'Food Safety' Legislation Written by Big Agrico to Take Over Food Suppy

Will outlaw organic farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside produce stands, etc.

The "food safety" bills in Congress were written by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.  All are associated with the opposite of food safety.  What is this all about then?

In the simplest terms, organic food and a rebirth of farming were winning.  Not in absolute numbers but in a deep and growing shift by the public toward understanding the connection between their food and their health, between good food and true social pleasures, between their own involvement in food and the improvement in their lives in general, between local food and a burgeoning local economy.

Slow Food was right - limit your food to what comes from your region and from real farmers, and slow down to cook it and linger over it with friends and family, and the world begins to change for the better.  

And as we face an unprecedented economic crisis, and it is hard to be sure what has value, one thing that always does is food.  Which is why the corporations are after absolute control over it.  But what obstacles to a complete lock on food do they face?  All the people in this country who are "banking" on organic farming and urban gardens and most of all, everyone's deepening pleasure in and increasing involvement with everything about food.

Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

Those are things we not only all want, but things we are actively getting involved in, and things we very much need.  And where they are truly good, they are growing.

The international financial corporations which have wreaked havoc around the world with astounding nonsensical "solutions" that are destructive of everyone but them, are brothers to the international agribusiness giants (Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.) which are just as aggressively after their own form of "taking."  Just seeds, animals, water, land.

And freedom. 

Because human beings are by in large good and by in large incredibly resilient and clever, and left to their own devices - that is, free - they would handle this gargantuan financial stupidity the corporations brought us with NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and all other globalized schemes (which they hope to eventually top off with CODEX).  How?  By being productive in real ways and locally.  And farming is the solid ground under that.  Farmers produce something of real value (something we used to take for granted), and from that base, businesses grow up.  Local markets, local food processors, local seed companies, local tool and supply companies, local stores ... and an economy based on reality and something truly good for us, too, begins to grow.

So, look again at what has been exciting us - Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands. - and realize that they are not only wonderfully healthy but fun and naturally community building.  And more, they are a real economy and deeply democratic - and just at a time we need something that works economically, that supports our democratic rebirth, and that protects food itself and our easy access to it.

And it is all those things that threaten the corporations ... which is why we now have these massive "fake food safety" bills in Congress.  Everything is going under thanks to these fools, and they wish to be there like vultures to make sure that every drop of blood that can be sucked out of our resources and us, is theirs.  To wit, they must get rid of such good and innocent things and yet truly powerful things as:

Farmers markets.  Local farmers.  Real milk.  Fresh eggs.  Vegetable stands.

And how will those who contaminate our country's food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that?  Why, by setting standards for "food safety" that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage.  Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up.  That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers.  Imagine having the government and corporations deciding every single thing you can do and must do in your kitchen and backing that up with the threat of 10 years in prison for screwing up - though you have never made anyone sick, and those corporations have.  Imagine being surveilled 24 hours a day by GPS tracking devices that feed into ... a corporate data bank, one they have now moved out of the country so no one here can have legal access to see what is in it.

Imagine the devil himself - or a whole boardrooms of them, dressed in suits - defining the only safe and healthy food in this country as dangerous and burdening hard working farmers with more work then anyone could bear, while his own, their own, food is so dangerous at this point that in the last 10 years alone, diabetes has gone up 90%.

And how did they get this far with such a scheme to apply insane industrial standards to every farm in the country?  Through fear of diseases and of outbreaks of food borne illnesses, both of which they cause themselves. 

How it works:  Tyson helps Bill Clinton get into office.  Bill Clinton immediately and significantly lowers contamination standards for poultry as a thank you.  And it is such contaminated waste from transnational poultry factories which is now implicated as the source of bird flu. Then fortunes on made on that fear.  And then poultry industry uses the crisis they created to push out small farmers and take greater control than ever.  Their mantra?  Biodiversity not only be damned but be eliminated.  And get rid of those damn farmers who protect it while we're at it.

The bills would require such a burdensome complexity of rules, inspections, licensing, fees, and penalties for each farmer who wishes to sell locally - a fruit stand, at a farmers market -  no one could manage it.  And THAT is the point.  The whole dirty tricks point.  The whole "be in tight control of everything needed for survival because it'll be worth a fortune" point.

So, if you like farmers markets, local farmers, fresh milk, fresh eggs, vegetables stands, and freedom, let your friends know that it's all on the line right now with those "fake food safety" bills brought to us with well-planned evil and more of it to come, by Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, etc.

Slow Food reminds us of just where we need to be (and notice how much would help any local economy):

Forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems;

Developing an "Ark of Taste" for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated;

Preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation;

Organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products);

Organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada);

Promoting "taste education;"

Educating consumers about the risks of fast food;

Educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms;

Educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties;

Developing various political programs to preserve family farms;

Lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy;

Lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering;

Lobbying against the use of pesticides;

Teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners; and

Encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces.

