This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 8:51pm and is filed under Media and information, Food Safety, Local, Organic foods, Produce, Economics, Agriculture, Food Production. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Like many of my colleagues, I’ve been swamped by forwarded e-mails about the pending “Food Safety” legislation, HR 875. Most, if not all, of the e-mails tell me that this will be the end of my direct-to-consumer marketing, farmer’s markets, organic gardening and so on; such as “… if NAIS and 875 both pass, we will all be forced to eat ONLY imported foods or that processed by big corporations”
I admit I’ve not had the time to investigate the matter thoroughly. And being a skeptic, I tend to think that the more often and more emphatic these type of forwarded e-mails are, the more likely they are to contain inaccuracies.
I was delighted to see a very thorough post on the subject on Ethicurean. The bill is actually quite reasonable, does not interfere with within-state commerce and certainly do not make it illegal to be an organic farmer. Before you hit the forward button, or write to your congressman, please read this very thoughtful post (and some very good comments).
April 4th, 2009 at 1:53pm
“the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) offered their analyses. They believe this and companion bills are vehicles to let agribusiness control the entire US food supply, destroy independent local farming, and end the production of healthy organic food. “…..
“Linn Cohen-Cole calls HR 875 “monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto (and other Ag giants), the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hour GPS tracking of animals, the easement on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition (of) “industrial” standards, (and) planned elimination of (independent) farmers through all (the above) means.”
“PASA says don’t be fooled by the bill’s deceptive language that hides its true intentions. Code words like “traceability, source verification, and best farming practices with proven scientific results” will force farmers to tag every animal (the requirement for industrial farms is one per 800,000) and use drugs, pesticides and GM seeds.”
http://rense.com/general85/gmo.htm
April 5th, 2009 at 11:52am
This flap reminds me of the anti-fluoridation agitation in the 1950’s–then it was the communist menace, now it’s big business. In both cases there’s a fear of the future and a lack of trust of the powerful. Things like “don’t be fooled by the bill’s deceptive language…” describe an Alice and Wonderland world.
Of course, I’m biased, as I remember the vet vaccinating our cows (was it brucellosis or bovine TB?)and inserting the ear tag. And my mother had had TB.