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When it comes to food, how “safe” is safe?

The political world of food safety is getting more complex than even the last session of Congress when nearly 40 separate pieces of legislation were introduced. Elsewhere on this site, Julie Harker does a great job of detailing Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s (D, CT) recent message to the National Farmers Union (NFU) convention, and that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

What everybody is worried about and no one is talking about openly is that for the first time, some in Congress are talking about going inside the farm gate to regulate how food is produced. This would be an historic move — even the post-9/11 Bioterroism Act, which registers all food producers in the U.S., specifically exempts farmers and ranchers. No one has put forth a specific plan on how to do this, but the possible implications are clear.

Are on-farm standards and federal inspection a good idea? We don’t have the room here to hash that out, but just last week the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and Georgetown University released reports indicating FDA has the authority to go on farm if it wants.

DeLauro, chair of the ag/FDA appropriations subcommittee in the House and no one to be messed with on this issue, wants to split FDA into a food safey agency and a drug/device agency. She says “small farms” are not the target of her bill — she understands “the needs and strains” of small farming operations — and she goes out of her way to assure folks she’s not talking about messing with USDA or mandating animal identification.

But DeLauro, who also serves as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D,CA) “voice” on food safety, talks about farms having to develop food safety plans and identifying “critical control points.” This sounds like a heads up that she wants to see some form of on-farm oversight. Why else would you provide federal “technical assistance” to farmers to create such plans? And, when you boil it down, what difference does it make if USDA inspectors are coming to visit the farm or folks from FDA?

“Critical control points” is just another way of saying what consumer groups call “best farming practices.” Going back two years ago, some food safety watchdogs said they want to see on-farm production practices blessed by the government along with regular federal inspection to ensure such plans are being followed.

There is also legislation from Rep. Diana DeGette (D, CO) which calls for mandatory FDA recall authority — with which most of the world now agrees as long as there are standards FDA must meet — but also mandatory product traceback authority during contamination/recall episodes. Last session, DeGette’s bill exempted farms and ranches. This session’s version does not.

The White House has joined the battle. When President Obama announced last week his intent to nominate Dr. Margaret Hamburg, former New York City health czar, to be FDA commissioner, he also announced he was creating an administration food safety working group. This group will be led by USDA and FDA, and include reps from other federal agencies with food safety authority. At first I cynically thought this was just the Obama administration’s way of assuring the public it had not forgotten about the food safety issue. But then yesterday, USDAers were meeting with HHSers on the working group creation, and it’s apparent this is more than just political window dressing.

My strong suggestion is this: Include the ag community up front in any and all government discussions of food safety. By this I mean, the administration should reach out to farmers, ranchers, feed companies, meat processors and others up front. If inclusion of the major players in health care and banking works in devising “reform” of those two industries, then surely including a farm-to-fork contingent on the food safety reform effort makes sense.

A major lesson learned on Capitol Hill during the last Congress is that the “food industry” — from farm to fork, and including both domestic and imported ingredients and products — is far more complex than most folks realize. Actions taken in one sector ripple immediately up and down the chain, with reformers finding they might have fixed one problem, but they’ve created new and different problems elsewhere in the chain.

“Safe” is a relative term. There’s no such thing as “100% safe” for any product or endeavor. That is not to say the food production, processing and retail system can’t and shouldn’t be improved. However, during tough economic times, the last thing we need is “fixes” where the benefit doesn’t balance out the cost.