Re: POLITICS: HR 875 - a threat to raw milk, small farmers

[Guest guest]

HR 875 is a huge problem, it will destroy family farming. It also isn't

the only bill, there are also HR 814, S 425 & HR 759 and I'm sure others.

This bill would guarantee the end of raw milk sales as it would provide

the authority needed to prohibit sale of raw milk, even if it hadn't

otherwise already driven them out of business with the cost of compliance.

This bill will also mean the end of clean food, as it provides the

authority for the feds to dictate the minute details of how animals and

crops are grown. And given the likes of Monsanto are influencing the

FDA/USDA you can well imagine what that will mean.

More detailed information to follow.

haecklers wrote:

>

> I came across this on one of those paranoid news sites, but it does

> look a little alarming - HR 875 seeks to change the FDA to some other

> sort of thing that looks like it would oversee NAIS and could create

> quite a few other hassles for small farmers in its role of ensuring

> " food safety compliance " .

>

> http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_875.html

> <http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_875.html>

>

> A friend who is president of a farmers/consumers organization said

> it's one of the most dangerous bills to come up yet. We all need to

> comment to protect our food and farmers. Remember, the Secretary of

> Agriculture is a Monsanto guy and Monsanto's aim is to control the

> means of producing food.

>

>

[Guest guest]

So called food 'safety' bills have been introduced into Congress which

will drive us and all other small, organic, family farms out of

business. These bills (HR 875, HR 814, S 425 & HR 759) purport to give

the federal government the authority to implement NAIS and regulate

every minute detail of how we raise our animals and grow our food. The

result will be the outlawing of many organic practices and the mandating

of practices which would contaminate the food we produce. They will

raise the cost of production beyond what we can bear. And they will

destroy our burgeoning local food system and put an end to our farmers

markets and roadside farm stands.

They must be stopped.

Please act now! Visit one of these pages and tell your Congressmen the

federal government has no business in regulating small family farms!

Small family and organic farms are not the cause of our food

contamination issues.

/Oppose food 'safety' bills:/

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714

http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=7290

/Oppose NAIS:/

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26665

/More Information/

The centralization and industrialization of our food supply has brought

with it contamination's, chronic illness, antibiotic resistant germs,

food poisoning, animal abuses, environmental destruction, and

nutritionless fake food. This process has not only destroyed our nations

health, but has bankrupted the family farms which once nourished her.

But people are waking up. More and more people are abandoning

conventional food in search of health building, local, organic food. For

the first time in decades we are seeing a growth in small farms. There

is hope for small farmers like us, that we really can make a living

farming. And there is hope for millions of families, that they don't

have to live lives plagued by sickness.

But these bills will change that.

Not only do these bills mandate government tracking of animals and food

from farm to plate, but they mandate we raise animals and produce

vegetables according to government regulation standards. There is a

revolving door between the big agriculture conglomerates like Monsanto

and the FDA and USDA, companies whose vision is a world where all all

food is produced by large corporately controlled farmers who buy their

seed, and chemicals from them. Independent, organic agriculture and seed

saving have no part in that vision.

Some say we need regulation to prevent more food poisoning outbreaks.

But more government regulation will not save us. Family farms have never

been the problem. Contaminated food is a symptom of our centralized,

industrial agriculture and always has been. We've been down this path

before with meat and milk. Past generations saw the addition of state

and federal regulations of butchers and federal regulation of dairies

and pasteurization. These were done in response to meat and milk

contamination problems. However, then as now, those laws were pushed by

the very industries which were causing the problems in the first place.

In both cases the result was the same: government regulation did nothing

to clean up the food. Instead, the regulations drove out of business

small butchers and dairy farmers while providing cover for the continued

dirty production of those foods. The lesson is clear: government

regulation doesn't make food safer, it just raises the barrier to entry

and raises the cost of production for the competitors of the huge

corporations causing the problem in the first place. And it is these

same companies that are behind these bills and who will be directing the

content of the regulations under them.

/To learn more visit these pages:/

/NAIS:/

http://sovereignty.net/library/nais-no/player.html

/Food 'safety' (farmer enslavement) bills:/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/25/191947/637/878/701887

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-the-Schoolmar-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-0\

90214-935.html

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-bills-being-rushe-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-0\

90217-758.html

haecklers wrote:

>

> I came across this on one of those paranoid news sites, but it does

> look a little alarming - HR 875 seeks to change the FDA to some other

> sort of thing that looks like it would oversee NAIS and could create

> quite a few other hassles for small farmers in its role of ensuring

> " food safety compliance " .

>

> http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_875.html

> <http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_875.html>

>

> A friend who is president of a farmers/consumers organization said

> it's one of the most dangerous bills to come up yet. We all need to

> comment to protect our food and farmers. Remember, the Secretary of

> Agriculture is a Monsanto guy and Monsanto's aim is to control the

> means of producing food.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Can I quote this in a message to my friends? Is this taken from a

website somewhere? I want to give proper credit to you for writing

this.

This is what I wrote to a friend of mine who said that she was

horrified at how vulnerable our food supply is and small farms should

just suck it up (she said more too about how any farm with livestock

is at risk for scary diseases, etc):

***

If one farm goes out of business because of this, it is too many. If 1

person is discouraged from backyard farming, it is too many. If 1

person is discouraged from buying or taking over a small farm, it is

too many.

There are ways to ensure food safety that don't have to cost so much

money or require so much red tape.

