Brad’s Take

Linn Cohen-Cole writes on OpEdNews.com about H.R. 875 – the proposed new Food Safety Administration. Goodbye farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside stands

So, look again at what has been exciting us – Farmers markets. Local farmers. Real milk. Fresh eggs. Vegetable stands. – and realize that they are not only wonderfully healthy but fun and naturally community building. And more, they are a real economy and deeply democratic – and just at a time we need something that works economically, that supports our democratic rebirth, and that protects food itself and our easy access to it.

And it is all those things that threaten the corporations … which is why we now have these massive “fake food safety” bills in Congress. Everything is going under thanks to these fools, and they wish to be there like vultures to make sure that every drop of blood that can be sucked out of our resources and us, is theirs. To wit, they must get rid of such good and innocent things and yet truly powerful things as:

Farmers markets. Local farmers. Real milk. Fresh eggs. Vegetable stands.

And how will those who contaminate our country’s food with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and more, do that? Why, by setting standards for “food safety” that are so grotesquely and inappropriately and even cruelly applied to a local, independent farmers and ranchers that there is no way they can manage. Imagine your being faced with a 100 page IRS form and facing a million dollar a day penalty for screwing up. That would be in the ball park of the impossible complexity mixed with threat facing our farmers.

Fertilize your garden of field with Monsanto product, and you get the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for your records. But for compost? Or using a cover crop?

How do you “prove” the seed you plant is “safe”, that is, meets Monsanto-provided specifications? Try getting approval for organic sources.

This is one very scary threat to farming, to gardening, and to local food sources.