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Lose your property for growing food? Big Brother legislation could mean prosecution, fines up to $1 million
By Chelsea Schilling
Some small farms and organic food growers could be placed under direct supervision of the federal government under new legislation making its way through Congress.

Food Safety Modernization Act

House Resolution 875, or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in February. DeLauro's husband, Stanley Greenburg, conducts research for Monsanto – the world's leading producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed.

DeLauro's act has 39 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. It calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration to allow the government to regulate food production at all levels – and even mandates property seizure, fines of up to $1 million per offense and criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers and distributors who fail to comply with regulations.

Michael Olson, host of the Food Chain radio show and author of "Metro Farm," told WND the government should focus on regulating food production in countries such as China and Mexico rather than burdening small and organic farmers in the U.S. with overreaching regulations.

"We need somebody to watch over us when we're eating food that comes from thousands and thousands of miles away. We need some help there," he said. "But when food comes from our neighbors or from farmers who we know, we don't need all of those rules. If your neighbor sells you something that is bad and you get sick, you are going to get your hands on that farmer, and that will be the end of it. It regulates itself."

The legislation would 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."

Federal regulators will be tasked with ensuring that food producers, processors and distributors – both large and small – prevent and minimize food safety hazards such as food-borne illnesses and contaminants such as bacteria, chemicals, natural toxins or manufactured toxicants, viruses, parasites, prions, physical hazards or other human pathogens.

Under the legislation's broad wording, slaughterhouses, seafood processing plants, establishments that process, store, hold or transport all categories of food products prior to delivery for retail sale, farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, aquaculture facilities and confined animal-feeding operations would be subject to strict government regulation.

Government inspectors would be required to visit and examine food production facilities, including small farms, to ensure compliance. They would review food safety records and conduct surveillance of animals, plants, products or the environment.

"What the government will do is bring in industry experts to tell them how to manage all this stuff," Olson said. "It's industry that's telling government how to set these things up. What it always boils down to is who can afford to have the most influence over the government. It would be those companies that have sufficient economies of scale to be able to afford the influence – which is, of course, industrial agriculture."

Farms and food producers would be forced to submit copies of all records to federal inspectors upon request to determine whether food is contaminated, to ensure they are in compliance with food safety laws and to maintain government tracking records. Refusal to register, permit inspector access or testing of food or equipment would be prohibited.

"What is going to happen is that local agriculture will end up suffering through some onerous protocols designed for international agriculture that they simply don't need," Olson said. "Thus, it will be a way for industrial agriculture to manage local agriculture."

Under the act, every food producer must have a written food safety plan describing likely hazards and preventative controls they have implemented and must abide by "minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water."

"That opens a whole can of worms," Olson said. "I think that's where people are starting to freak out about losing organic agriculture. Who is going to decide what the minimum standards are for fertilization or anything else? The government is going to bring in big industry and say we are setting up these protocols, so what do you think we should do? Who is it going to bring in to ask? The government will bring in people who have economies of scale who have that kind of influence."

DeLauro's act calls for the Food Safety Administration to create a "national traceability system" to retrieve history, use and location of each food product through all stages of production, processing and distribution.

Olson believes the regulations could create unjustifiable financial hardships for small farmers and run them out of business.

"That is often the purpose of rules and regulations: to get rid of your competition," he said. "Only people who are very, very large can afford to comply. They can hire one person to do paperwork. There's a specialization of labor there, and when you are very small, you can't afford to do all of these things."

Olson said despite good intentions behind the legislation, this act could devastate small U.S. farms.

"Every time we pass a rule or a law or a regulation to make the world a better place, it seems like what we do is subsidize production offshore," he said. "We tell farmers they can no longer drive diesel tractors because they make bad smoke. Well, essentially what we're doing is giving China a subsidy to grow our crops for us, or Mexico or anyone else."

Section 304 of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes a group of "experts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food industry, consumer organizations, and academia" to make recommendations for improving food-borne illness surveillance.

According to the act, "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law … may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act."

Each violation and each separate day the producer is in defiance of the law would be considered a separate offense and an additional penalty. The act suggests federal administrators consider the gravity of the violation, the degree of responsibility and the size and type of business when determining penalties.

