tagged w/ Food Safety Modernization Act
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By downloading ShopSavvy, a free smartphone application, consumers can scan the GS1 barcode and instantly link with the grower’s profile, website, production practices and a map of the farm -- right at the point of purchase.
http://www.thegrower.org/readnews.php?id=7p1t2o4x6k5tBy downloading ShopSavvy, a free smartphone application, consumers can scan the GS1... more
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How will the new Food Safety Modernization Act actually impact small, local farmers who grow food for CSA's, local restaurants and grocers? To find out, I took a road trip to Texas and interviewed several small, local farmers to ask them, face to face, how the S.510 Food Safety Modernization Act would impact them.
I spoke to Farmer Brad from HomeSweetFarm.com and captured the conversation on video. You can watch it here:
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=3F59F...
Here's a quick excerpt from our conversation about S.510 and the small farm exemption in the Tester Amendment:
Farmer Brad: To me, that's so un-American to say hey, you're going to stay in this box, and you can never grow your business bigger than that. $500,000 [in revenue] is your cap.
Health Ranger: It's destroying farming jobs.
Farmer Brad: It has made us start to totally re-look at our business plans and how we're going to sell our food. We're no longer going to sell wholesale, no longer going to sell to chefs or restaurants, it's consumer direct only.
Health Ranger: So you're actually pulling back from some of your expansion plans?
Farmer Brad: We are. We have actually, this last year as we've been watching this happen, we've been putting plans on hold, and pulling back our business... so again, that's how this is going to affect the local food system.
continued at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030986_food_safety_farmers.htmlHow will the new Food Safety Modernization Act actually impact small, local farmers... more
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In arguing for S.510, the "Food Safety Modernization Act," there are all sorts of attorneys, legislators and internet commentators who keep claiming, "The government won't try to control the food production of small farms." They say, "Your backyard garden is safe" and that the feds won't come knocking on your door to control your seeds or foods.
As usual, these pushers of Big Government are utterly ignorant of the history in their own country. Because as you'll learn right here, not only CAN the U.S. government control and dictate to single-family farms what they can grow in their own backyards; the government has already blatantly done so!
In this article, I'll share with you the full and true story of how Big Government has already run rampant over the rights of individuals to grow their own food -- I'll even cite the US Supreme Court decision that "legalized" this tyranny.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/feds-order-farmer-to-destroy-his-own.htmlIn arguing for S.510, the "Food Safety Modernization Act," there are all... more
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Being honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing another article on yet another “food safety” bill making its way through congress with the words “tyranny” and “Codex” written all over it. It seems that every legislative session, we are faced with the prospect of the same food bill cloaked in a different name. Invariably, this bill seeks to corral all food production into the hands of a few major corporations and essentially destroy the ability of the population to feed themselves. Here in late 2010, we have the new version of food imperialism known as S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act.
While it is true that S.510 contains new and improved tyrannical sections that are unique specifically to it, the truth is that it is merely a repackaging of past bills (See here and here ) and attempts to control people through food. It is also yet another attempt to implement Codex Alimentarius guidelines under the guise of domestic legislation.
One example of hidden Codex guidelines in the Food Safety Modernization Act are the overly broad provisions regarding “traceability.” The desire for enhanced traceability of food products is sold to the public as a desire to better respond to food-borne illnesses and follow them back to their source. However, as with almost anything that comes out of the mouth of government, there is a more sinister role that traceability programs have to play.
Essentially, traceability has little to do with food safety in this context. While no one could argue being able to trace food contamination back to the source is a bad thing, the fact is that these mechanisms already exist. Unfortunately, they are generally ignored and unused when it comes to adverse health effects related to food produced by multinational food corporations. While there is always an exception to the rule, it is a fact that international corporations are by far the source of food adulteration more often than small independent farms.
The real reason behind traceability programs lies in the desire to monitor where food is coming from to ensure that, in the future, it only comes from large agribusiness. Hence, the new traceability procedures involve massive financial, management, and bureaucratic burdens placed on the shoulders of mainly small “food producers.”
It should be pointed out that, while it is true that major corporations will also be burdened with these regulations (unless the Secretary exempts them), it is also true that a company that makes billions in profits can afford to deal with them. Your neighborhood farm down the road simply can’t.
