There are many opinions on the new safety bill. I am going to go through the pros and cons of the bill to show the different sides of the food bill.
Pros
The Food safety bill was revamped, because there had not been a change in how the food inspections since 1938. The new bill was sign on January 4th, 2011. This bill was written because of the food scares that had happened in the recent past. In 2006, there was contaminated spinach, in 2008 there was salmonella in the peppers and possibly the tomatoes, in 2010 there was E. coli in the peanut butter, all these products made it to shelves and in to people’s homes cause people to become ill or in the peanut butter scare 9 people lost their lives, because of contamination of E. coli. The new bill will make those factories that are unsafe and producing contaminated products shut down. Before it was the choice of the company if they wanted to stop production and fix the problem. The new bill will insure that the food and medications being sold in America will be safe to consume. So that someone’s dinner does not end up with them in the hospital. This new bill is going to upgrade the food safety laws and enforce them. This will also help so that diseased cows do not make it in to the food supply insuring that people can eat food without having to worry if it is going to make them sick or not. The bill is placing $1.4 billon dollars in to the food safety system, a portion going to increasing the number of inspector insuring that, the factories or farms your food comes from are using safe practices, to make sure the food you are eating for dinneris safe.
Cons
Senate Bill 510, will cause the demise of all small farms , because it is going to be extremely costly for small farms to pay for the inspections and restorations that may need to be put in to place. Also this bill allows the FDA, to shut down and farm that fail inspection once, if they feel it should be shut down. The bill will criminalize small and organic farmers trying not to use conventional and screen fertilizers. The surprise inspections will not allow the farmers to fix any small problems that are on the farm before they are inspected, where they could be shut down. If small farms in communities shut down this will cause a drop in the local economies, because small farms bring a lot of revenue to the local economy. $ 1.4 billion dollars is a lot of money, that the U.S.A currently does not have to implement this bill. Also 25% of all food in America is imported from under developed countries and had lower food standards than what we are placing on American producers. How are we going to inspect the food that is produced in other countries, when we can barely do it here in the U.S.A Will this still have to be determined?
So is this bill worth the effort or not. Yes, because it is going to increase inspections, but also can cause problems for smaller farms. So this bill has its ups and downs just like anything else so, hopefully that it helps more that it hurts we can only wait and see what comes of this New Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011. Hopefully this will increase food security of imported foods as well all food produced here in the U.S.A
Adams, M. (2011, November 30). YouTube - HealthRanger: Senate Bill 510 Food Safety Modernization Act . YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. . Retrieved February 6, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ6_EZzfqZc&feature=related
Samad, J., & Images, A. (n.d.). Obama signs legislation to improve food safety - USATODAY.com. News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-01-04-food-safety_N.htm
