Has anyone seen these bills? Organic farmers may not be able to grow and sell their produce anymore if these are passed! Farmer's Markets will be the most at risk.
H.R. 875
S. 425
I'm not surprised at the direction our country is going (more and more government control). I've always heard and believed that it is inevitable, but we can still fight it. It is still our duty to fight for what is right and oppose what is wrong.
H.R. 875
S. 425
I'm not surprised at the direction our country is going (more and more government control). I've always heard and believed that it is inevitable, but we can still fight it. It is still our duty to fight for what is right and oppose what is wrong.
Zk was telling me about this. Couched in the language of protecting us from tainted food or something like that. Because we can't think for ourselves. Must follow the government, they know everything. Whatever!!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, I have to disagree with your assessment.
ReplyDeleteHaving read both bills, I fail to see how they limit organic farmers. In fact, both bills have riders that allow small businesses additional time and funding to come into compliance. What they do is set up a system of tracking and allow large manufacturers, who are slipping rotten and diseased meat into the food system to be fined.
Both bills force large businesses to keep better track of their food supplies, which would have been wonderful for those people who were sickened by a peanut plant that knowingly shipped peanut butter with toxins, dead rodents and bird feathers. That was a so-called small business, selling to organic food companies, that outright lied about where their factories were so that they couldn't be inspected. How is it wrong to limit those kind of businesses??
We're returning to The Jungle (have you read it?), because of the monopoly of the food processing industry. THEY are the ones lobbying against this, and spreading fear, because they know that they can get people who love small, local farmers, to do their work for them by contacting their representatives and arguing against the bill.
True, it COULD help prevent some of these things from happening again in the future, but one of my main points is that the government is getting too much control of our lives. These bills WILL affect small farmers. And if you look at the statistics of what kinds of foods are making people sick, 99% of the time (maybe more?) it is from meat or animal products. The reason we hear about the produce stories more is because it is much more rare and shocking! So I think the government should just stay out of our lives and let us decide for ourselves where to get our food from. It's a shame that some people don't have the integrity to dump their bad harvests, if they know it is bad, but I shouldn't have to pay for their lack of integrity. That doesn't happen often enough to justify these bills. Same with making the bills about not selling raw almonds anymore....one bad batch makes them change the law and now we can only get truly raw almonds from California. Just another example. It's stupid! I don't want more laws. They can take their Medicaid and whatever else they offer me and leave me alone!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your opinion though. :)
I agree Cindy,gov does have too much control.I am not going to be able to sell my stuff at the local farmers market for many yrs.I am just getting started.
ReplyDeleteIt's already bad enough that Britt can't cook her fudge and sell it at the farmers market b/c she has to cook it in a professional kitchen.Now I am going to be limited in selling my produce and I can't even label my stuff organic even though it's organic seeds and organic soil.
It takes a thousand dollars, a pile of paper work and three yrs worth of some certified farmers coming to my house to check the organicness of my garden.
Now gov wants to regulate my selling from my little garden.It's ridiculous!
That has been in effect for quite some time Nichole.
ReplyDeleteI asked a group about selling my eggs about a year or more ago and found that out.
What I'm worried about is if they make us register each and eery animal we have. Chickens? come on. Rabbits? These people will be doing a lot of registering. This is for animals for your own use or even if you aren't going to eat them but have them as pets! I don't know where it stands these days, but it as all the rage a year ago.