Never when I got my food handler’s permit did I ever imagine using that to write the President. 2 days ago I appealed to Obama and the Secretary of Agriculture to make a solid choice for the Undersecretary of Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS). Feel free to also get a word in and send something yourself!
Dear President Obama and Secretary Vilsack,
Initially, I had my doubts that the USDA would be as high a priority for the Obama Administration as I feel necessary. I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the early developments, and sincerely aniticipate this will continue.
My career is deeply involved in food and support of regional producers everywhere who truly care about their products and the health of the underlying resources that make it possible. I work first-hand with consumers and producers every day. And I commit considerable volunteer service on behalf of the organic community, as well as nationally for Slow Food USA. I am a balanced believer that there are a multitude of solutions for feeding our nation’s citizens and those to whom we ship food. That said, I don’t see room for practices of food production that are not restorative… of our resources, of our own bodies and of the foods themselves (using natural seeds vs. single-life GE alternatives).
It has come to my attention that there is a candidate being considered for Under Secretary for FSIS that could jeopardize an approach to food safety based in science and common sense. The best practices are those that are transparent. Let me first say that food safely is a direct result of safe food production. Farms and ranches that need protection from the Federal government for their production practices probably should not be in existence. Every food producer should have a policy of public availability, farm tours and shared information… not patents, facilities shielded from public interaction and laws that grant them special allowances. Proposition 2 and the work done by Waterkeepers is a hint of what’s to come as our 40-50 year cloak of darkness becomes penetrable by increasing public interest and concern, and the expired need to find alternative uses for the excesses of wars past. A basic tenet of the USDA should be a simple question… “If we’re being asked to hide information, protect business vs. people, animals and land or bend the rules, what’s the better option?” The simple fact that we are where we are with the bulk of this Nation’s food production does not in any way justify continuing it.
Please leave no stone unturned to find a qualified candiate for FSIS that also has the courage to recommend the right thing, to work with your team to take us slowly but surely out of this scary quagmire of unknown ingredients, unknown producers, unknown practices and unknown consequences. I have to believe talented, committed professionals exist that are not potentially compromised by their past and present connections to unhealthy agricultural operations. We need someone who really practices what the HACCP backbone of food safety in this country preaches… reduce the number of potential “critcal control points.” Not by masking them with feed supplements, antibiotics, irradiation, and questionable animal husbandry practices. Instead, shrink the number of times it is handled, abused, manipulated and reconstituted. Band-aid approaches like almond irradiation only served to eliminate organic almond production in our own country.
Promote transparency and accountability, and the injustices that exist will quickly be exposed and replaced by practices we can boast, here and abroad. I do not assert that the answer is only organic, but that it definitely reward good stewards, promote small and medium in equal measure to large, and provide appropriate labeling information to allow consumers to vote with their minds, hearts, health and dollars… simultaneously.
Thank you for your time and attention, and for your commitment to serve the farmers, ranchers and ultimately consumers of this country.
Jennifer M. Hall
Spokane, Washington
Fed some, cleaned up after some, and listened to stories about how they raise their animals.
