October 13, 2017
FDA
proposes
extending
water rule
compliance
dates
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration has proposed
extending initial compliance
dates for the agricultural wa-
ter requirements included in
the agency’s new produce
safety rule by an additional
two years.
If accepted — the rule is
open for public comment —
that would give farmers at
least four more years until
they have to comply with the
water standards.
The produce safety rule is
one of seven created by FDA
to comply with the Food
Safety Modernization Act
and is the most concerning
for many farmers.
They are particularly
concerned about the produce
safety rule’s agricultural
water standards, which will
require farmers to test their
water regularly for potential-
ly harmful bacteria.
Produce that is likely to
be consumed raw is covered
by this rule.
The new water standard
compliance date for large
farms would begin Jan. 26,
2022, small farms would
have until Jan. 26, 2023, and
very small farms would have
until Jan. 26, 2024.
FDA Commissioner Scott
Gottlieb told state ag depart-
ment directors during their
annual meeting last month
that the agency is taking an-
other look at the agricultur-
al water standards to ensure
they are feasible for farmers
and will hold a summit on
the issue early next year.
The agricultural water re-
quirements are by far farm-
ers’ main concern when it
comes to the FSMA rules,
said Idaho State Department
of Agriculture Chief of Staff
Pamm Juker.
“The water component is
the big issue,” she said, and
farmers are wanting to know
if they can collaborate on
collecting water testing sam-
ples.
That hasn’t been decided
yet but researchers are trying
to make the case that farmers
should be allowed to share
water samples, said Stuart
Reitz, an Oregon State Uni-
versity cropping systems ex-
tension agent in Ontario.
He said OSU researchers
have collected data the past
two years that show that
makes sense for growers
and will share that data with
FDA.
He said the testing will be
expensive for growers and
allowing them to share sam-
ples will reduce that cost.
“We hope to save growers
time and money,” he said.
The agency has also ex-
tended the number of ap-
proved water testing meth-
ods from one to nine.
That was a big announce-
ment, Reitz said, because
the rule originally only al-
lowed growers to use a sin-
gle EPA-approved method
that would have been more
expensive than some other
water testing methods.
Some of the newly ap-
proved testing methods are
already being used by many
farmers in their Good Ag-
ricultural Practices audits,
he said.
FDA has also an-
nounced that inspections
of large farms for all of
FSMA’s other, non-wa-
ter-related food safety reg-
ulations won’t begin until
spring of 2019, more than
a year later than originally
scheduled.
Gottlieb said the agency
would also consider how
it can simplify some of the
produce safety rule’s other
standards.
“The truth is, there are
things we’ve done well in
getting this rule ready for
prime time but there are
also things that may re-
quire a course correction,”
he said.
CapitalPress.com
7
Wheat groups call for new trade agreements
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Wheat organizations are telling U.S.
officials to stop renegotiating existing
trade deals and start working on new
ones in desired markets.
In a joint statement, the National
Association of Wheat Growers and
U.S. Wheat Associates told the Office
of the U.S. Trade Representative to piv-
ot the emphasis.
The wheat industry hopes for a fo-
cus in Southeast Asia, particularly Viet-
nam and Japan. The goal is creating
new market access at a time when other
wheat export countries have new trade
agreements.
“Our competitors will benefit from
removal of tariffs and other trade bar-
riers through trade agreements, while
the U.S. will stand still or worse,” said
Chandler Goule, CEO of NAWG.
The wheat organizations would like
to see steps to begin negotiations of a
new trade agreement as soon as possi-
ble, Goule said.
President Donald Trump prom-
ised farmers a series of bilateral trade
agreements in place of the Trans-Pa-
cific Partnership, Goule said. Trump
withdrew from the TPP, slated to be
an agreement between the U.S. and 11
other countries, in January.
“It is time to get past plowing the
same fields and start opening ground in
new markets,” Goule said in the press
release.” “Right now, we are standing
Capital Press File
The National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates are telling
U.S. leaders to pivot from renegotiating existing trade deals and start developing
new ones.
around watching the world pass us by
on trade agreements.”
The United States and South Ko-
rea pledged this week to begin nego-
tiations on aspects of the Korea-U.S.
Free Trade Agreement, or KORUS, the
groups noted.