But we need to stop these bills first or we are left with no money from the financial bailout and no food from the food stealout.

Send a message to Congress.  

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:

Stop HR 875, HR 814, SR 425, and soon, HR 759

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

Linn Cohen-Cole is a a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

The New York Times misses a Monsanto coup over organic farming set in motion by Hillary Clinton

by Linn Cohen-Cole

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton.  She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food.  Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

Senator Clinton is deeply, historically connected to Monsanto. And her and Bill Clinton's association with Monsanto has not been good for the safety of American food and our democracy,and the two are inextricably linked.  Her long time advisor and campaign strategist was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR firms representing Monsanto (Blackwater, ExxonMobil of the Alaska spill, Union Carbide of the Bhopal disaster, the Argentinian junta ...).

The astounding name of one of the bills is so absurd and totalitarian in both its use of fear and its infinite reach, it should have been rejected outright based solely on that:

H. R. 814 "Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009."

In addition, there is HB875 and a Senate bill introduced by Sherrod Brown. The supporters of H. R. 814 were all strong supporters for president (as was Sherrod Brown).

DeLauro is married to prominent Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who was President Bill Clinton's chief pollster from 1991 to 1994

Bordallo supported Clinton in Guam

On November 26, 2007, DeGette announced her endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton for president, and was named national co-chair of Clinton's Health Care Policy Task Force and adviser on stem-cell research.

Nadler endorsed Clinton for president. In essence, the bills entail a hidden takeover and then forced industrialization of small farming - and that would include organic CSAs - by the industrial side.

Here is a farmer's alert to his local anti-NAIS group:

Hello friends, Have you all read federal HB814 and HB875? If not better take a look.  Seems we are looking at NAIS on steroids.

814 is bad, 875 is awful, it creates a new food safety department that seems to take some power from USDA&FDA and who knows what else?

It has language in it that appears to turn our farms into food production facilitys and allows them to decide our feed ratios and types as well as our animal health regime and whether or not and with what we can fertilize our ground, sounds worse than NAIS to me, the wording is vague and probably intentionally so. [My emphasis.]

This is the end of organic farming.

There is no frontal assault, it is done insidiously, through "entering" it and using government regulations and criminal penalties ($500,000 and 10 years in prison) to simply make it industrial.  And for the well-being of Monsanto and industrial agricultural corporations, it will require purchase of agrochemical and pharmaceuticals.

Quite simply, one government required spraying of pesticides and an organic farm, no matter how productive and safe, is finished instantly.

The shell will be "organic" but its insides will be Monsanto.

Under the outrageous threat of "agricultural contamination everywhere" and using "food safety" as a weapon against the farmers actually producing our only safe food, Monsanto has used Hillary Clinton's connections in the state of New York and elsewhere to introduce bills that are literally fascist in their implications and by definition.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

That the New York Times should be reporting the success of CSA just as these destructive bills from its own representatives are being introduced and the brainchild of its ex-Senator, is a glimpse of the extreme disconnect between urban elite and eager organic consumers, and the horrors occurring through the USDA and FDA to ensure that "organic" will be "organic" in name only, its farms and its food content thoroughly industrial.

This is similar to the underhanded move that Bill Clinton made during his administration when he introduced rBGH through an FDA headed by Monsanto and would not label it (farmers were being sued for honest labeling by Monsanto and the FDA didn't stop that). That left only organic food as a last way around unknown danger. But Bill tried to close that escape with new "organic" standards which included the dirty three: genetic engineering of plants/animals, food irradiation, and sewage sludge as fertilizer. The USDA backed down only after a public response 20 times greaterthan to anything before.

"Shortly before the end of the comment period, the nation's biotechnology leader, Monsanto, advised the USDA to back off temporarily on trying to include gene-altered products under the organic label for a three-year period and then to try again."

The plan has been transformed.  After years of suing farmers for honest labeling and trying to establish dishonest ones and pushing laws around the country to ban labeling altogether, a new approach is now being set in motion.  Rather than trying to co-opt the goodness of organic food by hiding the dangers of GMOs under an organic label or no labels, Monsanto is intending to take over all small farms including organic ones, control farmers into non-existence through sadistically inappropriate bureaucracy and regimes applied to a natural system (that is working well), through draconian penalties and fear of prison, and through forced application of industrial chemicals and drugs.

It's a better plan.  It either gets rid of the competition entirely (without confronting it directly) or it forces it to become a captive to Monsanto products.

