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Monsanto and the Schoolmarm method of punishing farmers out of farming
One thing after another is raining down on small farmers.
NAIS which is insane on the face of it but has left farmers worrying it is about something much bigger and incredibly more threatening. For sure the penalties, even for infractions are beyond anything anyone could being to handle. Farmers it seems, face risks too great to run.
And then there are the buried regulations in the FDA which are criminalizing all aspects of farming by listing them as "sources of seed contamination" - a new contamination if ever there were one. But seed cleaning equipment is listed and farmers are now supposed to only use what is approved, which is, again, beyond their capacity. Where was there any contamination of seed, ever, from seed cleaning equipment which would necessitate a farmer giving up a perfectly good seed cleaner they made themselves and used for 40 years and which costs nothing now, to put in a building and equipment for a million and half dollars ... for each line of seed? Never mind the carbon foot print of that versus an already existing seed cleaner. The upshot of that is farmers are too poor to farm.
The game is simple - scare the public and then use "food safety" and "animal diseases" as the argument for systems that are onerous beyond human endurance. What systems? Industrial ones that a normal farmer can't afford to put in place with bureaucratic tasks that turn farming into something approaching filing out a complex tax return daily, and penalties that are greater than those imposed on felons.
The latest joke on farmers is peanuts. The problem, like all the problems, are on the industrial side, but what comes from "peanuts" is not peanuts.
So, having whipped the country into a frenzy, here ere come two house bills - out of New York and suspiciously like Monsanto's friend Hillary Clinton's plan to centralize the USDA and FDA to save us from "contamination." And just after Vilsack said it wasn't time to do such a thing but they have surely had this in the works for sometime, this centralizing of corrupt power in the USDA and FDA, over our food.
Goodness they have got the country by the short-hairs on "contamination," running ads for one thing after another to sterilize our kitchens, our bathrooms, our carpets, our hands, our children even, to save us from it. My favorite ad is the one of the little brother reaching over to hand his baby sister something but with gross green slimy "bacteria" growing on his hands. Good grief. Just ditch the boy and have done, because boys will be boys and get dirty and heaven only knows he might touch his baby sister again.
Makes you wonder how we all managed to survive to grow up without all that sterilization. And why kids are sicker now than they ever used to be.
Back to the bill. The name is a marvel. "Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009."
Scare them, but with what? they must have asked in the board rooms and agencies (is there a distinction anymore?). "Peanuts!" someone (who will be greatly rewarded) suggests and they all laugh because it's so perfect - peanut butter being so American and something for the "kids." That'll surely do the trick to scare the bejeesus out of families and set them up to want more regulations, not noticing farmers are already stuffed to the gills, stuffed beyond the gills, with them. (The wonder is how that is even possible given how, on the other hand, corporations have been de-regulated?)
So, here comes yet another regulation, and a doozy. It's included below for your edification and amusement - or horror - as the case may be.
But let us imagine for a moment that it was applied to you, Joe Blow, Norma Normal, in your own kitchen, for you to have a sense of what farmers are being asked to do - separate from NAIS and Premises ID and FDA regulations which are all on top of this.
One thing after another is raining down on small farmers.
NAIS which is insane on the face of it but has left farmers worrying it is about something much bigger and incredibly more threatening. For sure the penalties, even for infractions are beyond anything anyone could being to handle. Farmers it seems, face risks too great to run.
And then there are the buried regulations in the FDA which are criminalizing all aspects of farming by listing them as "sources of seed contamination" - a new contamination if ever there were one. But seed cleaning equipment is listed and farmers are now supposed to only use what is approved, which is, again, beyond their capacity. Where was there any contamination of seed, ever, from seed cleaning equipment which would necessitate a farmer giving up a perfectly good seed cleaner they made themselves and used for 40 years and which costs nothing now, to put in a building and equipment for a million and half dollars ... for each line of seed? Never mind the carbon foot print of that versus an already existing seed cleaner. The upshot of that is farmers are too poor to farm.
The game is simple - scare the public and then use "food safety" and "animal diseases" as the argument for systems that are onerous beyond human endurance. What systems? Industrial ones that a normal farmer can't afford to put in place with bureaucratic tasks that turn farming into something approaching filing out a complex tax return daily, and penalties that are greater than those imposed on felons.
The latest joke on farmers is peanuts. The problem, like all the problems, are on the industrial side, but what comes from "peanuts" is not peanuts.
So, having whipped the country into a frenzy, here ere come two house bills - out of New York and suspiciously like Monsanto's friend Hillary Clinton's plan to centralize the USDA and FDA to save us from "contamination." And just after Vilsack said it wasn't time to do such a thing but they have surely had this in the works for sometime, this centralizing of corrupt power in the USDA and FDA, over our food.
Goodness they have got the country by the short-hairs on "contamination," running ads for one thing after another to sterilize our kitchens, our bathrooms, our carpets, our hands, our children even, to save us from it. My favorite ad is the one of the little brother reaching over to hand his baby sister something but with gross green slimy "bacteria" growing on his hands. Good grief. Just ditch the boy and have done, because boys will be boys and get dirty and heaven only knows he might touch his baby sister again.
Makes you wonder how we all managed to survive to grow up without all that sterilization. And why kids are sicker now than they ever used to be.
Back to the bill. The name is a marvel. "Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009."
Scare them, but with what? they must have asked in the board rooms and agencies (is there a distinction anymore?). "Peanuts!" someone (who will be greatly rewarded) suggests and they all laugh because it's so perfect - peanut butter being so American and something for the "kids." That'll surely do the trick to scare the bejeesus out of families and set them up to want more regulations, not noticing farmers are already stuffed to the gills, stuffed beyond the gills, with them. (The wonder is how that is even possible given how, on the other hand, corporations have been de-regulated?)
So, here comes yet another regulation, and a doozy. It's included below for your edification and amusement - or horror - as the case may be.
But let us imagine for a moment that it was applied to you, Joe Blow, Norma Normal, in your own kitchen, for you to have a sense of what farmers are being asked to do - separate from NAIS and Premises ID and FDA regulations which are all on top of this.
question what you've been told.
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