I still want to know how you all know the big food producers are "the ones most likely to cause a food borne nightmare."
When was the last time we had a food supply system that was significantly comprised of unregulated street vendors or road side stands? When was the last time we had a food selling system that required no licensing, in which anyone could just roll out a wagon and start selling food to the public without a permit or inspections?
Many people tack disclaimers onto their arguments, but they still cast these small, individual producers as if their products are certain to be free of contamination, as if merely being produced by a small farmer or individual cook/seller is itself a sign of purity.
It is true that factory farming, concentrated slaughterhouse enterprises, reshipping of produce, and virtual slave labor for harvesting all contribute to the risk of contamination in the food supply.
But recently there was an outbreak of a tomato blight in the northeast that affected the whole crop but was spread inadvertently by private growers and gardeners. E. coli, salmonella, and such bacteria are endemic in the environment, and there is no reason at all to believe that small producers will be less exposed to them than big commercial producers.
Finally, in light of the fact that some people in this thread have suggested that a few deaths from food contamination are acceptable in the name of freedom, just how many people are killed annually or so by Big Agri? Proportionally, the food supply systems of the first world -- US, North America, Europe -- are significantly safer than in the third world and significantly safer than they were before the 20th century and the advent of Big Agra.
There is a lot to fault big commercial farming and the mass food industry, no doubt. There are a lot of bad practices to be eliminated, a lot breaking of monopolies to do, and a lot of work for regulators to get to.
But the argument that these big producers are "the ones most likely to cause a food borne nightmare" just does not seem to be supported by the history of the past century.