Criminal sanctions may be imposed if contaminated food causes serious illness or death, and offenders may face fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years.

"It's just frightening what can happen with good intentions," Olson said. "It's probably the most radical notions on the face of this Earth, but local agriculture doesn't need government because it takes care of itself."

Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act
Another "food safety" bill that has organic and small farmers worried is Senate Bill 425, or the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Brown's bill is backed by lobbyists for Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson. It was introduced in September and has been referred to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Some say the legislation could also put small farmers out of business.

Like HR 875, the measure establishes a nationwide "traceability system" monitored by the Food and Drug Administration for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging and distribution of food. It would cost $40 million over three years.

"We must ensure that the federal government has the ability and authority to protect the public, given the global nature of the food supply," Brown said when he introduced the bill. He suggested the FDA and USDA have power to declare mandatory recalls.

The government would track food shipped in interstate commerce through a recordkeeping and audit system, a secure, online database or registered identification. Each farmer or producer would be required to maintain records regarding the purchase, sale and identification of their products.

A 13-member advisory committee of food safety and tracking technology experts, representatives of the food industry, consumer advocates and government officials would assist in implementing the traceability system.

The bill calls for the committee to establish a national database or registry operated by the Food and Drug Administration. It also proposes an electronic records database to identify sales of food and its ingredients "establishing that the food and its ingredients were grown, prepared, handled, manufactured, processed, distributed, shipped, warehoused, imported, and conveyed under conditions that ensure the safety of the food."

It states, "The records should include an electronic statement with the date of, and the names and addresses of all parties to, each prior sale, purchase, or trade, and any other information as appropriate."

If government inspectors find that a food item is not in compliance, they may force producers to cease distribution, recall the item or confiscate it.

"If the postal service can track a package from my office in Washington to my office in Cincinnati, we should be able to do the same for food products," Sen. Brown said in a Sept. 4, 2008, statement. "Families that are struggling with the high cost of groceries should not also have to worry about the safety of their food. This legislation gives the government the resources it needs to protect the public."

Recalls of contaminated food are usually voluntary; however, in his weekly radio address on March 15, President Obama announced he's forming a Food Safety Working Group to propose new laws and stop corruption of the nation's food.

The group will review, update and enforce food safety laws, which Obama said "have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt."

The president said outbreaks from contaminated foods, such as a recent salmonella outbreak among consumers of peanut products, have occurred more frequently in recent years due to outdated regulations, fewer inspectors, scaled back inspections and a lack of information sharing between government agencies.

"In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president but as a parent," Obama said. "No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm."

The blogosphere is buzzing with comments on the legislation, including the following:
* Obama and his cronies or his puppetmasters are trying to take total control – nationalize everything, disarm the populace, control food, etc. We are seeing the formation of a total police state.
* Well ... that's not very " green " of Obama. What's his real agenda?
* This is getting way out of hand! Isn't it enough the FDA already allows poisons in our foods?
* If you're starving, no number of guns will enable you to stay free. That's the whole idea behind this legislation. He who controls the food really makes the rules.
* The government is terrified of the tax loss. Imagine all the tax dollars lost if people actually grew their own vegetables! Imagine if people actually coordinated their efforts with family, friends and neighbors. People could be in no time eating for the price of their own effort. ... Oh the horror of it all! The last thing the government wants is for us to be self-sufficient.
* They want to make you dependent upon government. I say no way! already the government is giving away taxes from my great great grandchildren and now they want to take away my food, my semi-auto rifles, my right to alternative holistic medicine? We need a revolution, sheeple! Wake up! They want fascism ... can you not see that?
* The screening processes will make it very expensive for smaller farmers, where bigger agriculture corporations can foot the bill.
* If anything it just increases accountability, which is arguably a good thing. It pretty much says they'll only confiscate your property if there are questions of contamination and you don't comply with their inspections. I think the severity of this has been blown out of proportion by a lot of conjecture.
* Don't waste your time calling the criminals in D.C. and begging them to act like humans. This will end with a bloody revolt.
* The more I examine this (on the surface) seemingly innocuous bill the more I hate it. It is a coward's ploy to push out of business small farms and farmers markets without actually making them illegal because many will choose not to operate due to the compliance issue.
Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=92002