For all the claims that small independent producers will be exempted, the fact is that the “exemption” is merely semantics. Small independent producers will be held to essentially the same guidelines as Big Agro. This is because, in order to be exempted from the regulations as S.510, they have to submit to similar regulations as the S.510 regulations themselves dictate. As Eric Blair points out in his article Why the Tester Amendment Does NOT Help Small Food Producers Under S.510:
Those [S.510 Tester Amendment Exemption Requirements] bear a striking resemblance to the ‘expensive’ food safety plans outlined in subsection (h) of S.510 that small producers are supposedly exempt from. In other words, they must submit similarly comprehensive plans just to qualify to be exempt from creating them. But it gets worse.
If Grandma wants to sell her famous raspberry jam at the county fair (within 275 miles of her canning kitchen) she will indeed be a small producer exemptions, but not before she forks over 3 years of financials, documentation of hazard control plans, and local licenses, permits, and inspection reports. She must submit this documentation to the satisfactory approval of the Secretary; and if she fails to do so, the entirety of S.510 can be enforced on her. That’s hardly what I call an exemption.
He goes on to point out that the bill does not explicitly make it illegal to sell food independently produced, but it does make it so cumbersome that small producers will be unable to maintain compliance with the law.
While one could successfully argue that by forcing independent producers to file information and obtain permits and licenses is in fact making the production of food illegal, there is no doubt that small producers will be forced out of business by the overbearing regulation.
Nevertheless, cumbersome traceability provisions have surfaced before in other areas. In reading the traceability-related sections of S.510, there is a striking similarity between the language of the bill and that of Codex Alimentarius in its own proposed guidelines.
The HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), a “food safety” methodology used by Codex Alimentarius (and addressed in S.510), plays an important role in the tracking, tracing, and monitoring of food production. Under this system, food business operators (defined so broadly so as to include both big agribusiness and recreational gardeners) are required to “identify any steps in their operations which are critical to the safety of the food; implement effective control procedures at those steps; monitor control procedures to ensure their continuing effectiveness; review control procedures periodically and whenever the operations change.”
Likewise, in the document entitled, “Recommended International Code of Practice General Principles of Food Hygeine,” Codex states that “Where necessary, appropriate records of processing, production and distribution should be kept and retained for a period that exceeds the shelf-life of the product. Documentation can enhance the credibility and effectiveness of the food safety control mechanism.” Although the language of the bill and the Codex document are not identical in every section, they are similar. Unfortunately, this is all that is needed to initiate the implementation of Codex Alimentarius guidelines in the United States.
However, there is yet another danger posed by S.510 in regards to Codex Alimentarius. The fact that this bill provides the FDA, HHS, and even DHS with even more authority over food production, transportation, and consumption should be alarming enough. But because these agencies often respond to policy as much as they do law, the chances of Codex Alimentarius guidelines being implemented domestically rises sharply. This is due to the fact that no congressional approval would be needed to implement them. Simply an executive order or change in policy from the executive branch or even the FDA, HHS, or DHS acting independently would be enough to enact Codex guidelines in the United States.
Because Codex Alimentarius guidelines are enforced by the WTO, any dispute brought before the WTO and its dispute settlement board could essentially force the United States to buckle under and implement Codex guidelines. With the passage of S.510, the need to gain congressional approval for such a change would be effectively erased.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/12/s-510-and-codex-alimentarius-link.htmlBeing honest, I must confess some slight personal agitation at the thought of writing... more
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The Tester "Small Farm" Exemption to S.510 Exposed as a Scam: Part 1
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“It’s all rigged. The whole conversation is rigged,” said Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. “The fact that we don’t get to a discussion before the break about what we’re going to do in the lame duck. It’s just rigged.”
The remark was picked up live on C-SPAN 2, although microphones are usually turned down during voting times. An aide quickly realized the mistake, jumped up and had the sound cut off.
Bennet Chief of Staff Guy Cecil stood by the senator’s comments.
“It’s something he’s been talking about from day one,” Cecil told The Daily Caller in an interview outside the Senate chamber. “The whole process being rigged against having a real conversation about tax cuts, the estate tax and the defense authorization. We’re not having a lot of those conversations. It’s just a symptom of Washington being broken.”“It’s all rigged. The whole conversation is rigged,” said Colorado... more
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(NaturalNews) The new Food Tyranny Act -- called the "Food Safety Modernization Act" in the U.S. Senate -- has been passed by the senate today. It would give the FDA vast new powers to criminalize and imprison farmers and food producers while doing absolutely nothing to address to real root of the food contamination problem: Factory animal farm operations (which are regulated under the USDA, not the FDA).
