Senate Bill 510?

[near horse]

Anyone know anything about S. Bill 510 – the Food Safety Act (or some such thing)? I’m hearing stuff from my neighbors about how it would do everything from regulate farmer’s markets to inspecting backyard gardens. I haven’t seen any of that in the bill but, as usual, it’s a little vague.

Anyone else know what’s going on with it?

[Andy Carson]

It looks like it has been placed on Senate Legislative Calendar as of Dec 18, 2009. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510
The same website has the text of the bill, summaries, and a question and answer section.
What a crappy bill! I read that about one half of one percent of food borne illnesses come from small farms. Now I’m not saying that food borne illness is good, but why not go after the source of 99.5% of it??? That small farms may be subjected to inspections at the whim of some random beaurocrat with a sense of riteousness and a job to justify is extremely Orwellian.

Wow! Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think you (Geoff) and I are agreeing on something political!!! 🙂

[dominiquer60]

It is basically a bill meant to resist natural population atrophy cause by food borne illnesses, by regulating every food facility and food producer. At the moment GAPs (Good Agricultural Practices) are not mandatory, but this bill lays out he ground work to make national GAP standards, require everyone to follow them and enforce penalties to those that do not.

It is the perfect storm of regulations that could really be the straw that breaks the back of small farmers everywhere. If you think that you are a pirate farmer now, you haven’t seen nothing yet if this bill passes.

There are many rumors about this bill and they mostly stem from the vagueness of the language and how it can be interpreted by corporate, I mean democratic policy makers. The potential to cause harm to all farms great and small is between the lines.

The only thing specific that I know about this Senate bill is that it doesn’t require a fee for any farms to register, the Congress bill requires a flat fee of $500 across the board whether your name is DelMonte or Earthwise.

Any way I read it, there is trouble brewing.

[mitchmaine]

this is a good one to contact your congressman about. it seems to reinclude nais. it also seems to make growing, cleaning, saving and trading seeds to be a violation of maritime law. homeland security again. one thing interesting, seems nothing in the new bill can interfere with treaties made already to world trade org. and also seems to be created by a monsanto representative. who’d a thunk.

[dominiquer60]

Mitch, I think that it is safe to say that Monsanto is in the corporations making “democratic” policy category.

[mitchmaine]

hey erika, it seems that the legal argument is about whether we actually have the right to food? does this sound absurd to you? does to me. nothing surprises me too much anymore. sorry. mitch

[lancek]

yea they get control of the houseiing the food the water and nexted thing you no is your working like the coal miners in the 1800 in the company town paying there prices! And then everybody will want to stand up for there rights but wont be able to!

[mitchmaine]

we had victory gardens during world war ll that helped feed the population. would that be illegal to do again?
i think we should all contact our own congress people and urge them to propose legislation making it a requirement and responsability for all people with a lawn to grow some of their own food and have 6 hens.
i’ve talked too much about this one already. must hit a sore spot. sorry for running on.
mitch

[near horse]

@Countymouse 20221 wrote:

Wow! Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I think you (Geoff) and I are agreeing on something political!!! 🙂

Hey Andy – you’re right. But that’s how I view an informed democratic society functioning. Not “party line” stuff but opinion/viewpoints based on what I (or you) see in a proposed bill or policy – no pundit/talking head telling me how it’s going to do this or that …. And that’s how we can both agree on this point but disagree (I guess) on others.

My take on the bill (and I read the version on “opencongress”) is there are too many vague points for me to be comfortable that it’s not targetted at small farms or won’t hurt them in the process. Although the bill has been on the calendar since Dec ’09, my understanding is that it’s supposed to come up for a vote before the end of the year.

When you see this legislation proposed, while USDA is out trouncing on the small raw milk producers and “animal shares” system, there is good reason to be concerned. IMHO – large corporate agribusiness has the regulatory folks chasing the small relatively inconsequential farmers (to the overall ag economy) to keep scrutiny from their industry.

[Andy Carson]

One of the parts that is disturbing to me is just how much discretion is given to the secretary of health and human services to inspect facilities that they (in thier infinite wisdom) deem “likely” to be unsafe. Does anyone think that McDonalds (who spent over 300 million dollars in the last quarter alone lobbying this bill and other) will be targetted??? How about the other large corporations that line the pockets of the politicians? Pretty big conflict of interest if you ask me… It seems much more likely that the crosshairs will be aimed at small farmers, who, although they are clearly not the cause of most food borne illness, do not have millions to spend on lobbying efforts.

I have attached an interesting annotation of the corporations who are lobbying this bill.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/08/millions-spent-lobbying-food-safety-during-second-quarter/

PS. Geoff, I’m only teasing. It is interesting how this bill seems bipartisan. It seems both parties can fully capable of bad legislation!

[near horse]

Thanks Andy.

It’s not surprising that fast food restaraunts would support S 510 since they are exempted from scrutiny (likely as a result of their lobbying efforts). That’s really disturbing as the proper cooking of food is the last line of defense in combatting food-borne illness. Even E. coli O157-H7 can’t survive cooking.

[mitchmaine]

geoff, the news last night had a story about farm markets here in maine. we have ninety of them now, up 15% from the year before. with an average of two dozen vendors. one market is 250 years old. talking up local grown and that. has to be reaction to this bill and others like it. we threw out nais a few years back.
public opinion is a strong tool. television is the way to get to it. write letters and keep talking.

mitch

[ArtieT]

Rosa DeLauro is behind this bill – her husband’s law firm is corporate council to Monsanto.

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