Statement from the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association regarding NAIS, for the meeting with US Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, Washington DC, 15 April, 2009

My name is Liz Reitzig and I am Secretary of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association

The USDA claims that the Animal Health Protection Act of 2002 authorizes it to implement an NAIS. However, nowhere in the AHPA is the USDA authorized to assign a federal, permanent 7-character number to private land. Neither is it authorized to require application to any animal of an '840' prefix tag indicating the animal is US born, and it is not authorized to require RFID devices, like implantable microchips, or RFID tags, on a privately owned animal. Further, the AHPA does not authorize the USDA to require reporting movements, vet visits, or any of the 23 'reportable' events listed in NAIS documents. The AHPA authorizes the USDA to track shipments of animals that have been imported. Any assertion beyond that is an extrapolation by the USDA.

If the USDA knew the AHPA authorized it to implement NAIS, why would it have supported and pushed for five bills to mandate NAIS in statute since 2003? If the AHPA is the authorizing act, why has the USDA been involved in developing an NAIS since at least 1994, as evidenced by the National Livestock Identification Symposium where both Dr. John Weimers of APHIS and Neil Hammerschmidt (at the time employed by the Holstein Association and since employed by USDA-APHIS as NAIS Coordinator) were participants? These men have been architects for NAIS in this country since at least 1994, and have drawn salaries from USDA for most of those years. Have these salaries and the funding of the Farm Animal Identification and Records program of the Holstein Association as well as the establishment of the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium been figured into the cost of NAIS thus far? Both of these groups were headed at their inception by Mr. Hammerschmidt before he became NAIS coordinator for USDA-APHIS.

The USDA has stated in various NAIS documents that the 'goal of NAIS is 48-hour traceback to the premises of origin’ of an animal disease outbreak. Foot and Mouth Disease, or FMD, is the nightmare scenario used to scare everyone into believing that we must have 48-hour traceback through NAIS. Yet with FMD, forty-eight hours is not fast enough.

FMD is highly contagious and spreads through airborne contamination, cross contamination from non-affected species or wildlife, or by direct contact. Symptoms may take up to three weeks to manifest, yet viral transmission can occur within a week of contamination. FMD does not kill the infected animal unless the animal is already stressed. A cow will lose her next calf and dairy animals will produce less on the next freshening, but they will not die. It also does not infect people nor make an infected animal’s meat unsafe for human consumption. An infected animal traveling from Oklahoma to Washington on an open livestock trailer has the potential to spread the virus anywhere in between. Passing another livestock trailer means any of those animals could contract and spread the disease. Should that occur, in order to keep the FMD-free status for World Trade Organization members, as required by the OIE (World Animal Health Organization), Americans would have to kill every susceptible livestock animal within the 6.2 kilometer radius of where the infected animal has been. However, according to Dr. Steve Van Wie, Homeland Security Veterinarian, in wildlife, such as deer, the disease is self-limiting. While no one wants this disease, and we should control our borders and refuse to import raw meat from affected nations, the truth is that FMD is really a WTO disease of concern, and the nightmare of FMD would be in following the OIE stamp out measures--that would not eliminate the disease--rather than the disease itself.

Recognizing that the only real justification for NAIS is to meet World Trade Organization OIE guidelines, the only acceptable application for a program of this magnitude and Constitutional repugnance would be that Export Verification services offer it as a 'pay to play' program for exports to WTO member countries that might desire to require this type of system. There are two livestock markets in the nation, export and domestic, and those who believe they can benefit from this program should be allowed to attempt to do so at their own expense.

Our country is unique among the nations of the world. The United States Constitution is designed to limit the powers of centralized federal government, and our forefathers carefully crafted the document to ensure liberty for their posterity. In Article 1 section 8, the powers of the federal government are delineated. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to require registering of private property. George Washington's men did not follow him barefooted and starving through the snows of Valley Forge so that the USDA could require birth certificates for goats.

