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Posted on 07/23/2009 5:11:36 AM PDT by FromLori
HR 2749 is being rushed through Congress, and the house may look to suspend the rules and fast track the bill at Obama’s request. Just what can we expect from this legislation? A lot more of the following:
Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.
He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.
“I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop,” he said. “On one field where a deer walked through, didn’t eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop.”
In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world’s biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national. (Lochhead, C. )
The question that must be asked is, do we really want to destroy our local organic farming industry by poisoning ponds, bulldozing crops and killing wildlife all in the name of food safety?
Recently someone asked why I thought that the current food safety legislation would jeopardize organic farming. This is why! People who have no idea what it is to farm, and are in collusion with large corporate food producers, buyers, and sellers, draft legislation that is intolerable to the environment and our health, all in the name of food safety, in order to promote corporate profit.
Recently someone asked why I thought that the current food safety legislation would jeopardize organic farming. This is why! People who have no idea what it is to farm, and are in collusion with large corporate food producers, buyers, and sellers, draft legislation that is intolerable to the environment and our health, all in the name of food safety, in order to promote corporate profit.
Not one instance in “16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, has Seattle trial lawyer Bill Marler had a case where it’s been linked to a farmers’ market” (Marler, B.). Yet, farmer’s markets and local organic food growers who sell at these markets are included in this legislation, and factory farming scorched earth methods are forced on them.
The Scorched Earth Policy
It is impossible to sanitize the earth. When slash and burn methods are used to supposedly control pathogens in our food supply, nature’s natural balance is destroyed, and with it our health. “Sanitizing American agriculture, aside from being impossible, is foolhardy,” said UC Berkeley food guru Michael Pollan. (Lochhead, C.)
Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare – spinach, peppers and now cookie dough – ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer – and anything that shelters them – are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria. (Lochhead, C.)
In fact, in the fierce battle to sanitize the earth, one thing has been overlooked:
Some science suggests that removing vegetation near field crops could make food less safe. Vegetation and wetlands are a landscape’s lungs and kidneys, filtering out not just fertilizers, sediments and pesticides, but also pathogens. UC Davis scientists found that vegetation buffers can remove as much as 98 percent of E. coli from surface water. UC Davis advisers warn that some rodents prefer cleared areas. (Lochhead, C.)
Food Safety Fraud Culprits
So who is behind this massive attack on our food supply? You guessed it – giant food retailers, agri-business, and anyone with a bankroll larger than the state of Texas. It seems that paying “more than $100 million in court settlements and verdicts in spinach and lettuce lawsuits” (Lochhead, C.) as well as realizing a loss in sales is galvanizing these corporate giants to lead the charge in instituting a “quasi-governmental program of new protocols for growing greens safely, called the “leafy greens marketing agreement.””
A proposal was submitted last month in Washington to take these rules nationwide.” (Lochhead, C.) And just what is this proposal? HR 2749 Food Safety Enhancement Act.
A food safety bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, passed this month in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It would give new powers to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate all farms and produce in an attempt to fix the problem. The bill would require consideration of farm diversity and environmental rules, but would leave much to the FDA. (Lochhead, C.)
The requirements of this bill would put small farmers out of business entirely, but this is not the only threat to the little guy.
Large produce buyers have compiled secret “super metrics” that go much further. Farmers must follow them if they expect to sell their crops. These can include vast bare-dirt buffers, elimination of wildlife, and strict rules on water sources. To enforce these rules, retail buyers have sent forth armies of food-safety auditors, many of them trained in indoor processing plants, to inspect fields. (Lochhead, C.)
Most of these inspectors have little to no experience other than inside four walls. Take for example Ken Kimes, who owns New Natives Farms in Santa Cruz County. He was told that “no children younger than five can be allowed on his farm for fear of diapers” (Lochhead, C.)
