HR 875: The End Of Organic Farming?

Posted by Shattered Paradigm

Many small farmers and organic food activists are claiming that if H.R. 875 is passed, it will mean the end of organic farming in the United States.

H.R. 875 was introduced by Democrat Rosa DeLauro in February. Her introduction of this bill represents a stunning conflict of interest, because her husband, Stanley Greenburg, works for Monsanto. Monsanto is the world's biggest producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seeds, and they would GREATLY benefit if thousands of small organic farmers were put out of business, because organic farmers don't use Monsanto products.

H.R. 875 is called the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 and you can find the full text of the bill here:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875

This horrific bill would establish a "Food Safety Administration" within the Department of Health and Human Services. The mandate of this new department would be "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."

Section 3 of H.R. 875 defines what type of establishments would be subject to the regulations in this legislation. It that section, a "food production facility" is defined this way:

The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.

So that would include.....

*All organic farms
*All small farms
*All family farms
*Even small family gardens if you sell any produce to your neighbor at all

If you read this bill, you will see that it gives the government the power to regulate what is "safe" farming, and therefore if organic farmers are not using enough herbicide on their plants to be "safe" or they aren't following the same "quality control" procedures as the big guys they could be instantly put out of business.

In addition, it loads small farmers with massive amounts of paperwork and administrative burdens that the big corporations can handle but they can't.

That is how you put a horde of small competitors out of business - you get the government to pile on the rules and burdens and regulations until they collapse.

That is why Monsanto desperately wants this bill. They hate the small farmers and they want to take them out of the picture.

If you care about organic farming, please call Congress and tell them to stop this horrible bill.

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