from a bad one he deserves to get sick and die [tin hat off]
 
geni said:
Where that breaks down is that supply chains tend to be long enough and mixed enough that customers can't make a connection between who poisoned them and what they purchased. See the hoursemeat issues in europe.
Click to expand...

Those guys are smarter than I am. I am not clever enough to be an evil farmer.
 
rustypouch said:
Also, I like to minimize the number of people needlessly dying.
Click to expand...

"Needlessly" would be the point of dispute in that. In the larger scheme of things, isn't "murder" just a legalistic way of saying, "making compost?"
 
marplots said:
Free market forces would probably have worked just as well as FDA enforcement. If your melons are killing your customers, soon you won't have as many customers and will have to go out of business.
Click to expand...

Then you rebrand yourself and go back to selling. Preventing deaths from bad practices is clearly a bad approach better to respond to them after the counterfeit babyfood kills.

For some reason the methoda you suggest don't seem to be terribly effective at promoting product safety in china.
 
geni said:
Where that breaks down is that supply chains tend to be long enough and mixed enough that customers can't make a connection between who poisoned them and what they purchased. See the hoursemeat issues in europe.
Click to expand...

Or petfood made with counterfeit gluten.
 
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