whats going on with hr 875? law to kill small farms!

[SeattleChickenHead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtLGuOQemnQ

anybody know?

 

[urbanfarmer101]

IMO they have hushed it up so they can slide it through. We all need to be aware of this. Even if you don't farm yourself, I am pretty sure you eat food from one.

 

[haTHOR]

could you post in the text of the actual proposed law or ordinance? i prefer to get my facts straight from unbiased sources.

 

[shellybean40]

just look up the bill online. I am sure you could find it. This is not off base. Monsanto is a very powerful corporation and is working very hard to shut down all small farms.

 

[haTHOR]

if i had chosen to post a thread about it, i certainly would look it up. i figure the OP wants us all to be well-informed, and glenn beck doesn't quite rise to the level of an objective source.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Original source documents are always the best research material. If it is worth posting about, it ia also worth providing all relevant links.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I went to look it up, just the propoaed law itself. The stated purpose is to consolidate the enforcement of the existing food safety laws. I see it as trying to stop the turf wars between different federal agencies and remove the ability to say, "that was not my responsibility" when something goes wrong again. I did not read each and every word in the proposed act, but it looks like existing exemptions for the little guy are still in place. With references to existing laws and using definitions it looks to me like the basic laws have not changed, just clarifying who is enforcing the specific laws. There is some emphasis on safety of imported foods, probably in response to the stuff about China that has been in the news lately. There is pretty clear language on bribery being not acceptable. I don't see how this threatens the little guy if none of the laws he has to follow have changed.

If someone can point to specific provisions that threaten the little guy, please do. Until then, I'll treat this as I do almost all the other similar rants I've seen on this forum about the general topic, they are out to get the little guy.

Have a nice day!

 

[alicefelldown]

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875

Feb 4, 2009 - Introduced in House. This is the original text of the bill as it was written by its sponsor and submitted to the House for consideration. This is the latest version of the bill currently available on GovTrack.

To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.

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http://www.growingthegarden.com/2009/04/the_hr_875_the_food_safety_mod.html

The HR 875 Food Safety Modernization Act Scare Posted by Dave Johnson on April 3, 2009 8:23 PM

You may have heard the scare stories about the bill before Congress: HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act. I came across a good post at the Secret Farm blog, Secret Farm: A garden blog: HR 875 the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

As many of you out there are aware by now, there is a bill that has been introduced to Congress called HR 875 Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 . I have seen a number of twitters and blog posts about it, as well as articles and discussions. I was all set to write a very different post about this issue until I came across this post at Crooks and Liars.com in my search:

http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/monsanto-and-hr-875-take-two

Read the post at Secret Farm.

So I followed the link to Crooks & Liars for more information. From the post there:

To set the record straight:

There is no language in HR 875 that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens or ‘criminalize’ gardeners; the bill focuses on ensuring the safety of food in interstate commerce.

Farmer’s markets would not be regulated, fined, or shut down, and would, in fact, benefit from strict safety standards applied to imported food to ensure that unsafe imported food doesn’t compete with locally grown produce.

The bill would not prohibit or interfere with organic farming, or mandate the use of any chemicals or types of seeds. The National Organic Program (NOP) is under the jurisdiction of the USDA. HR 875 addresses food safety issues and falls under the jurisdiction of the FDA.

Monsanto and any other large agribusiness company had no part whatsoever in drafting this bill, and Rep. DeLauro’s husband and his company do no lobbying on this issue.

HR 875 has nothing to do with any national animal ID system, which would fall under the jurisdiction of the USDA, and not the FDA.

So I looked around the web and found some other sources, explaining that the hysteria is unwarranted.

Food and Water Watch, Background on H.R. 875 (http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/foodsafety/background-on-h-r-875)

Here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:

* It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish.)
* It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.
* It does not regulate backyard gardens.
* It does not regulate seed.
* It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.
* It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food that is sold across state lines).
* It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve traceability of foods, but specifically says that recordkeeping can be done electronically or on paper).

The Slow Food USA Blog, in H.R. 875 links to a few trusted sources saying this bill does not do the scary things that the emails and blogs claim.

So don't be afraid. Don't be very afraid.​

 

[haTHOR]

thank you!

 

[Donner]

I think the provision to watch out for is the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), if it gets into a bill without proper scaling for size of operation it could cause problems for backyard farmers as well as small commrecial farms, while hardly inconveniencing industrial factory farms at all.

Other bills to pay attention to are SB510 and HR2749. I have no idea what the current provisions in either are at this point, amendments, committee markup, etc... can change bills pretty easily.