In closing, you must be aware that there is no 'consensus' to be reached on a mandatory or voluntary federally managed and funded NAIS. The opponents of this program stand upon their God-given, inalienable, Constitutionally guaranteed rights to engage in agriculture and their ability and duty to feed themselves and their countrymen. We farmers are too few to win this fight alone, but we will not dishonor those who have gone before, as our freedom was bought with their blood. We are not too few to die; and such is our resolve. The question is, how firm is the resolve of the USDA? -- Liz Reitzig, Secretary, NICFA.

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The Controversies of GMO
Over the last few years much debate has been held to discuss the benefits of Genetic Engineering and Genetic Modification to our foods. Both sides argue over the benefits and controversies. Many know the benefits, but seldom are the controversies of the issue publically and openly discussed.
My goal is not to discuss or persuade, but merely list the controversial issues and ask you the reader to think through them and decide; if we as a country are ready for these foods in our supermarkets.

~Safety
--Potential human health impacts, including allergens, transfer of antibiotic resistance markers, unknown effects
--Potential environmental impacts, including: unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on other organisms (e.g., soil microbes), and loss of flora and fauna biodiversity

~Access and Intellectual Property
--Domination of world food production by a few companies
--Increasing dependence on industrialized nations by developing countries
--Biopiracy, or foreign exploitation of natural resources

~Ethics
--Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values
--Tampering with nature by mixing genes among species
--Objections to consuming animal genes in plants and vice versa
--Stress for animal

~Labeling
--Not mandatory in some countries (e.g., United States)
--Mixing GM crops with non-GM products confounds labeling attempts
~Society
--New advances may be skewed to interests of rich countries

State Associations and Contacts:

California - CALIFCA
State Contact: Jerome Verhasselt
Email: info@califa.org
Website: www.nicfa.org

Colorado - CIFNA
State Contact: Wade Wilson 970.739.0121
Email: info@califa.org
Website: www.nicfa.org

Georgia - GICFA
State Contact - Tim Young 770.842.8983
Email: tim@naturesharmonyfarm.com
Website: www.nicfa.org

Illinois - IIFCA
State Contact: Michael and Sharon Sabo 618.458.7745
Email: muttipie@htc.net
Website: www.nicfa.org

Indiana - IFCA
State Contact: Alan Yegerlehner 812.939.2813
Email: info@nicfa.org
Website: www.nicfa.org

Maryland - MICFA
State Contact: Liz Reitzig 301.860.0535
Email: liz@micfa.net
Website: www.micfa.net

Michigan - MIICFA
State Contact: Greg Niewendorp 231.536.7956
Email: miicfa@earthlink.net
Website: www.nicfa.org

Missouri - MOICFA
State Contact: Robert Irons 816.221.3719 x704
Email: robert@veirons.com
Website: www.moicfa.org

New York - NYICFA
State Contact: Gilbert Bernier 607.656.5449
Email: fullquiverfarm@earthlink.net
State Contact: Andrea Elliott 845.586.1721
Email: andreael@catskill.net
Website: www.nyicfa.org

North Carolina - NCICFA
State Contact: Ruth Ann Foster 336-286-3088
Email: info@nicfa.org
Website: www.nicfa.org

Ohio- OHICFA
State Contact: Ray Hill 937-376-0071
Email: arabnlvr@donet.com
Website: www.nicfa.org

Oregon - OCFA
State Contact: Larisa Sparrowhawk 540-538-2060
Email: Larisa@OregonCFA.org
Website: www.oregoncfa.org

Pennsylvania - PICFA
State Contact: Jonas Stoltzfus 717.536.3618
Email: jstoltz@pa.net
Website: www.picfa.org

South Carolina - SCICFA
State Contact: Mike Gessling 703.494.7119
Email: mistyridge@mistyridge-arabians.com
Website: www.nicfa.org

Utah - UTICFA
State Contact: Chris Mellen 435.436.9625
Email: chrism@cut.net
Website: www.picfa.org

Virginia - VICFA
State Contact: Kathryn Russell 434.760.5514
Email: info@vicfa.net
Website: www.vicfa.net

Wisconsin - WICFA
State Contact: C.J. Cordell 715.418.0424
Email: C_J_cordell@hotmail.com
Website: www.nicfa.org

Wyoming - Wyoming Ag Coalition (WyAgCo)
State Contact - Sue Wallis 307.685.8248
Email: sue.wallis@vcn.com
Website: www.wyoagcoalition.org