The bill passed 73 to 25, with Sen Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) emerging as the greatest "voice of reason" in the debate. His last-ditch amendment to reduce the scale of the bill was defeated this morning.
Here's the official vote record:http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...
Notably,there wasn't a single Democrat who opposed the bill.
This bill, as originally written, would have outlawed most nutritional supplements through "harmonization" with European laws. It also would have authorized ten-year prison sentences for farmers sellingraw milkto their neighbors. Both of those provisions were eventually stripped out of the bill thanks to some last-minute amendments, but it gives you an idea of the outright police state mentality of the original bill authors who attempted to put in place completegovernmentcontrol over food, gardens, rawmilkand more.
To give you an idea ofhow cluelessU.S. Senators are aboutfood, the New York Times is reporting that whenSenatestaff members met to discuss this bill, they would eat Starburst candies and jellybeans. As the NYT reports, "In the midst of negotiations, the negotiators -- nearly allwomen-- took a field trip to a nearby food market so that a Republican staff member could teach theDemocratshow to buy high-quality steaks."
So what we have here is a new foodtyrannylaw that was essentially negotiated by a group of women who eatdeadfoods, animals products and candy.
No wonder they still don't get it. Thecontaminationof lettuce and other fresh produce is caused byfactory animals farms, not by produce farms. (E.coli can only thrive in the digestive tracts of animals, not plants.)
The "small farms" exclusion will soon be meaningless
The Tester Amendment of the bill did manage to excludesomesmallerfarmersfrom the more tyrannical provisions of the bill. As currently stated, this would exclude small farms that sell less than $500,000 worth of food and which sell most of their food locally.
However, Senators failed to consider what's going to happen when theFederal Reservekeeps printing counterfeitmoney, devaluing the dollar and causing massive food price inflation. A farm that right now produces merely $100,000 worth of food (which could be a small, two-person farm) will soon find itself producing $500,000 worth of food (or more) due to the rapidly falling value of the U.S. dollar.
This is how the Federal Reserve's money counterfeiting actions will further destroyAmericaand place small family farms under the tyranny ofthe FDA.
What's next: Defeat the bill in committee
The Senate version of the bill must now be reconciled with the House version that was passed last year. This reconciliation committee must hammer out the differences between the two bills.
Democrats are urgently rushing to do this during their "lame duck" session in order to avoid moreRepublicansgetting involved who would seek to scale back thepowerand size of the federal government.
Some House Democrats are even suggesting they would support passing the Senate version of the bill as it is written, without requiring any changes whatsoever, just to rush it through before the end of the year.NaturalNewsand other health freedom organizations intend to fight this effort, hoping to stall the bill until the newCongresscan enter the picture and hopefully interject some common sense into the negotiations.
Please don't feed the monster
If signed into law by the President (who is sure to sign it), this Food Safety Bill would provide yet more power and funding to one of the most dangerous monsters our nation has ever known: TheFDA. This is the agency responsible for the death of more Americans than all the wars our nation has ever been involved with -- combined! (http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_S...)
The idea that we're going to save a few lives from food poisoning while subjectingeveryoneto yet another layer ofBig Governmenttyranny is so abhorrent and downright evil that if our country's founding fathers saw all this going on, they would be stunned into silence that it's happening in "the land of the free." Fresh milk being criminalized? You've got to be kidding...
Only they're not kidding. The FDA is the agency that has raided vitamin companies (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html), arrestednutritional supplementmanufacturers and ordered the destruction of books containing stevia recipes. This is the agency that censors the scientific truth aboutnaturalfoods like cherries and walnuts (http://www.naturalnews.com/029698_c...) while promoting the outright fraud and quackery of the pharmaceutical industry.
And now the FDA is to be rewarded for its malfeasance with yet MORE power andauthority?
This is how Washington works, folks. The government always thinks it's here to save you, and the Democrats want Big Government to be your nanny and "take care of you." (The Republicans, for their part, just want to bail out the wealthy banksters with your money.) And yet, when it all comes down to it, these people are justtyrantswho have forgotten American history and abandoned the Constitution and its founding principles.
