Small Farms, Consumer Group Oppose Federal Marketing Agreement

WASHINGTON — Some small- and medium-sized farm operations are protesting the government's recent move to consider adopting California's leafy greens marketing agreement nationwide in the shape of a federal marketing program.

In comments sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, groups such as the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and the Cornucopia Institute said that the metrics applied under California's marketing agreement suit large- scale farms that cater to fresh-cut processors rather than smaller growers of whole-leaf vegetables.

"Such one-size-fits-all requirements, while unproven in terms of their impact on food safety, would be disastrous for wildlife, biodiversity and for the family-scale farmers who are producing some of the nation's highest-quality produce," said Charlotte Vallaeys, farm and food policy analyst at The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy group. "If regulations dictate uniform growing practices and food-safety measures, which might be appropriate for large-scale 'factory farms' but onerous and unnecessary for diverse family farms, we risk losing the very farms that grow leafy greens in a healthy and environmentally sustainable way."

Read the full Produce News story here.