Monday, March 9, 2009

H.R. 875 could end organic farming and farmer's markets. H.R. 875 must be stopped.

There's a bill in the House right now that would, among other things, make it potentially illegal to farm organically, and make it impractical to run a farmer's market, by adding unreasonable record-keeping requirements and liability. The bill can be found here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-875 Some commentary: From cryptogon.com From shepardpolitics.blogspot.com From OpEdNews From waronyou.com The last link includes some good ideas for what to do about it at the bottom of the page. Best: call your congressperson. Growing food is truly a revolutionary act, and may soon be an illegal one…
In brief: The bill would create a new "Food Safety Administration", which would have the authority to require registration and inspection of all "food production facilities", impose onerous record-keeping requirements that would seem to apply even to hot dog stands, bake sales, and backyard gardens, dictate how the food must be grown, and potentially assess impossible fines: (3) include, with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water; … (A) IN GENERAL- Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law (including a regulation promulgated or order issued under the food safety law) may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act.

2 comments:

SacredDynamics said...

Hi Michael~ Would you or anyone you know, please make a video educating the public about HR875, S425, and Codex Alimentarius? I can only find one video on HR875 and S425 which is of poor quality. I want to get this info out to my peers. Thank you Michael, Kenzie SacredDynamics at the ole gmail . com
p.s. I can make a video of myself, but I don't think it would spread as well as if there's one of you.

Alex Lewin said...

Hi SD,

I'm not Michael.

But I agree, someone well-known needs to do some kind of video, comprehensive press release, or whatever, tying together H.R. 875, S. 425, and Codex, including a piece about NAIS and its releationship to Codex.

There are enough issues here, including abridgment of individual rights and loss of US sovereignty, that we should be able to alarm any thinking person, left or right, libertarian or statist.