Reaping the Consequences
It is this type of micro-management that our entire nation can look forward to if HR 2749 passes. These are rules no-one can comply with other than large factory operations. Not only do they conflict with common sense, but with organic and environmental standards as well. They are causing what they propose to eliminate, and that is, a dangerous, contaminated food supply controlled by no one but the biggest corporations. And what can we expect to reap from this harvest? Higher prices due to increased costs to implement the measures and ship the food, nothing but factory-produced food that has travelled for miles to get on the shelf, increased pesticide use, the elimination of organic standards and the family farm, and the rape and desecration of nature itself.
The consequences of California’s draconian measures which are scheduled to go nationwide with the implementation of HR 2749 are already resulting in irreparable harm. …trees have been bulldozed along the riparian corridors of the Salinas Valley, while poison-filled tubes targeting rodents dot lettuce fields. Dying rodents have led to deaths of owls and hawks that naturally control rodents. (Lochhead, C.)
The Fear Factor
Why is the public going along with this? “It’s all based on panic and fear, and the science is not there,” said Dr. Andy Gordus, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game. Preliminary results released in April from a two-year study by the state wildlife agency, UC Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that less than one-half of 1 percent of 866 wild animals tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 in Central California.
Frogs are unrelated to E. coli, but their remains in bags of mechanically harvested greens are unsightly, Gordus said, so “the industry has been using food safety as a premise to eliminate frogs.”
Farmers are told that ponds used to recycle irrigation water are unsafe. So they bulldoze the ponds and pump more groundwater, opening more of the aquifer to saltwater intrusion, said Jill Wilson, an environmental scientist at the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Luis Obispo.
Wilson said demands for 450-foot dirt buffers remove the agency’s chief means of preventing pollution from entering streams and rivers. Jovita Pajarillo, associate director of the water division in the San Francisco office of the Environmental Protection Agency, said removal of vegetative buffers threatens Arroyo Seco, one of the last remaining stretches of habitat for steelhead trout. (Lochhead, C.)
The Real Problem
The problem does not lie squarely in the lap of the farmer, where this legislation places it. It lies in the processing that happens after the produce leaves the farm. This legislation pronounces a death sentence on all small farmers, organic growers, and our nation’s very health as well, yet fails to address the real problem. “Industry rules won’t stop lawsuits or eliminate the risk of processed greens cut in fields, mingled in large baths, put in bags that must be chilled from packing plant to kitchen, and shipped thousands of miles away” (Marler, B).
Mass-production is the culprit, not my neighbor down the road who grows strawberries and sells them at the local farmer’s market. Yet the cause of the problem – mass-produced, industrialized food production methods are supported, while the innocent victims – family farmers, organic producers, and neighbors selling fruit at the local farmer’s market – are punished and quite literally put out of business.
Nanny and socialism ping
This is ridiculous.
Did they ever stop to think about all the critters that live underground?
The nocturnal ones that nobody sees because they come out at night?
The birds that fly over everything and poop everywhere?
What’s wrong with our politicians? Is being certifiable now a requirement for holding political office?
No surprise that they’re all Communists.
