I promised myself that I would not let this blog become political because I’d like to keep it positive and breezy and short, and politics is not conducive to a blog being those things. But this needs to be shared. Maybe I’ll start a politicalwordstress blog for this sort of thing, but since you’re already here you can either deal with it or skip this entry. I will try to leave the inflammatory language out and make this as unbiased as possible, but I must disclose that I have an opinion (Imagine!): these bills need to be stopped.
HR 875 and SB 425 deal with the 2009 Food Safety Modernization Act. Doesn’t that sound nice and cuddly? But listen folks…I’m very concerned. When I first got wind of this legislation, I thought the friend who told me was exaggerating how bad it is. But the way I read it, the bill criminalizes seed banking, imposes industrial standards on organic and family farms (think mandatory use of chemicals and investigate the relationship between Monsanto and the sponsor of this bill…), and it looks to me like there may be property rights issues here, too.
If there were an exemption for family and organic farms, I might feel better, but there’s not. This looks scary to me. The issues faced by organic and family farms are different; they shouldn’t be subject to the same requirements as industrial farms.
Buy local, buy organic, bank heirloom seeds. Take some step today to move closer to self sufficiency. I mean the kind of self sufficiency that means you can eat if the grocery store is closed for two weeks. Am I there yet? Heck no. But I’m getting a little bit closer.
Legislation like this makes me think I need to move a little faster. Please call your senators and representative and ask them to at the very least require protections for small family farms and ranches and organic farms and at best, to oppose this legislation.
The Wordstress Blog 