Call your representatives and tell them to support Farr-Kaptur amendments to the Food Safety Enhancement Act.

Safety threat? New legislation may hurt small farmers and keep organic food off the shelves.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The Food Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 2749), legislation aimed at making the country’s food supply safer, could also hurt diverse, small-scale, and organic farming operations because of proposed fees and paperwork requirements. And the loss of those food producers would mean losing an already carefully monitored, closely regulated source of healthy food. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are set to vote on H.R. 2749 this week, perhaps as soon as today.

THE DETAILS: The legislation has been criticized for its one-size-fits-all approach, which regulates factory farm operations and small, family farms under many of the same guidelines. Aside from burdening small operations with paperwork and fees, some of the restrictions make no sense from a safety standpoint and threaten the way that organic agriculture is done. For example, there’s no scientific evidence that removal of wildlife corridors and ponds would improve safety, but doing so could eliminate beneficial insects that help control pests without the use of insecticides. "The profound increase in biodiversity—complex, interdependent webs of biological life that comes with managing for healthy soil—is what builds productive resilience into organic farming," says Greg Bowman, communications manager at the nonprofit Rodale Institute and editor of New Farm. "We favor systems built on health, and biodiversity is part of this foundation." An amendment to the bill, the Farr-Kaptur Amendment, will help preserve diverse food production and protect family farmers if passed.