Mark my words: Five years down the road, when the FDA's armed "food police" are running rampant across America, arresting farmers and imprisoning lettuce growers, people will be appalled, and they'll wonder, "How could we have let this happen!?" The answer is right here: You let it happen because you allowed Big Government to rule overthe food supply. And if there's one thing we know about Big Government, it's thatit always wants to get bigger.
It always wants more power. More authority. More funding. And more excuses to function as a dictatorship that rules over the American people.
The Food Safety Modernization Act is to thefood supplywhat the Patriot Act is to the Bill of Rights. We must make every effort to prevent this from becoming law, lest we find ourselves living under afood dictatorshipwhere only dead, fumigated or irradiated food will be allowed to be sold to the public. The "food irradiation plot" has been the plan from the very beginning of all this (http://www.naturalnews.com/023015_f...).
Of course, once the real food is all criminalized and outlawed, there's alwayssoylent green. That might not be too far off, come to think of it.
Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html#ixzz16nMK85q5
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Learn more:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html#ixzz16nNAqgn4(NaturalNews) The new Food Tyranny Act -- called the "Food Safety Modernization... more
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This is very very very very important, even if you do not live on a farm or even raise a tomato plant.
Please write your senator and tell them to PLEASE not pass this bill.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-510
Posted above is the text to Senate Bill 150.
My canary in a coal mine is to oppose anything that Monsanto and Cargill are for.. as they are usually always 99.99999% FOR anything that I am AGAINST. Monsanto guys are the one who wrote the law and then got a senator to sponsor it.
British Columbia did something like this a few years ago due to one of the ‘congress people’ lost her child due to some kind of tainted (STOREBOUGHT PROCESSED) food. What it did was kill farmgate sales (although we just did it where we were anyway) and after a few years, they revoked alot of the legislature on it. It also helped put many farms, CSA’s and ranchers out of business.
The new section 418 Hazard Analysis and Risk-based Preventive Controls applies a requirement to all businesses required to register under the 2002 Bioterrorism Act. This will ensure that farmers markets are endangered. This also puts CSA (community supported agriculture) in danger.
Interstingly, there is no reference to GMO Foods in this legislation. “Food safety” as referenced in S. 510 is concerned with controlling foodborne pathogens. The bill states food producers will have to register with the FDA, pay a $500.00 fee, submit to on-site inspections, and implement a complex “Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) System. What’s the cut-off point? Is it acreage? Yield? Average income per acre of the previous year? Is it determined by crop? This sounds an awful lot like NAIS (The brainchild of Monsanto and crew regardling livestock) which is also not dead and just currently under the radar. Here is my rant about that:
http://www.downtotherootsmagazine.com/Blogs/december_02.htm
http://www.downtotherootsmagazine.com/Blogs/07_march_4.htm
This bill also goes further than just an apple out of hand. Us seed producers, especially seed exchanges and organizations that seek to preserve heirloom seeds will be affected. Did you know that the USA government imposed that Iraq farmers can no longer save seed? At all. This will kill Seedy Saturdays and also put small vegetable seed growers and maybe even larger ones out of business.
Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL] is the one who sponsored this bill and these are the newest amendments.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510&tab=amendments
In short.. this bill:
* It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening not just US security, but we are working our way to famine.
* Includes NAIS (see above), an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease.
Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically modified animals on which corporations hold patents.
* Threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.
* It extends the policy Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) – to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production put it in corporate hands and probably worsen food safety.
This bill S. 150 is very much like the C-6 bill in Canada. Bill C6 allows inspectors to enter and cross private property without a warrant, and it releases them from liability for damages they may cause. Bill C6 has a schedule of listed products that can be added to by the minister without going to parliament for approval. This could be used to restrict the health freedoms of Canadians by limiting access to health supplements and organic products. I am not sure how it stands currently, but I do watch the bills on each side of the border pertaining to agriculture.
Basically the plan is that they are voting in the bill and ‘addressing all the details later”.
Here is how to contact your senator. http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
In the last year ONLY 6,000 people died from ANY food related issues and the majority of that was processed foods, whereas 100,000 ppl died from drugs which were OK’s by the FDA in the same amount of time.
tenzicut
http://www.downtotherootsmagazine.comThis is very very very very important, even if you do not live on a farm or even raise... more
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When most of us think about "lame duck" Congressional sessions we think of a "do-nothing" government. However, this so-called lame duck session appears to be a time where legislation that has the most restrictions to individual rights is being rammed through.
