Election 2010 – Food Freedom Talking Points

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=6910

Election 2010 – Food Freedom Talking Points

Please take this “Election 2010 Health & Food Freedom Talking Points” with you to public meetings involving the Candidates and help educate them… and seek their commitment to promoting local, wholesome food production by supporting the Food Freedom Amendment!

The House passed the so-called “Food Safety” bill, HR 4739 in July 2009, sending it to the Senate where it is being considered as S.510. After strong public opposition, a companion bill, S.3002, touting so-called “Dietary Supplement Safety” was abandoned, but S.3767, with an unprecedented extension of criminal penalties for “food crimes” was rushed forward in the last days of the September session. The Senate HELP committee “marked-up” S.510 and the Manager’s Amendments sent to the Floor as the Senate went into recess with the threat that the bills would be pushed after the Election by the ‘lame-duck” Congress. These bills remains very controversial and should reconsidered by the new Congress being elected this year.

1. The “Manager’s Amendments” do not satisfy our Food Freedom Amendment Citizens Petition which demands a new law protecting our local, natural, GMO-Free, wholesome food production exemplified by family farms and ranches, home food businesses, home and community gardens and local farmers’ markets. The Amendment, which must be included in any Food Safety bill states:

“No provision of Federal Law giving regulatory oversight to any Federal department or agency shall be deemed to apply (a) to any home, home-business, homestead, home or community gardens, small farm, organic or natural agricultural activity, (b) to any family farm or ranch, or (c) to any natural or organic food product, including dietary supplements, as protected under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.”

2. S.510, as written, threatens small farm, home, local/organic and community food production with onerous rules that, while perhaps appropriate for industrialized food production, will create impossible “barriers against entry” that will rapidly destroy such local and natural production. No protective language is included in the Senate bill that satisfies these concerns.

3. As an example of the type of controls imposed, Section 106 provides in part for the regulations issued to be kept secret from the public, “In the interest of national security, the Secretary … may determine the time and manner in which the guidance documents issued under paragraph (1) are made public…”

4. The bill as written, in effect, incorporates Codex “HARMonization” provisions of the discredited “Dietary Supplement Safety Act” S.3002 and actually calls upon the FDA to recommend harmonization of American nutritional freedoms with Codex Alimentarius’ restrictions [Section 306(c)(5)].

5. A clause which can be used to force Codex into our lives is Section 404: “Nothing in this Act… shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with… any …treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party…”

6. Section 306(c)(5) provides a road map to implementing Codex: “Recommendations on whether and how to harmonize requirements under the Codex Alimentarius.”

7. Cost of Program: Section 401, $825,000,000 in the first year means a deeper deficit.

8. S.510 fails to protect local food production. An amendment offered by Senator Tester to “protect” family farms falls very short of the Food Freedom Amendment, ultimately only partially protecting a few very small family farms, representing a small percentage of local food production, and as inflation kicks in, without indexing, the “protections” will become meaningless.

“In 2009, the majority of family farms (60 percent) had gross sales of less than $10,000, but they accounted for only 2 percent of the total value of agricultural production (see table). Family farms with gross sales of $10,000 to $249,999 were 30 percent of the family farms and were responsible for 18 percent of production. At the other end of the size distribution, the 10 percent of family farms that grossed at least $250,000 accounted for 80 percent of the value of production…” http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/WellBeing/farmhouseincome.htm

For more than a year, the plan to capture – and kill – clean, local, organic, independent and safe farming has been wending its way through Congress. Last year, the devastating HR 2749 passed although we put up a good battle, delaying it for quite a while. However, at the end of the day, a good battle followed by a loss is still a loss. Then the field of battle shifted to the US Senate, where we’ve held the forces of Big Agra and Big Govt at bay for nearly a year… Now its time to educate the candidates for Congress. Now is the time to get meaningful commitments for the Food Freedom Amendment from the candidates.

We agree with Senator Tester’s sentiments, but not his amendment! “…we need to have better regulations for these multistate, huge corporations that take food off fields, throw it all together and distribute it to many states, I think the state and local entities can do a much better job (regulating) the people who are direct-marketing food…”

And we agree with Senator Coburn: “…the whole this bill represents a weighty new regulatory structure on the food industry that will be particularly difficult for small producers and farms to comply with (with little evidence it will make food safer).”

Let’s make sure the new Congress understands the importance of Food Freedom! NO to Federal bureaucratic interference with our local food production and supply!