| Food bill would hurt small farmers Kansas City Star - MO,USA If your friends farm, or if you were to take up farming for more than your family, you could be under a kind of FDA martial law with the passing of HR 2749, ... |
| 'Food' discussion highlights local farming Bangor Daily News - Bangor,ME,USA Panelists and some in the audience urged people to pay attention to HR 2749, a federal food security bill that they said could make doing business a lot ... |
| Farm Groups Say Food Safety Bill Would Make it Tougher for Farmers ... CNSNews.com - Alexandria,VA,USA “In recent weeks some concerns have been raised about HR 2749, many on the Internet, suggesting almost apocalyptic outcomes for farmers if the bill becomes ... |
| CONFER: The federal assaults on farms Tonawanda News - North Tonawanda,NY,USA HR 2749 would give the FDA almost unlimited power that would touch on every facet of ... HR 2749 is just another in a long line of attacks on capitalism and ... |
| Food Safety Bill Triggers Fight Farm Futures - Carol Stream,IL,USA Although there was much bipartisan support of HR 2749, a food safety bill, earlier this year, after several farm and livestock organizations testified ... New food safety bill needs to be stopped The Newark Advocate - Newark,OH,USA A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress -- HR 2749, ... HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial ... The high cost of cheap food Denver Post - Denver,CO,USA What the passing of HR 875 and 2749 could mean is a loss of organic, small-farm options and a reduction of both the shopper's autonomy and the good things ... |
| Muzzle FDA Northwest Herald - Crystal Lake,IL,USA Large corporate farming? A new law no doubt. Only genetically modified food can claim any health benefits. I'm opposed to this bill (HR 2749). |
| Letter: HR 2749 rejects 'choice' of foods St. Augustine Record - St. Augustine,FL,USA Editor: I urge Congress not to pass HR 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act. I highly object to the take over of our food supply by corporations such as ... |
| NPPC: Resolve Issues Before Passing Food-Safety Bill CattleNetwork.com - Overland Park,KS,USA As written, the bill would change the standard to allow on-farm inspections if food is “thought to be adulterated, misbranded or in violation of HR 2749. ... |
This should definitely be of interest to your weekly gardening list, and anybody who eats!
Having followed these types of issues for years, I can explain what is happening.
The processors and distributors (often transnational corporations) want to put the onus for food safety on the farmer so they can cut corners and save costs on food safety and sanitation in their own plants.
In their warped world view, if the fields are made completely sterile of everything except the crop, then they don’t have to have a lab, a technician to check the facility and product for contamination, nor expensive pesky food safety procedures and equipment.
Before Bill Clinton signed an executive order for harmonizing our food safety laws with the WTO and UN sponsored rules and Codex Alimentarius group, companies had food safety engineers or technicians, which regularly tested the products. The county state and federal governments all had agencies and inspectors and working together with the Ag university extension offices, America developed the safest food supply in the world.
Under harmonization with international ‘rules’, the transnational corporations and in country producers became their own inspectors. Our government’s cut the FDA and Food and Ag inspectors keeping in line with the internationalist’s mantra that any prohibitions on the transnational corporations by the government was a ‘barrier’ to free trade.
So now we have a system, for example, where the company that produced the e coli tainted lettuce wasn’t properly maintaining the cleanliness of their system ostensibly for cutting costs. Because they are the only ones responsible for maintaining their sanitation at their site , no inspectors checked their site or process. THEY washed the spinach in e coli contaminated wash water but blamed a farmer and some wild hogs which have been living next to Salinas valley farms ever since farms were started there. However, the ‘crisis’ they created resulted in all row crop farmers having to sterilize their fields of all animal life. What do you think the effect on the environment is when you have poison bait traps every 50 feet around your fields to poison rodents which may enter the field? How do you think it affects the raptors and other animals that prey on the rodents? How do you think their water rules affect the crop and the land? Especially since they don’t want water to run off a farm, as it would do in a natural watershed? How do you think that it would affect the natural environment off the farm?
The ideas expressed here are purely communist, in that, these food dictators believe in the communist notion that every thing is a system that human beings with ‘perfect knowledge’, that is trained communists, can control to be the perfect producing machines to meet the ‘needs’ of society. Well their machine kills people and destroys the environment, and isn’t that what we have always seen is the result of communistic control?