KORUS was signed in 2007. It is
the most recent trade agreement for the
U.S. and barely a quarter of the way
through full implementation.
“I’m glad to see we’re not making
any rash decisions about withdrawing
from trade agreements, but we need
to see more than that,” said Vince Pe-
terson, president of U.S. Wheat, in the
press release. “In the decade since KO-
RUS was negotiated, we have no new
trade agreements and zero additional
market access for wheat farmers. The
administration has committed to ‘do
no harm’ for agriculture, but we think
there is harm in not negotiating new
trade agreements.”
According to the wheat organi-
zations, over the past decade, wheat
export competitors have been “signifi-
cantly” more active in signing new free
trade agreements:
• Argentina signed new agreements
with Israel, Botswana, Lesotho, Na-
mibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Egypt
and Colombia.
• Australia signed new agreements
with Chile, Brunei Darussalam, Bur-
ma, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia,
South Korea, Japan, Canada, Mexico,
Peru and China.
• Canada signed new agreements with
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzer-
land, Peru, Colombia, Jordan, Panama,
Honduras, Korea, Ukraine, Australia,
Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Malaysia,
New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam.
• The European Union signed new
agreements with Albania, Montene-
gro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Kosovo, South Korea, Moldova, Geor-
gia, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas,
Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Domini-
can Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti,
Jamiaca, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia,
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Surina-
me, Trinidad and Tobago, Madagascar,
Mauritius, the Seychelles, Zimbabwe,
Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica,
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Ecua-
dor, Peru, Cameroon, Ukraine, Gha-
na, Ivory Coast, Botswana, Lesotho,
Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa,
Swaziland and Canada.
• Russia signed new agreements
with Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ar-
menia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uz-
bekistan and Vietnam.
• Ukraine signed new agreements
with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway,
Switzerland, Azerbaiajn, Belarus, Ar-
menia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mol-
dova, Tajikstan,Turkmenistan, Uzbeki-
stan, Montenegro and the European
Union.
Supreme Court declines to review GMO cooking oil lawsuit
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
The U.S. Supreme Court
has declined to review a
class action lawsuit against
Conagra over the labeling of
vegetable oil made with ge-
netically engineered crops.
Food manufacturers had
watched the case closely due
to the many class action cases
over labeling in recent years,
growing from fewer than 20
to more than 400 in a decade.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit
claim that Conagra misled
consumers by labeling its
Wesson brand of cooking
oils as “100% Natural” even
though they’re made from ge-
netically modified organisms,
or GMOs.
Earlier this year, the law-
suit was certified as a class
action by the 9th U.S. Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals, which
means Conagra is potentially
liable to the millions of con-
sumers who bought its cook-
ing oils.
According to the Grocery
Manufacturers Association,
the huge financial exposure
created by class action certi-
fication coerces companies to
settle lawsuits that are frivo-
lous.
Conagra claims the law-
suit over GMO cooking oil
shouldn’t have been certified
as a class action because it’s
impossible to efficiently iden-
tify the enormous number of
people who’ve bought the
product.
In reality, the court will
have to trust the word of mil-
lions of alleged buyers who
generally don’t keep receipts
for minor purchases, the com-
pany said.
Food manufacturers ar-
gued it’s necessary for the
Supreme Court to resolve the
question about identifying
class members because feder-
al appellate courts disagree on
the issue.
The 2nd Circuit, 3th Cir-
cuit, 4th Circuit and 11th
Circuit all require that people
can feasibly be verified as be-
longing in the class. The 9th
Circuit, 6th Circuit and 7th
Circuit don’t have such an
“ascertainability” test.
These conflicting interpre-
tations weaken the uniformity
of food labeling rules set by
the U.S. Food and Drug Ad-
ministration, since food com-
panies face disparate legal
risks in different parts of the
country, according to GMA.
Roughly two-thirds of
food labeling cases are filed
in California, where the fed-
eral courts are effectively
supplanting the FDA as label
regulators, the group argued.
The attorneys who are
suing Conagra urged the Su-
preme Court not to take up the
case, arguing it’s premature
to reject a class action based
on potential challenges with
claims administration.
Blocking such class ac-
tions would basically allow
food manufacturers to “com-
mit wide-scale, but low value,
harm to individual consumers
with impunity,” they said in a
court brief.
ROP-40-9-1/HOU