Big Food's Bad Idea

By Jason Mark, AlterNet. Posted March 8, 2006.

Some people called it a folly of know-nothing Luddites. Others praised it as an important blow against technological hubris. But no matter where you stood on the 2004 ballot measure in California's Mendocino County that banned the cultivation of GMO crops, it's generally agreed that the initiative represented all that is best about local democracy -- citizens coming together to address an issue that's important to them. And in the Mendocino case, it was an issue that is well-made for local governance, given how intimate food is, how uniquely attached to our sense of place.

The idea of food as a local resource is now under assault [PDF] from a congressional measure that would sharply restrict the ability of states and cities to establish their own food safety standards. If the proposal becomes law, nearly all of the decisions about the quality of our food will be made in Washington. For anyone who values a measure of local control over the food we eat, this is bad news.

For 100 years -- since the 1906 establishment of the Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act -- the federal government has set most of the safety standards for the food that ends up in grocery stores and restaurants. States and cities, however, can also make rules governing food safety, and as health consciousness has increased, many local governments have passed food rules in areas that federal regulations overlook.

For example, grocery stores in California are required to post information warning pregnant women to avoid certain fish, such as swordfish, that have high levels of mercury. Minnesota candy bars must disclose if alcohol is an ingredient, and Michigan bulk foods made with sulfites have to carry an allergy warning. In Rhode Island, shellfish is required to carry a sign saying whether it's been frozen.

Consumers may appreciate these rules, but the food conglomerates and the grocery chains do not. For the food corporations, the divergent federal, state and local rules are an annoyance that complicate selling the same exact products across the entire country. Especially irritating to Big Food is California's Proposition 65, which requires that consumers be notified about ingredients known to cause cancer or birth defects. The food companies fear their operations would be further complicated if other states passed similar laws.

So the food lobby is forcefully but quietly pushing the "National Uniformity for Food Act," a bill that would annul standards like those in California and set a single set of food labeling rules. Under the proposal, states would not be able to create any food regulations that go above and beyond the national standards. Though there has been hardly any debate on the law, the House is set to vote on the legislation March 9.

Jason Mark lives and works on an organic farm in California. He is the co-author, with Kevin Danaher, of "Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power." He is researching a book about the future of food.

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