One must give them credit for brilliance.  This is no open battle - tiger against newborn kitten - but a take over of the kitten's body by massive tapeworm.

This is whatNAISis about (utter take-over of functions and the weakening and death that will cause) and now the tapeworm is spreading out into all aspects of farming - vegetables, trees, ... everything normal is set to labeled, digitally fed into massive centralized data banks controlled by the government/Monsanto, and every thing will have to be recorded in minute detail. What seed of what variety from what company after what testing was planted on what day under which conditions on what row recorded where by GPS tracking, and received what chemicals in what amount from what company and how often and with what results and ....

This is fascism applied to farming.

Have any of you gone out to plant seeds, taking the seed packets from last year and some from this year, and put a few here and few there and home made marker to help you remember, enjoying being outside away from computers and paperwork and television and bills and all that things that produce stress? Just you and a few seeds and hope of what will happen.

That is freedom.  That is being in nature and it belongs to you, just as it did when you were little and enjoyed playing outside and getting dirty and being a normal child. That freedom and that love of nature is why farmers farm. It is hard work, it is incredibly hard work, but only they and nature control their time.  They look out after a hard winter and see the ground has thawed and there is break in the weather, know they need to spend the day planting seeds before it rains. All plans for other things must be put aside.  It's a deep companion thing between them and nature.

It is not an industrial thing. It is not a Monsanto thing.

Wonderful, real, caring hard-working farming groups around the country have been fighting for survival against NAIS - on no money, doing legal work themselves, doing documentaries themselves, working (one said) 23 hours a day for years now, while trying to run farms and raise families. You have no idea how brutal this has been for them.

These bill would turn our farmers into Monsanto controlled laborers on their own property, while mandating they purchase their products through federal law.

The industrial side is making us sick and responsible for contamination that spreads through out the food system - pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, steroids, heavy metals. But through Clinton's idea and the bills introduced by her friends, Monsanto and the rest of Big Ag (Cargill, ADM and the rest) are about to get away with the most astounding coup of American farming - using government to actually impose their sickness making industrial system on small farmers who are the ones producing the only health food we have.

This is why Vilsack, Monsanto's crony, was put in.  2009 is the date for locking things up.

They would not only be taking over the food supply but eliminating everything diverse and healthy through massive regulating of every single thing happening on farms - while they, the industrial side, is not even inspected and plays game with all labeling for themselves.  They are running the show and Monsanto is dragging down the whole economy and blocking any chance of a local, vibrant organic farming movement to exist.

As the New York Time article intimated, this is the change Obama talked about - and they are green jobs - being eliminated behind the scenes by Clinton, Vilsack and Monsanto.

A whole class of once free people are being taken over and made servants to the industrial system and even trapped sources of funds for it, controlling everything they do.

Here's what they do in all its hard work, love, wonder and ... freedom:

Here a 8 year old proudly helps to dry his new doeling that he chose to name MilkNHoney Allison. By being involved through the entire process from conception to weaning, this child might choose to stay in either livestock or farming. He gains valuable knowledge throughout the 5 month process to help him be a Goat breeder someday."

The New York Times has never written a single article on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The only story on NAIS they have written is a review of French movie by that name. And CSAs they just reported on would be fine and help lead this country out of a massive depression if all the bills out of New York and Ohio were trashed outright.

No, President Clinton, there is no "we."  Farmers know the government caused a human disaster (your "free trade" and opening India to Monsanto and the rest has been followed by 180,000 suicides by Indian farmers over the last ten years - but, oh, the profits to Monsanto). What farmers want is for government to stay out of small farming altogether.

Your words sound so contrite - admitting to a colossal blunder and talking about a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture." But Monsanto is now using those same words "environmentally responsible," and "sustainable" and in a New Yorker ad, no less, and your "we" is just on to the next massive trick.

Just leave small farmers alone.  They know how to farm.  And customers are incredibly grateful for their good food.

Those regulations are fine. They are just insanely misapplied to the safest, least centralized, least dangerous part of farming - small local farmers.  But they are, though, absolutely perfect for Monsanto and industrial agriculture, multinational corporations which NEED to be massively re-regulated and tracked every minute of every day, and particularly including who their lobbyists visit in government.

But for our small farmers who we are losing the rate of 1000 a month, get the government the hell off their farms.  Get them the hell out from under all USDA regulations that in any way at all allow their own corporately corrupted government - now backed up by Homeland Security "surge capacity" strike forces - to threaten, control, register, track, seize, trespass, slaughter, or destroy anything that is theirs.

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Remove small farming from NAIS and all federal regulations to do with contamination and food safety. Leave them to farm and simply pass tests by local INDEPENDENT labs.

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children with things as they are now.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-New-York-Times-misses-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090216-971.html