Have you heard of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009? The title sounds wonderful. It sounds like it means that we are going to have safer food. But that is not what this bill is about. The truth is that is the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 is passed, it will likely mean the end of independent organic farming in the United States.
The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 was introduced by Democrat Rosa DeLauro back in February. Her introduction of this bill represents a shocking conflict of interest, because her husband, Stanley Greenburg, works for Monsanto. Monsanto is the world's biggest producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seeds, and they would massively benefit if thousands of small independent organic farmers were put out of business, because most independent organic farmers do not use Monsanto products.
You can view the full text of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 here:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875
This horrible bill would establish a "Food Safety Administration" within the Department of Health and Human Services. The mandate of this new department would be "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."
Section 3 of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 defines what type of establishments would be subject to the regulations in this legislation. It that section, a "food production facility" is defined this way:
The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.
So, that definition would include.....
*All organic farms
*All small farms
*All family farms
*Even small family gardens if you sell a single piece of produce to anyone
When you read this bill, you will see that it gives the U.S. government the power to regulate what "safe" farming is, and therefore if organic farmers are not using enough herbicide on their plants to be "safe" or they aren't following the same "quality control" procedures as the big corporations, then they could be instantly put out of business.
In addition, it burdens small farmers with massive amounts of paperwork and administrative headaches that they simply cannot handle but that the big corporations can.
You see, that is how you put a horde of small competitors out of business - you get the federal government to pile on the paperwork and the regulations until they totally collapse.
That is the reason why Monsanto desperately wants this bill. Monsanto hates small, independent farmers and they want to take them all out in one ruthless strike.
Monsanto would eagerly deal with the burden of more regulations and more paperwork if it will put large amounts of their competitors out of business.
And why in the world would the federal government want to put any food producers out of business when we are on the edge of a massive global food crisis?
The truth is that it is more important than ever to be building up an emergency food supply. The future looks more than just a little frightening.
