CHAPTER TEN
Regulating What We Eat
The development of agricultural and food safety policies and regulatory systems in the United States, 1900-2010
Kimberly Milner, Swathi Mummini, Olga Myszko, Alexandra Napoli
INTRODUCTION
The current United Sates’ food regulatory system is a complex network that depends upon multiple components that include the federal, state, and local governments, as well as the public, both as producers and consumers of food. These components must be incorporated into the even more complex network of food supply, which includes all aspects from production to consumption. The federal government’s role in food regulation lies in the domains of supervision, research, surveillance, enforcement, and education of the agricultural and processing sectors of food production and consumption. World War II and the Great Depression greatly affected agricultural policy, and drove the necessity for change and reform. Poverty, new technologies, and new research methods, as well as the ultimate desire for efficiency, income, and nutrition helped shape new laws and programs in the United States throughout the years. The existing food system has evolved piecemeal over a century in response to changes in the food supply and changes in the scientific and social environments in which the system operates. Since the passing of the first food and agricultural laws, legislations have evolved from concerns of food fraud, to food safety, to, most recently, the relationship between health and food. Agricultural policy is continuously adjusted to merge with the economical and social state of the United States. This chapter will examine the policies enacted from postwar to present day, analyzing the shifts made in agricultural legislation.
BACKGROUND LITERATURE REVIEW
Over the last century, there have been dramatic changes in food technologies to meet shifting supply demands and to improve the quality, safety, and availability of the food supply. Research in agriculture; food composition and nutrition; food science and technology; and food production, processing, and preservation all played a role in changing food sources from local and rural systems to much larger systems that provide foods to national and international markets.
Developments in chemistry, microbiology, plant and animal breeding, food science and technology, refrigeration, distribution, and in the marketing of foods changed the face of the food supply. These activities led to the current systems used to supply foods to urban and rural populations in many countries. Systems vary based on geography, production and processing resources, levels of development, environment, and food habits and culture (Lupien 2005).
The development and rapid growth of food processing industries for fruits, vegetables, and animal products in Europe, North America, and other regions of the world, caused concern about the quality and safety of foods among consumers and legislators. Around 1900, several countries adopted new laws on assuring the quality of foods to protect consumers from deceptive practices and low quality foods. Many of these laws also covered drug products, and, in some cases, other consumer products and marketing practices were also addressed (Lupien 2005).
At the international level, efforts have been made to develop food standards, codes of hygienic and good agricultural practices, a general standard for food labeling, and to relate information and guidelines. Since the 1960s, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization have jointly developed international standards for foods and information networks to protect the health of consumers (Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses ; Codex Alimentarius Commission 2010). Alliances, such as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research and the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council, of governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations have also formed to assemble influential policymakers, agribusiness executives, farm leaders, and academics from developed and developing countries to develop and advocate trade and practice policies (Who We Are 2005-2006; History 2007).
In the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) operate the major national food regulatory systems. Other agencies have smaller roles in regulation. State governments and local authorities also have food control systems, and efforts are coordinated with federal authorities.
Post-World War II national agricultural policy, especially that concerning price support and supply controls, is rooted in previously established New Deal agricultural legislation. The programs enacted by USDA were created to counter the Great Depression of 1929 and aimed to put the country back together after the Great Depression by introducing and implementing three key terms: relief, recovery, and reform. Later in the 20th century new agricultural topics such as soil conservation, food aid using surplus crops, wetlands conservation, and food labeling all came into play as issues that needed to be addressed in these policies.
One of the most significant New Deal agricultural measures, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (AAA)[1], was still seen in policy in the 1960s. This act provided price support and production control through the formation of marketing quotas or acreage allotments. One of the United States’ main concerns was overproduction. In this system, when it appeared that some crops covered by the act would be in surplus, the Secretary of Agriculture, working through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) could enact price supports at a level determined by government. The secretary could also impose allotments or quotas based on predicted crop consumption for the following year to avoid a surplus. The 1938 AAA also grounded the concept of parity, a standard on which to base price support. This was determined by the parity ratio, which showed the increase in farmer costs to the increase/decrease in received prices (Blanpied 1984). Farm bills that used to consist of several pages are now more than 700 pages long (Browne 2003). After World War II there was a farming boom in research and machinery. Research funding of agriculture grew to almost 40 percent of the total money spent on research and development.{Ganzel, #2} In the more than 60 years after the end of WW II, agricultural policy has gone through many changes, mainly in response to the growing free market in agriculture.
Regulation of food safety in the United States was largely the responsibility of the state and local governments until the twentieth century. Nineteenth century legal theorists questioned whether the Constitution gave Congress the authority to legislate matters of health and safety. Prior to national regulation, federal authority was limited mostly to imported foods and drugs (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council 1998). However, the beginnings of a US national food regulatory system can be traced back to 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln founded USDA (Roberts 2001). In 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes subsequently established USDA’s Bureau of Chemistry, the predecessor to FDA (Hygiene in Food Processing 2003). The origins of the current food-safety system are in the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which was enacted at a time when Americans had a much simpler diet and processed foods were rare. Congress has amended the law numerous times since to account for changes in American diets, including the growing popularity of seafood and other products imported from other countries, where diverse controls apply. As a result, 15 federal agencies now administer at least 30 food-safety laws (Food Safety. 2008). Regulatory agencies are authorized to define standards; to maintain research programs; to monitor risks in the supply; and to provide information and education (Institute of Medicine and National Research Council 1998).
