September 23, 2010 8:37AM # ‘New Food Safety Bill Could Make Things Worse’ By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE That’s not just my view; that’s [the view](http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/New-Food-Safety-Bill-Could-Make-Things-Worse-2011) of writer Barry Estabrook, an ardent critic of the food industry (“[Politics of the Plate](http://politicsoftheplate.com/)”), [writing at *The Atlantic*](http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/09/where-the-salmonella-really-came-from/62585/). You needn’t go along completely with Estabrook’s dim view of industrialized agriculture to realize he’s right in one of his central contentions: “the proposed rules would disproportionately impose costs upon” small producers, including traditional, low-tech and organic farmers and foodmakers selling to neighbors and local markets. Even those with flawless safety records or selling low-risk types of foodstuff could be capsized by new paperwork and regulatory burdens that larger operations will be able to absorb as a cost of doing business. (Earlier [here](https://www.cato.org/goodbye-to-locally-processed-meats/) and [here](https://www.cato.org/egg-farming-and-the-salmonella-recall/).) Things could reach a showdown any day now. The food safety bill had stalled in the Senate under criticism from small farmer advocates, as the *New York Times* acknowledged the other day in an [absurdly slanted editorial](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/health/policy/19food.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y) that somehow got printed as a news article. Now Harry Reid is [talking about](http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42492.html) forcing the bill through before the midterms. Significantly — as advocates of the bill trumpet — large foodmakers and agribusiness concerns have signed off on the bill as acceptable to them. Well, yes, they would, wouldn’t they? I was on [TV the other week](https://www.cato.org/mediahighlights/index.php?highlight_id=1465) (Hearst news service) trying to make a few of these points. I borrowed my closing line from an [excellent Steve Chapman column](http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/30/hatching-bigger-government/), which I was unable to credit on air, but can credit here. ##### Related Tags [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).