It seems the members of government who have been recently voted out of office are vying for corporate jobs by pushing such legislation as the Food Safety Modernization Actand the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act which are now on the fast track to becoming law. Both of these laws reek of tyranny for the citizens and a means of corporate consolidation for the big boys.
It seems whenever a piece of legislation has the word "safety" in it we can expect to lose our right to make our own decisions. For example, consumer protection groups pushed hard for the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in 2008 after large numbers of Chinese-made toys and other products proved to have dangerously unhealthy toxins.
Consequently, the bill was passed with 407 Ayes, 0 Nays in the House. Only later did the public find out that the bill did more to regulate, tax, and impose fines on neighborhood garage sales than it did to stop dangerous Chinese imports. Clearly, the bill is used to clamp down on an individual's right to sell their used items without governmental oversight. In other words, the corporate-government will not allow any form of black market to threaten their cartel control of consumerism.
The Food Safety Modernization Act has the backing of establishment liberals who think more big government regulation will protect us from food-borne diseases derived from factory farming. Their heart seems to be in the right place, but placing trust in this horribly corrupt government to "protect" us makes them utterly gullible. The vote of 74-25 in the Senate proves the bill was more broadly supported than just with progressives, indicating strong corporate support from the Big-Agri lobby that wrote the bill. According to Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, the bill purports to:
Preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes.
It will more than likely make Michael Taylor (former Monsanto executive) the Food Czar.
End U.S. sovereignty over its own food supply by forcing compliance with WTO guidelines.
Even direct sales of food between individuals could be defined as smuggling under the language of the bill.
Codex Alimentarius, a global system of control over food and food supplements, would control all U.S. food and supplements. Access to natural food supplements would be removed under Codex rules.
Control of all seeds would transfer to Monsanto and other global multinationals.
The National Animal Identification System ( NAIS ) would be enacted, forcing bio-chipping and other identification and tracking methods for all animals, whether food or pets.
What is left of the American food system would be transferred into total control of Multinational Corporations under the guise of global governance.
Despite the draconian intentions of the bill, many respected alternative agriculture experts like Michael Pollan and Grist have given their lukewarm blessing to the bill as "as step in the right direction." Controversial bills typically have enough seemingly logical solutions that become the focus of selling new regulations. This bill is no different, as it gives the appearance of cracking down on large factory farms, exempting small family farms, creating better tracing methods for the origin of food-borne diseases, and certainly injects more financial resources into government agencies tasked with regulating food. All of these were sold to the public amidst the fear of massive egg and meat recalls because of E. coli and Salmonella contamination.
We should know by now that nearly all legislation is not written or read by our elected officials, but rather by heavy-handed corporate interests who seek nothing less than total domination over their industries. Yet, the public is still easily swayed.
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/endgame-legislation-lame-duck-session.htmlWhen most of us think about "lame duck" Congressional sessions we think of a... more
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A day after the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) passed cloture with a vote of 74-25, theAssociated Press put out some world-class propaganda claiming that "Somesmall farms would be exempt from government efforts to prevent foodborne illness under a Senate agreement on food safety legislation." The article claims a last-minute deal was struck to allow small farms to "avoid expensive food safety plans:"
The agreement brokered by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and announced Thursday would attempt to allay concerns of smaller farms about a food safety bill now pending in the Senate.
That bill would give the FDA more authority to recall tainted products, increase inspections of food processors and require producers to follow stricter standards for keeping food safe.
The agreement brokered by Tester would allow farmers who make less than $500,000 a year in revenue and sell directly to consumers, restaurants or grocery stores within their states or within 275 miles of their farms to avoid expensive food safety plans required of larger operations.
That all sounds well and good, but it only exempts them from having to submit food safety plans, not from inspections that they get billed for, licensing requirements with expensive quality controls, product confiscation without cause or recourse, and even armed raids. We've already seen all of these ugly faces of food fascism unfold in America. Private organic co-ops have beenraided by armed guards, lemonade standsfined and closed down, Amish Dairies raided, and a family farm had 50,000 pounds of cheese confiscated.
This type of food tyranny is only likely to increase when the food safety bill passes, seizing the righteousness of protecting the people. Evidently, the bill essentially transfers the authority over food regulation enforcement from the FDA to the Department of Homeland Securitywho brought us the liberty-killing, child-molesting TSA. Finally, this bill will do nothing to protect the public from foodborne diseases, because it does nothing to fundamentally change the factory food production methods that allow them to fester.
