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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.
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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.
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!
Megan, good job! You are right and anybody who does not have their head in the sand knows what you’re saying is spot on. We’ve had the last six years of facist, corporatocracy abuses of the people and misuses of power to prove it! The shills here…. they won’t be around long. When their connection to matrix gets disrupted, we enter a new paradigm as the shite starts hitting the fan, and their perfect little dream world’s start to self-destruct, so will they! Good riddance!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
Here is another one Megan, and thanks for bringing this up for discussion.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/law-farmers-market-vendor-million-fine.php?dcitc=daily_nl
I found another article on these bills, and why they could threaten organic farming, if anyone is interested: http://www.appomattoxnews.com/2009/my-problems-with-h-r-875-the-food-safety-modernization-act-of-2009.html
The quote in the article from one of the bills doesn’t seem to exclude places where food is manufactured, i.e. grown: “any food establishment or foreign food establishment engaged in manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding food for consumption in the United States.”
Farmer’s markets would definitely be affected. There is mention of standardized practices that would be required of every registered food producer (and that’s everyone, from what I understand anyone producing food for public consumption would have to be registered and inspected), and fertilizers are mentioned there – I don’t know about you, but I highly doubt that these required fertilzers would be organic.
Monsanto is the company that has been tied to this bill – they would definitely benefit directly because if everything having to do with food production is controlled and regulated, Monsanto’s seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides would provide an easy solution to standardizing farm practices. The fear that I have heard about this bill is that the regulations put in place will require all food producers to be standardized by using only “approved” (Monsanto) fertilizers and other products. So that is why there’s a bit of a scare about this.
The language of these bills is very difficult to read and very vague – so while it does not come right out and say “this bill bans organic gardening” – the danger is in how the law will be applied. There’s certainly a lot of room in the language to force certain practices and products on food producers since they’ll be required to be registered and regulated by the agency the law creates. I just see a lot of room for abuse in this bill, though you do have to read between the lines to see this.
My main concern is that with such vague language, these bills could potentially spell doom for organic food producers and sellers since they’re using “non-industry standard” practices already. While the intention is good on the surface, these bills need a lot of work before they go into law – and the window of time for debate and public comment on this bill is very narrow, so our representatives need to know that these bills are not ready to be laws until all the details are hammered out and organic farming is protected and addressed in them.
Thanks for the discussion, everyone.
Whereas these two bills are of great concern if indeed their broad interpretation could require home gardeners to register their gardens, could effectively make organic farming illegal, or could even shut down framers’ markets, I’m not sure if that is actually the case.
Please read SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS of H.R.875. If you look at 13(b) and (14) within this definition section, it specifically excludes any “farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation”.
In other words, this bill, as defined in Section 3, is about what happens to the food after it is produced. It is not about where or how food is produced. It clearly differentiates between what it calls a FOOD ESTABLISHMENT (using the bills all caps) and a FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY.
Of course, farmers’ markets and roadside food stands would clearly be regulated by this bill.
This is a very important distinction that needs to be acknowledged before reading the rest of the bill. Understanding House and Senate bills is a tricky proposition at best.
If others read this differently, please comment.
Ok I looked over the bills and I am a little confused I know that there is nothing saying that they will ban organic in them. So I guess what I am trying to understand is how do you jump from open ended to banning organic farming or as I have read on other blogs to banning seed banks? I am just a little confused.
I might see that some people are worried about the need to trace product back to its origin but in Canada beef now need to have a special ear tag with a bar code and registered number or it cannot leave your ranch. I am just a little confused please explain the concern. thanks