Bills Could Reorganize Farming and Criminalize Organic Farming
In two vague bills introduced both in the House and Senate of the US Congress, a vast reorganization of America’s agriculture system aimed at tracking and regulating foods for public safety could endanger organic farms and gardens.
The bills, S.425 and H.R.875, attempt to modernize food safety and regulate and standardize agriculture by creating an agency called the Food Safety Administration, but in the process they could threaten organic farming.
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Provisions include mandatory registration and inspection for “any food establishment or foreign food establishment engaged in manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding food for consumption in the United States,” and sets standard practices such as minimums for fertilizer use.
Any food that the agency deems “unsafe, adulterated or misbranded” can be seized and the food establishment or farm fined. It’s not clear how these foods will be deemed unsafe. The bills aim to industrialize farms, standardize farming practices, require registration and inspection for any one producing food, and make practices key to organic farming illegal.
While we certainly need to improve our food safety, the problem with these bills is that they are so vague and open-ended, they could be used to justify banning organic practices such as composting and seed saving, or to put into law standard practices such as the required use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The bills are speculated to have been funded by agri-business giants including Monsanto. The threat of the new standards is that only approveed seeds, fertilizers, and farming methods could be used, and if Monsanto gets their way, all farms and gardens be growing their plants and using their products. That is definitely a scary thought.
Organic farming is certainly already revolutionary, but it could be an illegal act if these bills are passed without reworking to protect organic farmers and backyard gardeners. Please contact your senators and representatives today and urge them to protect public health and safety without criminalizing organic farming. There isn’t much time to comment on this bill, so act now!
And another, on Eco Child’s Play, focusing on the effects on Farmer’s Markets and the burden these bills could have on small farmers: http://ecochildsplay.com/2009/03/10/could-the-food-safety-modernization-act-of-2009-be-the-end-to-farmers-markets-and-organic-farms/
Why do not the farmers large and small sue Monsanto for polluting through cross-pollination? It is Monsantos people who are the enemy and should be stopped at all costs. Where is courage, bravery, steadfastness, and the such of the farmers and those people who care about the sanctity of our food? The corruption from Monsanto need not be tolerated!! If action to STOP and DESTROY Monsanto and any other companies with like agendas does not happen immediately, all people will die slow and painful deaths through lack of proper nutrition. The lack of proper nutrition through the genetic engineering and use of harmful pesticides and chemicals is most likely irreversible. All people with any grain of common sense MUST rise up and put a stop to “The Monsanto Madness”!!!
The truth on this (as is often the case) seems to be somewhere in the middle. It’s not as dire as alarmists are making it out to be, but at the same time it’s certainly not benign either. The potential is certainly there for a lot of trouble down the road.
I was surprised to see absolutely no mention of this on the Grist environmental website, one of the more popular destinations for green living and everything organic.
The Organic Consumers Association is concerned, and has an action alert where you can put in your zip code and send off a pre-written letter to your representative:
http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=12878056
Sorry, I was steered to the article and had to verify to myself that the headlines were based opinions and not fact. I asked several posters to point to the sections in the bill that required organic food to be sprayed with pesticides, and of course they couldn’t.
Paints a nice picture of conspricacy and that is all they care about.
This is how NGO’s, industry, gov’t and individuals lose credibilty…by spinning tales.
This seems to have led to a lot of confusion, but according to a story at The Daily Green, this may be much ado about nothing. Nonetheless, one commenter points out that the controversy is founded in language that is not only subject to interpretation, but which would literally compel it - and most likely inconsistently.
That would seem enough reason to support a re-do.
Of course the bills don’t come right out and ban organic farming. What they Do is establish monetary, testing and personnel regulations so onerous that only the Mon-satan-o mega conglomerates could afford to meet them. Rosa DeLauro who introduced the House bill, is wife to Mon-santa-o exec Stanley ‘Greedy’ Greenberg.
This is the same pattern they will use later this year in Codex Alimentarius, to hyper-regulate natual supplements, herbs and vitamins, so that, like these outlaw-small-farms bills, Codex will basically outlaw small herbal and natuaral-supplement companies and health-food stores. Research & educate yourself on Codex Alimentarius.
In the recent years we have had several food scares involving salmonella, most recently in peanuts I think. I would have to question how many of these threats came out of an organic farmers garden… as I don’t think that any of them have.
I agree with Miss Megan’s concern over the vagueness of this bill and the open ended terminology being used. When you look at what has become of our Constitution and Bill of Rights due to people in power wanting more power being able to split hairs and manipulate terminology… a person can not help but become concerned when reading a bill that is non specific.
Another question that I can not help but ask is, why a bill like this would be introduced while food prices are skyrocketing? Would regulations such as this bill intends to impose not raise food prices even further? In the end, it is the consumer that will pay the price for increased regulations, and I don’t know about you but every time I see our government become involved in regulating something its quality goes down the tubes while it’s prices go up.
This next question is off the subject, but something I am wondering if anyone else has noticed… In the news we are seeing shooting being reported on a pretty much daily basis. Is this a “warm up” to get us to agree with the feds taking our guns away? I am thinking it is. Is there anyone out there that doesn’t think that criminals will still have guns after they take ours away? Has anyone payed attention to crime rates in England since their government took away the guns of the common people? Not intending to change the subject, just curious.
Megan, thanks for the posting. It brings up some scary points and I think people would be foolish if they were not concerned about this bill. Have a good one.
From :http://dprogram.net/2009/03/16/banning-organic-farming-regulating-home-gardening-hr-875-s-425/
Full text version pdf of HR 875: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h875ih.txt.pdf
Pay special attention to
* Section 3 which is the definitions portion of the bill-read in it’s entirety.
* section 103, 206 and 207- read in its entirety.
What it Does:
* Legally binds state agriculture departments to enforce federal guidelines effectively taking away the states power to do anything other than being food police for the federal government.
* Effectively criminalizes organic farming, but doesn’t actually use the word ‘organic.’
* Affects anyone growing food, even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
* Affects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
* Legislation is so broad based that every aspect of growing or producing food can be made illegal. There are no specifics, which is bizarre considering how long the legislation is.
* Section 103 is almost entirely about the administrative aspect of the legislation. It will allow the appointing of officials from the factory farming corporations and lobbyists and classify them as experts and allow them to determine and interpret the legislation. Who do you think they are going to side with?
* Section 206 defines what will be considered a ‘food production facility’ and what will be enforced upon all food production facilities. The wording is so broad based that a backyard gardener could be fined and more.
* Section 207 requires that the state’s Agriculture department act as the food police and enforce the federal requirements. This takes away the states power and is in violation of the 10th amendment.
These bills are very tricky indeed and taking them at face value is not a wise action. Being a strong supporter of our bill or rights and a gun owner, heed my advice when dealing with bills and how they are worded.
YOU WILL GET SCREWED! Those 4 words are words of experience. Just when you think a bill is alright and nothing “bad” is going to come out of them, wham! you get hit with the bad stuff. Don’t be naive I haven’t seen a good bill come out of W.D.C yet. Well, Except H.R. 1207.