Senate Bill 510

[Deeptime]

Has anybody from the Beekeeping Industry reviewed this Senate bill?

FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (Reported in Senate - RS)[S.510.RS]
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.510:


It appears to me this bill will be what opens the door to gov't-as-your-partner in your little ol' beekeeping biz, hobbiests included.

[Kingfisher Apiaries]

There are SO MANY food bills floating around I have finally given up trying to do anything other than staying on top of state issues. I wrote something to the ABJ once about 875 and 759. I would rather just deal with the new regs and go on with life, I do not see a way to stop them.

mike

[Deeptime]

It's the Law of Unintended Consequences that mucks things up. Somebody needs to have authority to pull harmful stiff form the market place, I don't think anybody disagrees with that statement.

But the devil's in the details; You can't pull product withou testing, can't test w/o testing protocol and infastructure, can't have infrastructure without establishing staffing.... Where does authority extend too? Checking million egg-a-day facotry farms and ignoring clearly unsanitarybackyard flocks?

I really, really don't like the gov't sticking their nose in my economic tent, but you can't buy half the enchilada.

[slickbrightspear]

the large industry farms were all for the bill until they put a provision in that it does not extend to small producers and immediately the lobby for industrial farming started pushing against it as it was not going to gain them any market share. does not look like its going to pass now.

[wolfpenfarm]

It appears to me this bill will be what opens the door to gov't-as-your-partner in your little ol' beekeeping biz, hobbiests included.

I got letters back from several of the co-sponsors and they are voting against the bill now.

They are now voting against it with its current changes. It morphed into a very intrusive bill. It also does absolutely nothing to eliminate foods that might be contaminated. All it does is generate a cash flow in regulation and licensing fees.

[plaztikjezuz]

the large industry farms were all for the bill until they put a provision in that it does not extend to small producers and immediately the lobby for industrial farming started pushing against it as it was not going to gain them any market share. does not look like its going to pass now.

so true, this happened with apple cider, now you have to buy the expensive pasteurizers to sell it in stores.

[honeydreams]

[QUOTE=.

I really, really don't like the gov't sticking their nose in my economic tent, but you can't buy half the enchilada.
[/QUOTE]
and you don't have to buy the whole enchilada either.

[waynesgarden]

A bit touchy aren't we?

No, just into facts these days. Not opinons stated as facts but actual, substantiated facts.

Wayne

[HVH]

I would rather just deal with the new regs and go on with life, I do not see a way to stop them.
mike

The Guillotine worked in France.

[Barry]

OH, I'm late to the party I see. We'll back up in this thread and undo the political stuff.

[Omie]

Another viewpoint on Bill 510:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/op...sser.html?_r=2

and the under-$500,000 exemption for small farmers and small producers:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/stat...257131ba7.html

[wolfpenfarm]

The new compromise amendment trims the miles to 275 and allows the FDA to revoke the exemption for any facility or farm associated with a foodborne illness.

Doesn't help the small guy at all. 275 mile limitation will kill internet business dead in the water. Also will stop going to areas 500 miles to buy cattle or livestock for meat production. OR selling This stuff is already regulated to death.

[Scrapfe]

Has anybody from the Beekeeping Industry reviewed this Senate bill?...

I see Section 1 Paragraph M requiring male and female rest rooms in honey houses with Disabled access, an eye wash station, a shower, an employee changing area, hairnets, steril disposable clothing, hot water and anti-bacteria soap for hand washing with two doors or twenty feet between the restrooms and the honey house or anywhere honey, supers, or frames of comb are handled, stored, de-capped, extracted, filtered, or bottled. Also a professional vector pest control contract with at least a monthly inspection schedule. Please submit all evidence of your compliance with this requirement in triplicate.

Submiting your honey to an outside lab for testing is a possibility, along with a new lab report sent to the government either every three days to annualy, depending on the size of your opperation. Remember the "Secetary" will likely classify the odd wax moth egg as an insect part. Now many insect parts are premited in a raw agricultural product that is made outdoors by insects?

Your water may also need to be tested, as well as any standing or running water within say a mile of your hives. Mouse guards will become manditory since anyone with a microscope can find a mouse hair in a bee hive.

