I'm just plain old mad now

I mean, good and ticked. A friend asked if we could get the word out about this. People, this would directly affect your ability to have your own garden to produce your own food. I'm going to copy and paste the information from the message boards at marilu.com. I don't want to mess this up. We live in a farming community, and this would really hurt our already hurting economy. This is a long read, but worth it.


Please read: A bill to outlaw organic farming next week?

by Tonia on 25 Mar 2009 18:05

Hi everyone. Marilu received the following email on a bill that's coming up in Congress and we'd like everyone to know about it.-------------------

US House and Senate are about (in a week and a half) to vote on bill that will OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING (bill HR 875). There is an enormous rush to get this into law within the next 2 weeks before people realize what is happening.

Please take time to read this and pass it along to your friends. This is truly alarming! The wording of this bill is so general it gives the government complete control over our food. It has the potential to take away our right to choose the food we want to eat; all in the name of food safety.

The name on this outrageous food plan is Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (bill HR 875).HR875 Title: 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.

Senate Bill 425 - To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act, and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes.

Notice the last sentence “and for other purposes”…

How much control are we willing to give up?First of all can you imagine the additional expense to our government to create a new USDA/FDA body (In HR875 the new administrator is given complete authority to make this organization as big as he wants). We are already trillions in debt as a nation. This bill includes surveillance of growers/farmers, computer tagging, monitoring, and “mandatory” usage of whatever means the government deems necessary to kill anything living in our food they feel is bad, including all the vitamins which are quite fragile. Imagine the manpower. Are we trying to create jobs just for the sake of it? Who’s paying for this? WE ARE!

425 would potentially outlaw all “potlucks”, anything home grown, herbal remedies, alternative health options, personal food gardens, and so on! This is serious!

Don’t be fooled! READ IT!

This is all being claimed in the name of “food safety”. It is a way to squeeze out our smaller local farmers and shift food production over to large national “BIG Business”. The financial burden to comply will effectively squeeze out small farmers. No going green here! Major carbon footprints!

Please check links below on HR 875 proposal potentially criminalizing organic farming, seed diversity and the backyard gardener, all in the name of food safety and 425. It’s a violation of your rights. Please express your concerns to your state representatives and congressmen. This impacts all of us now and our children in the future. This bill will effectively give our government or whoever is in control, complete control over our food system. The downside is that heirloom varieties, non-GMO plants, non-cloned animals, non-irradiated, hormone free, organic and pesticide free plants and animals can be deemed illegal! Our health hangs in the balance. This hands our food future over to herbicide/pesticide manufacturers like Monsanto.

Main backer and lobbyist is (guess who) Monsanto – chemical and genetic engineering giant corporation. This bill will require organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to "make sure there is no danger to the public food supply". This will include backyard gardens that grow food only for a family and not for sales.If this passes then NO more heirloom clean seeds but only Monsanto genetically altered seeds that are now showing up with unexpected diseases in humans.

There is a video on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thE54K3PaTY

And another one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeWVkTU1s1Ehttp://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsan ... 9-337.html

(Article on Monsanto)http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h875: (bill itself - click on Thomas Home and then browse bill by sponsor Rosa DeLauro)

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex ... l=s111-425 (Bill 425: Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act - Introduced in Senate)

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=12671THIS IS REAL, FOLKS! PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL CONCERNED ON YOUR MAILING LISTS & CALL YOUR SENATE REPRESENTETIVES TODAY!

Get on that phone and burn up the wires. Get anyone else you can to do the same thing. The House and Senate WILL pass this if they are not massively threatened with loss of their position.... They only fear your voice and your vote.

Rep DeLauro, Rosa L. sponsored HR875.The best thing to do is go to http://www.house.gov/writerep all you have to do is put in your zip and it will give you your congressperson and how to get in touch with them. When you call their office someone will answer the phone, just tell them (politely) that you are calling to express your views on HR 875. Tell them your views, they'll take your name and address and pass your comments along to the congressperson. The following link http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_i ... rs_cfm.cfm is a list of the U.S. senators and their contact info.

Here are a list of Reps cosponsoring HR875, if your state is on here, please contact them and express your concerns.
COSPONSORS(40), ALPHABETICAL:
Rep Berkley, Shelley [NV-1] - 2/11/2009
Rep Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [GA-2] - 2/4/2009
Rep Bishop, Timothy H. [NY-1] - 2/4/2009
Rep Carson, Andre [IN-7] - 2/11/2009
Rep Castor, Kathy [FL-11] - 2/4/2009
Rep Courtney, Joe [CT-2] - 3/3/2009
Rep DeFazio, Peter A. [OR-4] - 2/4/2009
Rep DeGette, Diana [CO-1] - 2/4/2009
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] - 2/4/2009
Rep Eshoo, Anna G. [CA-14] - 2/4/2009
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 2/10/2009
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] - 2/4/2009
Rep Giffords, Gabrielle [AZ-8] - 2/4/2009
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] - 2/4/2009
Rep Hall, John J. [NY-19] - 2/4/2009
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] - 2/4/2009
Rep Hirono, Mazie K. [HI-2] - 2/4/2009
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice [TX-30] - 2/12/2009
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] - 2/4/2009
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 2/4/2009
Rep Lowey, Nita M. [NY-18] - 2/4/2009
Rep McCollum, Betty [MN-4] - 2/10/2009
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] - 2/4/2009
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 2/4/2009
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] - 2/4/2009
Rep Murphy, Christopher S. [CT-5] - 2/4/2009
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] - 2/4/2009
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] - 2/12/2009
Rep Pingree, Chellie [ME-1] - 2/4/2009
Rep Ruppersberger, C. A. Dutch [MD-2] - 3/10/2009
Rep Ryan, Tim [OH-17] - 2/4/2009
Rep Sanchez, Linda T. [CA-39] - 2/4/2009
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] - 2/4/2009
Rep Schauer, Mark H. [MI-7] - 2/4/2009
Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [NY-28] - 2/4/2009
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13] - 2/12/2009
Rep Sutton, Betty [OH-13] - 2/4/2009
Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] - 3/3/2009
Rep Wasserman Schultz, Debbie [FL-20] - 2/4/2009
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] - 3/3/2009