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Sounds expensive. I think this would be a terrible thing for small farmers and would only be feasible for large agrobusinesses, who are the main culprits anyway. They would surely pass the costs on to us. Small farms who already struggle to compete would be crippled by this.

The hospitalization rate based on the number of 325,000 per year is about 0.1% of the population (304,000,000). The mortality rate is 0.000016%. That's nothing. About 400,000 people die every year from poor diet and physical inactivity alone.

Our infant mortality rate is a real problem, we rank 29th in the world and that is unacceptable for a supposed Superpower and Leader of the First World.

I would be interested to know how exactly this proposed program would work and be cost effective. There is an infinite number of ways food can be contaminated. It sucks when major foods like spinach or peanut butter are affected, but sometimes things just happen. It would be much worse if our water system were contaminated, so I'm still grateful for what we have.

It's the modernized food industry that is designed to make everything cost-effective, available all year round, convenient, and less ugly-looking. Sadly, I think, it is driven by consumers' needs.

I wonder what happens if everyone chooses locally grown over availability/convenience, taste over appearance, and can actually afford such foods. Also if that can be done, then small farmers would do better.

But I know I don't live in the perfect world.

Sorry it is a little off-topic, but I want to add to the mortality discussion that malaria kills 3 million people per year (mostly kids). There are also many neglected infectious diseases that people don't even know, because they only affect poor countries.
Indeed, we are fortunate.

I'm confused what your friend's method is--also, with the peanut butter and spinach recalls, they were able to trace the affected products by batch number. In more problematic cases like the Taco Bell recall the problem wasn't finding the product so much as determining what product was affected (they weren't sure if it was scallions or something else).

I don't think "field to fork" is going to solve that problem. Too many loopholes, more regulations.
I like the approach where accountability is traceable; for instance WholeFoods does a great job helping local growers and has a generally healthy attitude towards quality. I personally would rather eat less but better /safer quality foods, and less "convenient" non-packaged products to compensate for higher prices.
I am happy to see that even average supermarkets now often carry organic or at least healthy (all vegetarian, non hormones) eggs.

I go with the stay healthy and have a clean environment at home.

@HeartofGlass, I totally agree, but small farm-based distribution helps identify the source of contamination (investigations take time & federal money too) and avoid costly massive recalls.
I'm more concerned about wasted food :-P

Also, the use of antibiotics in animals can accelerate emergence of drug-resistant microbes.
But yes, things like free-range eggs from small farms (I love them!) may not be super well inspected, so it's not like you can trust them more.

I was just going to bring up HR 875 and the other current "food safety" bills in committee right now. Looks like dhorst beat me to it.

Personally I think a good part of the solution is to change the mentality of how we get and produce our food. Big factory farming and getting everything from a supermarket maybe isn't the best way.

Perhaps part of the solution is commom sense. Recalls for E coli are required because consumers do not cook beef to temperatures required to kill it. Every E. coli infection from meat is either from cross contamination or undercooking. Same with meat borne samonella. Irradiating at risk products reduces these risks, but despite the proven safety, cunsumer reactionaries don't want it, even though they are eating foods containing irradiated materials on a daily basis. THe Hallmark recall was not that all of the meat was contaminated, but that after the discovery of a contaminated lot, they could not prove that rework from that lot, was not in the next days production, and because they could not prove that the rework trail was broken, every thing that followed that bad lot was considered tainted and required to be recalled. It could have been safely cooked to kill the bacteria, but consumers do not do that.Ready to eat carries risks, USDA mandates use of certain chemicals to eliminate or restrict the growth of Foodborne pathogens, no consumer would allow these steps for produce.

The reason these recalls become so massive is that all reputable companies have Government mandated Recall procedures, and all USDA plants have programs called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HAACP Plan) to identify risks and include recall programs. These programs only work when not managed by the stupid or corrupt, that is why the peanut recall grew so big, every company that received PCA peanut products could track every place it was used and recalled every bit that they could conceivably get.

The current system needs repairs, more inspectors and uniform rules between FDA and USDA, but meat is the safest it has ever been in this country.

Growing you own is not safer unless it is done in controlled isolation, so that insect, rodent and bird contamination are not possible. The outdoors is dirty, Food Safety is your responsibility as well as the manufacturers.