bookmarking
| Food bill would hurt small farmers Kansas City Star - MO,USA If your friends farm, or if you were to take up farming for more than your family, you could be under a kind of FDA martial law with the passing of HR 2749, ... |
| 'Food' discussion highlights local farming Bangor Daily News - Bangor,ME,USA Panelists and some in the audience urged people to pay attention to HR 2749, a federal food security bill that they said could make doing business a lot ... |
| Farm Groups Say Food Safety Bill Would Make it Tougher for Farmers ... CNSNews.com - Alexandria,VA,USA “In recent weeks some concerns have been raised about HR 2749, many on the Internet, suggesting almost apocalyptic outcomes for farmers if the bill becomes ... |
| CONFER: The federal assaults on farms Tonawanda News - North Tonawanda,NY,USA HR 2749 would give the FDA almost unlimited power that would touch on every facet of ... HR 2749 is just another in a long line of attacks on capitalism and ... |
| Food Safety Bill Triggers Fight Farm Futures - Carol Stream,IL,USA Although there was much bipartisan support of HR 2749, a food safety bill, earlier this year, after several farm and livestock organizations testified ... New food safety bill needs to be stopped The Newark Advocate - Newark,OH,USA A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress -- HR 2749, ... HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial ... The high cost of cheap food Denver Post - Denver,CO,USA What the passing of HR 875 and 2749 could mean is a loss of organic, small-farm options and a reduction of both the shopper's autonomy and the good things ... |
| Muzzle FDA Northwest Herald - Crystal Lake,IL,USA Large corporate farming? A new law no doubt. Only genetically modified food can claim any health benefits. I'm opposed to this bill (HR 2749). |
| Letter: HR 2749 rejects 'choice' of foods St. Augustine Record - St. Augustine,FL,USA Editor: I urge Congress not to pass HR 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act. I highly object to the take over of our food supply by corporations such as ... |
| NPPC: Resolve Issues Before Passing Food-Safety Bill CattleNetwork.com - Overland Park,KS,USA As written, the bill would change the standard to allow on-farm inspections if food is “thought to be adulterated, misbranded or in violation of HR 2749. ... |
No.
Some of us recognize that our plants actually produce seeds, save them, and use them the next year.
There's a difference between buying fresh seeds annually because it's convenient vs. because government has prohibited not doing so.
Is “fatty liver” easily diagnosed? Just wondering. I imagine some of my relatives who are FATTIES have fatty livers....but, I’m wondering if less fat people have fatty livers too?
Think this is too far fetched? Think again!
This is absolute madness.
Plants produce seeds? Wow.
Uh, I’m an Ohio State University Master Gardener and I teach homeowner classes.
My curiosity comes from the fact that all seeds aren’t necessarily easy or convenient to save and store. It’s often just much easier to pick up fresh seed each season, especially for the home gardener who plants many varieties, albeit in smaller quantities. Nothing quite like sitting at home with the snow piling up outside, flipping through the next year gardening catalog.
I see this as being a far bigger problem with farmers; the inability to save seed. That could indeed be a large problem.
That said, just watching these clowns deciding how much of our health care they are going to take over makes me wonder how excited they are going to get over seeds. meh
Where are the environmental nutjobs on this?
This seems like their one chance to do something useful.
Ask a silly question...
Anyway, there’s a huge difference between buying seeds out of simple convenience vs. the alternative being illegal.
Will be a sad, dangerous day when it is illegal to collect homegrown seeds for next year’s use.
Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind... The question that must be asked is, do we really want to destroy our local organic farming industry by poisoning ponds, bulldozing crops and killing wildlife all in the name of food safety?
Not sure how much truth there is to this article or if it’s more scaremongering.
Not the part about the seeds but the part about having bare ground surrounding fields/crops. In most states it’s illegal to do that, esp close to waterways—creeks and rivers and stuff. Farmers are required to plant/sustain buffer zones.
Sounds like a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation for the farmers.
“Sounds like a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation for the farmers.”
It’s been that way since we came out of the ‘Dust Bowl Days’ when Mother Government stepped in and was hell-bent on ‘helping us’ all the way back then, wasn’t she?
And yet we’ve survived and thrived. ;)
‘In, around, under or through.’ Works for the Marines, works for me. ;)
Nice thing about journalism is, with a press-release / talking-points based story like this, it isn’t likely to ever have a follow-up by another journalist.
What’s wrong with our politicians? Is being certifiable now a requirement for holding political office?
Perhaps, not, but being an ignorant, arrogant, lying, cheating, stealing, crook and womanizer certainly seems to be.
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