Small farmers say rules could halt local food trend

As the local food movement gains steam, northern New England farmers are steaming mad about proposed regulations they fear will leave them unable to meet growing consumer demand for their produce. Andre Cantelmo of Heron Pond Farm in South Hampton helps run Eastman's Corner, a foundation dedicated to making local farms an economically and environmentally sustainable, integral part of the community. The group is preparing to break ground on a large food distribution and preservation center, but uncertainty over looming food safety rules could halt that progress, he said. "We have this really amazing local food movement, it's got this head of steam, it's moving along, and then you get something like this law, which really puts the kibosh on it," he said. "This is what holds up economic development — weird regulations that no one knows they're going to be implemented. Why would you expand your business?" Cantelmo and hundreds of his fellow farmers from New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont attended public hearings last week on proposed rules for implementing the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act, which aims to create a system for preventing foodborne illness instead of reacting to it. Among other measures, the rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, including ensuring that workers' hands have been washed, irrigation water is clean and animals stay out of fields...more