Now you can't plant a seed: HR 875 Summary

I've spent the last few hours with gandhi flower inspiration and fellow blossomer Sarah (growthandlove.blogspot.com) reading, taking notes and discussion the provisions, contradictions and backyard implications of the proposed bill HR 875.

"The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009"

Rep. Rosa DeLauro Conn. (D)

Summary by Andrew Eisenberg

Library of Congress- HR 875:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.875:

Sit down with someone you care about and read the bill for yourselves. Its very important you understand what might become law, and the continued effort to halt the rise in health, awareness and increase in participation of citizens for positive community change.

This is what I found:

This bill proposes the transfer of 'food safety' responsibilities from the Food and Drug Administration's "antiquated law" to the new "Food Safety Administration". It makes exempt all existing persons and corporations registered under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act as well as "confined-animal feeding operations". those exempt would forever be "above the law" according to the provisions of this bill.

I am not being dramatic in the next paragraph. I achknowledge conventional wisdom in my summary of this bill. But talk to a farmer yourself, they will agree:

This bill takes no action to address the current commercial agriculture/food production system, a system that: ignores the fundemental heath of the soil that nutrifies the crops; empolyes "brute force" tactics on the earth in its reliance on pesticides unfit for food (things you put inside your body; touch ); it is unsustainable. Only those who wish to produce food locally through organic agriculture or permaculture will have to meet standards set by the new "FDA" (same name, different responsibilities?). It proposes that: "food establishments" be subject to "frequent and unannounced inspections" (Title 2 section 201 (c)(2), fees (Title 2 section 202 (B)(4) and the Administration's enforcement of government performance standards.

The definition of 'food establishment' includes a person that "produces fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form" (all produce is ready to eat and in raw form) or "stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale", among others. The laws will cover anyone who engages in 'commerce" related to food products; anyone who transports or sells food, say at a farmers market or to a next door neighbor, would have to register and be subjects to the provisions of the Bill and the new Law. The fines for practicing in the distribution of food (grown, made/baked, hunted, etc.) without holding a valid registration can be no greater than $1,000,000.00. The Bill would affect small, decentralized farming, Urban Ag. and potentially devistate the Farmers Market Movement.

It's a surprisingly 'typical' piece of legislation, more reminiscent of the Bush Administration's gutting of personal freedoms through the Patriot Act, then a proposal from a time of 'Change You can Believe in'. It would appear that the 'audacity of hope' inspires a different kind of partisan participation. Rosa DeLauro, Rep. Connecticut (D), Has brought to the floor a bill that both steels personal freedom and gives amnesty to big corporation farms, slaughter houses and poultry farms guilty of the recently past outbreaks of food-born illness. This is the wisdom of our political leaders? We are entering into an era labeled by the current President as very difficult times and one of our representatives proposes we make it more difficult to maintain the momentum of the farmers market movement; for people to choose healthy food instead of the government subsidized, chemically treated, mono-cultured products that lack as much in flavor as they do in health and sustainability? Wisdom!?

It is in poor taste, if not outright criminal, to suggest such clearly biased government policy in favor of stagnation rather than change. There is only one direction this can go: To the People; to you.

What will you do?

Grow food on the White House Lawn Mr. President, feed the homeless.