The Senate’s food-safety bill, which we debated in depth here on Grist, will likely come to a vote next week. But even if it passes and gets signed into law by President Obama — and I expect it will — it’s unlikely to resolve fights that are brewing about risk in the food system, particularly the risks embodied by small-scale, artisanal (sorry, Bonnie) dairy and meat producers.
I was grappling with this issue this very weekend, reading Burkhard Bilger’s New Yorker profile of fermentation guru Sando Katz and Bill Neuman’s New York Times piece on a small-scale cheese producer’s fight with the FDA. As if on cue, the trailer for a coming-soon documentary on just these issues, called Farmageddon, has crossed my desk. It features Raw Milk Revolution author David Gumpert, who’s written several articles about raids on farms for Grist.
Watch it and ponder these complex issues along with me. I’ll be posting my ruminations soon.