What makes our food chain so vulnerable is how it all comes from a

handful of factory farms. All it takes is one of them to get hit with

something (remember the issue with tomatoes? Spinach? Now peanut

butter?) While they figure this stuff out, almost all peanut butter is

unsafe to eat! What kind of food safety is that? We need

diversification of farms, not a handful of national or regional

conglomerates. If one farm is hit with a problem, the entire industry

doesn't go down with them.

And I, for one, have very little concern about my own food chain. I

know the name of the farmer and the address where my eggs came from,

where my milk came from, where my meat came from, and where many of my

vegetables come from. I feel confident that if Elmer has a sick cow,

he would deal with it appropriately. I doubt that he would let one of

his few customers knowingly (or even due to carelessness) get sick

from it, esp since we all have contact with each other and word would

spread fast to avoid his products. And since his farm is small and

animals are treated well, not only are most illnesses easily

prevented, but he can monitor his animals and the products easily, and

should something come up, he can track the source quickly, thus

containing the spread of any food born illness.

Whatever plan the USDA implements (and I'm not saying there should be

no plan) has to SUPPORT small farms. Not hurt them. They should not be

penalized and be forced to " suck it up " and lose profits (potentially

making them unprofitable) because of poor animal husbandry practices

that factory farms use. The USDA plan needs to work with both models

or it needs to provide different requirements or a rebate or

substantial tax benefit or SOMETHING for the small farms.

***

Thanks,

On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Gasper Family Farm

<farmer1@...> wrote:

> So called food 'safety' bills have been introduced into Congress which

> will drive us and all other small, organic, family farms out of

> business. These bills (HR 875, HR 814, S 425 & HR 759) purport to give

> the federal government the authority to implement NAIS and regulate

> every minute detail of how we raise our animals and grow our food. The

> result will be the outlawing of many organic practices and the mandating

> of practices which would contaminate the food we produce. They will

> raise the cost of production beyond what we can bear. And they will

> destroy our burgeoning local food system and put an end to our farmers

> markets and roadside farm stands.

>

> They must be stopped.

>

> Please act now! Visit one of these pages and tell your Congressmen the

> federal government has no business in regulating small family farms!

> Small family and organic farms are not the cause of our food

> contamination issues.

>

> /Oppose food 'safety' bills:/

>

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714

> http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=7290

>

> /Oppose NAIS:/

> http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26665

>

> /More Information/

>

> The centralization and industrialization of our food supply has brought

> with it contamination's, chronic illness, antibiotic resistant germs,

> food poisoning, animal abuses, environmental destruction, and

> nutritionless fake food. This process has not only destroyed our nations

> health, but has bankrupted the family farms which once nourished her.

>

> But people are waking up. More and more people are abandoning

> conventional food in search of health building, local, organic food. For

> the first time in decades we are seeing a growth in small farms. There

> is hope for small farmers like us, that we really can make a living

> farming. And there is hope for millions of families, that they don't

> have to live lives plagued by sickness.

>

> But these bills will change that.

>

> Not only do these bills mandate government tracking of animals and food

> from farm to plate, but they mandate we raise animals and produce

> vegetables according to government regulation standards. There is a

> revolving door between the big agriculture conglomerates like Monsanto

> and the FDA and USDA, companies whose vision is a world where all all

> food is produced by large corporately controlled farmers who buy their

> seed, and chemicals from them. Independent, organic agriculture and seed

> saving have no part in that vision.

>

> Some say we need regulation to prevent more food poisoning outbreaks.

> But more government regulation will not save us. Family farms have never

> been the problem. Contaminated food is a symptom of our centralized,

> industrial agriculture and always has been. We've been down this path

> before with meat and milk. Past generations saw the addition of state

> and federal regulations of butchers and federal regulation of dairies

> and pasteurization. These were done in response to meat and milk

> contamination problems. However, then as now, those laws were pushed by

> the very industries which were causing the problems in the first place.

>

> In both cases the result was the same: government regulation did nothing

> to clean up the food. Instead, the regulations drove out of business

> small butchers and dairy farmers while providing cover for the continued

> dirty production of those foods. The lesson is clear: government

> regulation doesn't make food safer, it just raises the barrier to entry

> and raises the cost of production for the competitors of the huge

> corporations causing the problem in the first place. And it is these

> same companies that are behind these bills and who will be directing the

> content of the regulations under them.

>

> /To learn more visit these pages:/

>

> /NAIS:/

> http://sovereignty.net/library/nais-no/player.html

>

> /Food 'safety' (farmer enslavement) bills:/

> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/25/191947/637/878/701887

>

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-the-Schoolmar-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-0\

90214-935.html

>

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-bills-being-rushe-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-0\

90217-758.html

>

> haecklers wrote:

>>

>> I came across this on one of those paranoid news sites, but it does

>> look a little alarming - HR 875 seeks to change the FDA to some other

>> sort of thing that looks like it would oversee NAIS and could create

>> quite a few other hassles for small farmers in its role of ensuring

>> " food safety compliance " .

>>

>> http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_875.html

>> <http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_HR_875.html>

>>

>> A friend who is president of a farmers/consumers organization said

>> it's one of the most dangerous bills to come up yet. We all need to

>> comment to protect our food and farmers. Remember, the Secretary of

>> Agriculture is a Monsanto guy and Monsanto's aim is to control the

>> means of producing food.

>>

>>

>

>