There is also a good possibility that you will be required to heat your honey to a specified temperature either before bottling, selling or shipping. I believe this is easy for the Government to test for but hard for the beek to fake. At the very least the sale or trade in honey between beekeepers will soon become Verboten.

What happens when your bees find an over turned soft drink truck and fills a few supers with orange blossom Nehi Honey. Won't it test positive for HFCS, artifical flavorings, and coloring?

During the 70s and 80s the US Government burdened the American Auto Industry with clean air and milage regulations that fell more lightely upon Japanese car companies. I think we all know how that turned out. You better hope the government bails you out like they did GM or finds a partner to "invest" in you, like the government did for Chrysler.

Is there any to big to fail beekeepers? On the light side, the system of grading honey will be scraped because it is based on "color."

[greengecko]

Senate Passes Overhaul of Food Safety Regulations

[ChristopherA]

A lot of stuff I see in this is being misrepresented here.

Bathrooms, eye wash stations and such are Safety and Health issue. You have to understand for this to apply you have to employee more than 10 personnel. You have to read connecting rules or laws to fully understand.

Also you have to fund the bill once it becomes law. I will have to guess that most will not be funded in order for the law to work as written. Having said that, this bill could possible get into the backyard farms in the long term, but I do not see them assigning food or safety inspectors to check 1 or 2 man operations, plus lab fees for small operations.

I noticed a law was pased in the senate this morning, I curious if that is this bill?

[waynesgarden]

The Senate passed the bill today. Good. I hope the House hammers out the differences and passes it or simply approves the bill as passed overwhelmingly by the Senate.

Even some of the most staunch opponents of Federal regulations concerning agriculture doesn't share some of the same "sky is falling" fears that have been presented in this thread as if they were actual facts.

"Judith McGeary, executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, an advocacy group that sees government regulation as a threat to small farms, said she was satisfied with changes made to the bill to reduce paperwork for small farmers and exempt them from some requirements"

Wayne

[plaztikjezuz]

A lot of stuff I see in this is being misrepresented here.

Bathrooms, eye wash stations and such are Safety and Health issue. You have to understand for this to apply you have to employee more than 10 personnel. You have to read connecting rules or laws to fully understand.

you could hire everyone of your "employees" as an independent contractor and not even be responsible for the unemployment insurance.

i heard on the radio today that there are measure in this bill to "protect" local and small business owners from having to implement many of the provisions because of cost. how true is it, i do not know, i like most, have not read the bill yet.

[longrangedog]

The bill will likely be blocked in the House because the Senate does not have Constitutional authority to initiate tax legislation. As currently written by the Senate the bill contains "fees" which are called "revenue raisers" but are taxes.

[ChristopherA]

you could hire everyone of your "employees" as an independent contractor and not even be responsible for the unemployment insurance.

i heard on the radio today that there are measure in this bill to "protect" local and small business owners from having to implement many of the provisions because of cost. how true is it, i do not know, i like most, have not read the bill yet.

You are correct about independant contractors. That is one easy way around a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. I will have to say, you might want to check the health care bill for implications on contractors. I dont remember the specifics, but I do remember something.

Anything with fees has teeth and this bill does that. I guess we will see if it gets passed in the house to actually see what becomes of it.

[kathyp]

i read the bill and like all bills, it's an eye crosser. IF the bill were to implemented and enforced to the letter, the (perhaps) unintended consequences could be severe for all of us who engage in small farming and sales, including honey.
my concern is that once you pass things like this, which is intended to make sure that no one ever, ever, ever, gets sick or dies from food products again....not counting just eating ourselves to death, you have opened the door to massive government intrusion.
the next time someone gets sick, the bill will be redone, made "better", and of course, made more intrusive.

my own opinion is that if you want a perfect world, you need to go on and die. short of that, life on this earth has risks, and the occasional bug in the food is one of them; and not such a bad thing maybe that we have some resistance?

regardless, it appears that enforcement will be expensive and require a larger govt force to do the added inspections, etc. which might beg the question: can we even afford this kind of stuff right now?