Shame on you Gwen Moore, David Obey, and Tammy Baldwin!
Today the United States House of Representatives nearly confirmed bill HR 2749. This was a piece of legislation, under the guise of food safety, that would have caused, and still could cause terrific harm upon all small and medium sized farmers in this country, and the possibility of disproportionate impunity toward local and organic producers. The bill was voted on via "suspension" of normal proceedings. No debate was allowed on this bill. Commentary was limited to 40 minutes I believe. The bill failed to reach the 2/3 majority vote to be passed along, I'm presuming, to the senate for a vote. Here's the summary of the bill as found on govtrack.us
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Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 - Amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to set forth provisions governing food safety.
Requires each food facility to: (1) conduct a hazard analysis; (2) implement preventive controls; and (3) implement a food safety plan.Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to: (1) issue science-based performance standards to minimize the hazards from foodborne contaminants; (2) establish science-based standards for raw agricultural commodities; (3) inspect facilities at a frequency determined pursuant to a risk-based schedule; (4) establish a food tracing system; (5) assess fees relating to food facility reinspection and food recall; and (6) establish a program for accreditation of laboratories that perform analytical testing of food for import or export.Authorizes the Secretary to: (1) order an immediate cessation of distribution, or a recall, of food; (2) establish an importer verification program; and (3) quarantine food in any geographic area within the United States.Defines the term "color additive" to include carbon monoxide that may affect the color of fresh meat, poultry products, or seafood.Requires country of origin labeling on food and annual registration of importers.Provides for unique identifiers for food facilities and food importers.Deems a food to be adulterated if an inspection is delayed or refused.Requires the Secretary to establish a corps of inspectors dedicated to inspections of foreign food facilities.Sets forth provisions governing the reorganization of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) field laboratories and district offices.Gives the Commissioner of Food and Drugs subpoena authority with respect to a food proceeding.Establishes whistleblower protections
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You have to look deeper into the full text to find the truly insidious portions of this potential legistlation. Not listed in the summary is the part about warrantless searches of business records, a $1000 annual registration fee, or the fact that the HHS secretary will mandate performance standards, i.e. be able to tell farmer's how to farm, based on "scientific evidence."
"Scientific evidence" has very often been used to justify the exploitation of a people, perhaps even more often historically than not. Remember social darwinism at all? Ever looked into the eugenics movement? Further, no definitions are forthcoming in this bill at all. What's left is a Health and Human Services secretary freely able to construct whatever realities she or he wishes, so long as some scientists somewhere can back up the play and justify it. Every political party, every conspiracy theory, and absolutely every creed which accepts science or empiricism even minutely so, is able to create "scientific evidence" to justify their approach or prejudices toward a certain outcome. HR 2749 is reckless on these grounds alone.
A midnight amendment to the bill (they seemingly were able to get amendments into it, not sure exactly how) aimed at getting NAIS passed with this. If you're not familiar with NAIS, check that out through any avenue you desire. Good luck finding anything out about NAIS, except that it's an absolute sham in the favor of every superfarm and Agribusiness conglomerate in the world, at the peril of the small family farmer.
Wendell Berry has actually vowed to go to jail before submitting to this policy.
I've been told by wise people to not worry about HR 2749 actually passing. The Obama's have an organic garden in the White House lawn, after all. President Obama would certainly stop this, right? This local and organic revolution in America must continue, we say, for look at how far we've come. Yet, 65% of our representatives voted for this bill, most of whom couldn't have even had time to read it. And more than 90% of Democrats voted for it, those of the party of Obama. It will undoubtedly come back, and be debated, and hopefully we'll actually hear something about it in the press this time. I was on the phone with the creater of Food Inc, a wonderful new food documentary, just today on WPR, and he hadn't even heard about this bill. As is usually the case with bills voted on a suspension basis, they come back to be debated, and then only need a majority vote to pass. They've gotten that majority today by 120 votes. It will take an absolute steamroller to drive this one into the ground.
I'm not an activist, at least not intentionally. Posting these thoughts on my website are not easy for me, as I don't wish this place to be politically charged. I have my biases of course, but don't typically wish to prosletyze. And I feel for the safe food advocates of the world, who are pushing hard to pass along this legislation. They really feel that harsh and imposing acts by the government will make their food supply from the grocery store more safe, and less for them to have to think about. As Pat Buck, the executive director of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention's attitude is "It doesn't matter where food comes from, it needs to be safe."
They're right in the sense that HR 2749 will make the world of food much less focused on locale. Forget seasonality too. Forget planting what grows well on a certain patch of soil. The twisted irony here is that no bill punishing small producers for being small will lead to better health and safety for people. Mass standardization of local and seasonal food will just lead to a slower version of suffering. Diabetes is not a disease of the locavore. It is of my mother's generation, a people who had cheap, subsidized, food products shoved down their throats by ad-men, and grandparents of the great depression, who felt great just to have something. It is a diet of subsidized corn, rolled into every product at the grocery store that does gives you that. And surely, many many more people die from diabetic-related illnesses than food borne pathogens.
When you know your farmer, when you understand what goes into what you eat, literally, that is a safety measure well beyond some federal agency certifying that safety for you. And small scale, locally marketing farms are safer yet. because we actually serve our eaters. Call up Tyson and ask about the additives their chickens are fed, and why. Or call Del Monte and ask them what fungicides they spray on their strawberry crops, and how much of that is absorbed into the berry. Think you'll get a response?
Do the feds need to certify that your neighborhood is safe for your children to play in? No. If it is safe, you believe it to be so because you've done this homework yourself. You check on the neighborhood before you move into it, probably at least drive around, figure out what school district it's in, and how safe that school is. We don't need the government to insure the safety of our neighborhoods (at a level beyond "police protection"),
I'm here on this planet to grow food. That is clear. Anything that threatens that ability I must stand against. If this bill or one similar passes, and the gloom and doom becomes a reality, I hope you'll stand with me and all the rest of us young farmers too, in defense of our relationships to food, to earth, and quite simply, to justice. HR 2749 must be defeated, or LotFotL and so many other farmers will cash in what little they have left, and prepare to find jobs in this sluggish economy. We will be replaced in your food stream by the same industrialists that have poisoned our food supply so thoroughly over my 29 years of life, and all of this will have been for nothing.
