The Food Safety Enhancement Act was barely knocked down today by 8 votes in the House! A short time later, the Rules Committee decided to do a revote the following day, suspending the rules, limiting discussion to an hour, and not allowing any amendments that could clarify who exactly would be regulated and were the generated funds via new registration fees would be spent (not assuring any additional inspections of imported food). This Bill needs to be opposed! We want REAL food safety by better regulating factory farms and inspecting imported food. The small family farmer needs to be exempt and the Feds need to keep their hands off of our local food economy.
Read the latest articles:
US House defeats sweeping reform of food safety (until Thursday's revote)
Find out if your Representative opposed the Bill... click here >>
HR2749 Nearly Passes and Spells The End of Local Food
Sign the petition!
7.29.2009
7.27.2009
HR2749: A Letter To My Representatives
HR2749, The Food Safety Enhancement Act, going before Congress this week does not address the underlying problems with our food supply. All previous food recalls have been traced back to industrial farming practices and/or uninspected imported food and yet HR2749 does not directly address these issues. Instead it indiscriminately challenges all food providers giving the FDA unchecked powers that will "bully" small family farms and local food artisans out of business.
I urge my representatives to include the Farr-Kaptur amendments that would exempt small-scale on-farm processors selling directly to consumers, require FDA to coordinate with USDA and to consult with the National Organic Program, exempt farms selling directly to businesses from the traceability requirements, and establish a sliding scale for the registration fees.
In Addition to these amendments we need to limit the bill to food being shipped interstate, and explicitly exempt all farms and food processors who are selling only intrastate from all provisions of the bill. We also need to provide an exemption for farms and food processors selling directly to consumers within a local "foodshed", since those who live near a state boundary often have local markets on the other side of that boundary.
Please do the right thing by exempting our few remaining small farms and by specifically regulating the real threat to food safety: the imported and industrial food industry.
Sign the petition!
I urge my representatives to include the Farr-Kaptur amendments that would exempt small-scale on-farm processors selling directly to consumers, require FDA to coordinate with USDA and to consult with the National Organic Program, exempt farms selling directly to businesses from the traceability requirements, and establish a sliding scale for the registration fees.
In Addition to these amendments we need to limit the bill to food being shipped interstate, and explicitly exempt all farms and food processors who are selling only intrastate from all provisions of the bill. We also need to provide an exemption for farms and food processors selling directly to consumers within a local "foodshed", since those who live near a state boundary often have local markets on the other side of that boundary.
Please do the right thing by exempting our few remaining small farms and by specifically regulating the real threat to food safety: the imported and industrial food industry.
Sign the petition!
7.23.2009
"But if not"
I just came across this powerful quote, and being 38 myself, it really hits home.
Onward, Farmer Brad
Onward, Farmer Brad
"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.
7.21.2009
The Food Safety Enhancement Act - HR2749
Farmer Brad is a special guest on the "Natural Way" with Howard Garrett, the Dirt Dr. Learn about this fast moving bill that may jeopardize our local food supply and organic farming across America.
7.18.2009
Food Safety Enhacement Act - HR 2749 - related articles
Sign the Petition opposing HR2749: CLICK HERE >>
Read the alarming provisions: CLICK HERE >>
For further reading, check out these related articles:
Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749
HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways. While the other "food safety" bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared. It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part - martial law. READ MORE >>
HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply
HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse. READ MORE >>
Crops, Ponds Destroyed in Quest for Food Safety
Washington - 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. READ MORE >>
“Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.” - Wendell Berry & Wes Jackson
Read the alarming provisions: CLICK HERE >>
For further reading, check out these related articles:
Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749
HR 2749 is a strange bill in many ways. While the other "food safety" bills have been around since winter, allowing for much public discussion on the internet, HR 2749 has only suddenly appeared. It is a mutant conglomeration of the worst of the other bills, with the addition of one very original part - martial law. READ MORE >>
HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply
HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse. READ MORE >>
Crops, Ponds Destroyed in Quest for Food Safety
Washington - 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. READ MORE >>
“Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.” - Wendell Berry & Wes Jackson
Food Safety Enhancement Act - HR 2749
Never before have I been so concerned about our local food economy then I am right now. As if the National Animal ID System (NAIS) wasn't enough, the new Bill HR 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act, will directly impact ALL local food production and our few remaining artisan food makers and small family farms through onerous regulations. If this bill passes, local food may need to go completely underground to survive (which is the current trend). Who would have imagined that our country could regulate local food out of the marketplace (which is currently less than 1%), but it is happening, right now before our own eyes. Please take the time to read about the alarming provisions in this bill, and then take action by signing the petition to oppose HR2749. If you are anywhere in the South, plan on attending the up-coming Farm & Food Leadership Conference this Sept. 14 &15 in San Antonio, TX to find out more about this and other policy issues relating to our local food.May God be with us all!
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