In wake of the recent health "threats" due to the peanut/salmonella scare, Mexican tomato/salmonella scare and swine flu scares, Congress has been gearing up in order to supposedly "protect" the American citizens and consumers with two bills now in committee.
The first, HR 875 or The Food Safety Modernization Act, is an attempt by Congress to appoint an agri-business connected "Food Czar" over the enforcement of regulatory standards mainly directed toward America's small business farmers, placing complicated governmental hoops for small farmers to jump through that in its provisions basically strips them of their rights to farm their own land.
The penalties for non-compliance of this Food Safety Czar's edicts or any of the provisions of this Act can result in forfeiture of their lands and property.
One provision of this Act, the National Animal ID System, requires small farmers to immediately tag and identify all animals born on their farms with expensive identifying equipment within a mere 48 hours of birth. The penalty for non-compliance is a fine in the amount of $500,000, ten years imprisonment and/or forfeiture of their property.
Interestingly, for large corporate agri-businesses the same provisions only require identification of one number in every 800,00 animals.
Another provision requires small farmers to create easements on their lands for warrantless governmental inspection and entry at will. It would also eliminate allowance of "seed banking" by small farmers for future crops.
This bill was introduced by Rosa Deloro whose husband has Monsanto as a client, and who herself has received over $180,000 in agri-business donations.
In its provisions, it is a blatant attempt by the large agri-businesses and Congress to seize control of our food supply, and force us to consume their products rather than those of less expensive and locally grown produce from small area farmers.
Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto employee, is lobbying now for a position in the Obama Administration as the Food Safety Czar in furtherance of the large agri-business communities agendas of total control of our food production and delivery.
Since large agri-businesses rarely simply sell in local markets, it actually will eventually more than likely result in greater contamination and diseases which now occur during transportation and processing to large industrialized out state processing plants, and will place significant barriers on also organically grown food supplies.
The second bill, HR-759 or FDA Globalization Act of 2009 will vastly expand the FDA's authority over our food supply by granting full authority to define and enforce science based standards for the production and harvesting of plant sources in the global market place.
Our economy wasn't enough, now our food sources and supplies are going under global control and dominion through our own FDA.
The definition of "science based" of course is left totally open so that it can be defined in any manner this regulatory body determines is in the interest of "science," and again as with many federal regulatory bodies including and especially our IRS, without direct Congressional oversight in any manner whatsoever.
Most likely those in charge of these regulatory standards will have agri-business backgrounds, and who's to say that certain organically based food sources would not meet their definitions of "science based."
It also places the small farmer under the same requirements as it does the large industrial agri-businesses, and would require all farms to register with the FDA (of course for an annual fee), create extensive written food safety plans, keep copious electronic records and MANDATE certification in so-called "good agricultural practices."
This bill also seems intended to feed the "science" and "technology" fields Mr. Obama and the globalists in the federal govenment are so enmored with, and who also make rather large campaign contributions to federal legislators' campaign chests.
Local small farmers are already metriculous in their practices due to the very fact that they depend on word of mouth and a strong reputation in order to stay in business.
The USDA already has unilateral authority to shut down any farm that is not in compliance with existing standards and seize any and all contaminated products.
What is missing is better screening of those products that enter this country from the global markets at the point of entry, and also the large agri-businesses and their transport methods to large national or foreign processing plants which can contaminate bulk food sources on a more massive and national scale.
The bulk of small business farmers' products are sold locally, as opposed to the larger agri-businesses, so it appears the attacks on the small business farmers are an attempt to seize total control of our food sources and market, and expand their farms and fields through forefeitures, and not simply in order to insure the safety of the quality of food sold at your local grocery.
Below are the bills, and they are now in Committee most likely to be heard prior to Memorial Day.
Please contact your Senators and House members in order to preserve freedom over our own food sources in this country, and protect those small farmers who are the backbone of this nation:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-759
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h759/show
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress
