You do not get outbreaks from small farmers, only from the huge farms and processing facilities. By definition, a small farm can only reach a few customers, usually local ones.
Limiting the use of manure is also an aberration, it is basically the only fertilizer used in organic farming that has been safely used for millennia, and organic farms already go the whole way of composting for weeks to kill any pathogens, or spreading it in the field months before planting. It’s actually already defined in the USDA NOP organic program, while conventional farmers do not have such sanitary requirements.
Not saying that small farms should produce and process in any unsanitary conditions either, but they should not be forced into spending several hundred thousand dollars into a cleaning plant if they already clean their produce properly. The new proposal seems to contain too many such irrelevant or inappropriate mandatory and costly requirements. Just saying.
How would the smaller producers be unable to pass along the compliance costs to customers? I willingly pay a premium for the products I buy from the small farmers at farmers markets or other similar places.
You do not get outbreaks from small farmers, only from the huge farms and processing facilities. By definition, a small farm can only reach a few customers, usually local ones.
Limiting the use of manure is also an aberration, it is basically the only fertilizer used in organic farming that has been safely used for millennia, and organic farms already go the whole way of composting for weeks to kill any pathogens, or spreading it in the field months before planting. It’s actually already defined in the USDA NOP organic program, while conventional farmers do not have such sanitary requirements.
Not saying that small farms should produce and process in any unsanitary conditions either, but they should not be forced into spending several hundred thousand dollars into a cleaning plant if they already clean their produce properly. The new proposal seems to contain too many such irrelevant or inappropriate mandatory and costly requirements. Just saying.
How would the smaller producers be unable to pass along the compliance costs to customers? I willingly pay a premium for the products I buy from the small farmers at farmers markets or other similar places.