Jun 21, 2012

Senate farm bill includes food safety study for specialty crop growers

California fruit and vegetable growers might get a chance to insure themselves against a future food safety scare, under an evolving Senate farm bill poised for passage late Wednesday or sometime today.

Feeling burned by past episodes involving tainted spinach, cantaloupe and tomatoes, the growers secured a study of whether a new type of insurance coverage could protect them against losses due to a “contamination concern.”Senators agreed to the insurance study amidst a flurry of amendments to a work-in-progress that began at 1,010 pages.

“When a food safety recall occurs consumers stop purchasing the product regardless of what farm the food came from,”Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said. “When this happens, producers suffer major financial losses because of a recall they did not cause.”

Feinstein’s amendment accepted by voice vote Tuesday was one of nearly 300 farm bill amendments proposed by lawmakers trying to reshape a bill that has a 10-year price tag of $969 billion. Senate leaders finally pared the amendment list down to 73, leading to a rapid-fire set of quick votes and two-minute debates Tuesday and Wednesday, with mixed results for California. Fresno Bee

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