Food Act seeks to eliminate U.S. organic farms
Large chemical and genetic engineering companies lobby for bill, family farms suffer
By April Moody
Reporter,
The VOICE
The American economy is failing.
People are losing their jobs. Homeowners are losing their homes.
Students can't continue to pay for their college education.
No one can afford health insurance, and those that can find that it barely covers their necessities for a greatly enlarged price tag. Let's face it, America isn't doing so well.
On top of it all, the U.S. is still at war against terror, energy costs are souring, pandemics of various flu-like illnesses are running rampant, and immigration reform is still forefront on our minds.
Amidst all of the crumbling ruin every American must stand to witness and surf through.
Washington decides the fates of millions in one swift move.
Bill H.R. 875, an act little have heard of, is flying through Congress at an incredible rate.
The bill will be voted on within the week. It's called The Food Modernization Act of 2009, and is an extensive bill calling for massive changes in the U.S. pertaining to agriculture.
Despite appearances, this bill affects every individual alive in this country.
A summary of what the bill will do includes, "Administering a national food safety program, ensure that persons who produce, process, or distribute food prevent or minimize food safety hazards."
As well as set forth requirements for the Administrator to carry out duties that require food establishments to adopt preventive process controls, enforce performance standards for food safety, establish an inspection program, and strengthen and expandfoodborne illness surveillance systems.
If Bill H.R. 875 is passed it will Require that imported food meet the same standards as U.S. food and establish a national traceability system for food.
The food Administrator will be required to identify priorities for food safety research and data collection and maintain a DNA matching system and epidemiological system for foodborne illness identification, outbreaks, and containment.
Guidelines will be established for a sampling system as well as a national public education program on food safety that will conduct research on food safety; and establish a working group on foodborne illness surveillance.
The Secretary, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will be required to develop the Food-Borne Illness Health Registry.
CDC Directs the Comptroller General to report on the federal resources being dedicated to foodborne illness and food safety research.
Bill H.R. 875 will set forth provisions regarding prohibited acts, recalls, penalties for violations of food safety laws, whistleblower protections, and civil actions.
(courtesy of www.opencongress.org)
The lobbyists behind this bill are huge chemical and genetic engineering giants such as Monsanto and more than 40 other companies.
What is so disturbing about this bill, is that its definition of a Food Production Facility is "any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation", so general that it includes family farms and backyard gardens.
In summary, if this bill passes, the federal government would have complete control over what each individual American eats, and decides to grow or feed their animals.
They would also require the 24-hour emergency contact information of every individual who is in possession of a "food production facility", along with an annual slew of paperwork, and their "facility" named and numbered in a federal database.
Any individual who violates the rules for food as established by this "Administrator" would be taken off the list, meaning that that facility would cease to exist.
On top of all of these possible restrictions, some people fear that the companies, such as Monsanto, who are behind this measure to "protect the public health from food-borne illness", would create a country that could no longer legally grow organic food or receive organic food from foreign countries.
In other words, the garden in your backyard might not be yours for that much longer.
If this sounds like Brave New World to you, it isn't, it's the future for the United States of America, and it's coming up fast.
Please send comments to amoody@gccvoice.com