The bill will allow the big agri-cartel to further consolidate the food industry, thus gaining even more control over food and humanity itself. This, clearly, is the real purpose of this bill. We can expect to see the "authorities" raiding a lot more small, private health-food cooperatives like in the video below. Tyranny is coming to a family farm or organic co-op near you.A day after the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) passed cloture with a vote of... more
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By a vote of 74 to 25, at noon today, the U.S. Senate voted for cloture on S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, which means it must now be voted on in the full Senate within 60 days. All amendments to the controversial food control bill must be completed by that time.
One of S 510′s supporters, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, opposed cloture because modifications to the bill do not reflect its original intent, he said on C-SPAN. Chambliss fully supports giving the FDA more power over the US food supply, but is unhappy with the Manager’s Amendment submitted in August.
He objects to the small farm exclusion on the grounds that the $500,000 annual gross revenue limit is an arbitrary number that is too quickly reached by small farms. He called for numerous amendments to the bill as it appears today.
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio supports S 510, and called out the statistics by the Centers for Disease Control that report there are 76 million foodborne illnesses a year, with 5,000 resulting in death. What Brown did not say was that the FDA — the very agency further empowered by S 510 — is responsible for the approval of pharmaceutical drugs that results in 100,000 deaths a year.
None of the supporters of S 510 will acknowledge the corrupt nature of the Food and Drug Administration. Monsanto executives now work at the FDA or on President’s Obama’s Food Safety Task Force.
What legislators continue to ignore from the public is that we do not support giving federal agencies even more power — especially over something as inherently private as food choices.
None of the legislators will discuss the FDA raids on natural food operations which sickened no one, while it allowed Wright County Egg to sicken people for decades before finally taking action.
Yesterday, Senator Bob Casey informed his Pennsylvania constituents that the$1.6 billion price tag for S 510 will stop food smuggling in the United States. I kid you not:
“These provisions add personnel to detect, track and remove smuggled food and call for the development and implementation of strategies to stop food from being smuggled into the United States.”
Is food smuggling a problem in the United States? Well, the “biggest food smuggling case in the history of the U.S.” busted wide open in September. Eleven Chinese and German executives were indicted for bringing in $40 million worth of commercial grade honey over a five year period, reportedly to avoid paying $80 million in import fees. (No wonder they tried smuggling.)
That amounts to 3 percent of the 1.35 billion-dollar honey market over a five-year period.
Since that was the biggest food smuggling bust, food smuggling is not the problem. Clearly. It hardly seems worth it for the US taxpayer to cough up $1.6 billion so the FDA can stop such illegal activities, especially in our current economic recession.
Blogger Steve Green interprets the S 510 smuggling language to mean:
“It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.”
§309 defines it as:
“In this subsection, the term ‘smuggled food’ means any food that a person introduces into the United States through fraudulent means or with the intent to defraud or mislead.”
Although only 150 new hires will be responsible for food smuggling under S 510, the total number of new hires sought is at least 18,000 employees.
This is absurd. Food smuggling is not the problem with food safety. Tainted food comes from monopoly operations in a highly centralized food system. Break up the monopolies and revert to localized food systems to ensure food safety. Let local authorities control local food safety.
RELATED ARTICLE:
Food Fascism in The Land of the Free
Read More: http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/breaking-senate-votes-cloture-on-s-510.htmlBy a vote of 74 to 25, at noon today, the U.S. Senate voted for cloture on S 510, the... more
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It now appears that the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) will be voted on in the Senate during the “lame-duck” session as early as Wednesday, Nov. 17.
This bill, as we have noted before, would impose extremely burdensome and unnecessary requirements on the thousands of small farmers and food processors who are producing safe, nutrient-dense foods for their local communities — in fact, it may force some of these producers out of business.
A key amendment sponsored by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) would exempt small farmers who direct market more than 50% of their products.
These famers must have gross sales (direct and non-direct combined) of less than $500,000, and sell to consumers, stores, or restaurants that are in-state or within 400 miles. This amendment is especially important for off-farm retail locations such as farmers markets and CSAs.
Please call your Senators today (most offices have voice mail where you can leave a message) and ask them to support the Tester Amendment on the Food Safety bill.
If you are a farmer this is important to protect your livelihood. If you are a consumer, where will you buy your safe and nutritious food if your local farmers are forced out of business?It now appears that the Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) will be voted on in the... more
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