Food Safety Bill Makes Growing Your Own Food and Raising Your Own Chickens a Criminal Act

Senate Bill 510: Raise a Chicken, Go to Jail

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the food safety bill late yesterday, a move that will ready the measure for a vote after the midterm election, an aide told Food Safety News. Now the languishing measure may be one of the first bills up for consideration in November when Congress reconvenes after the election, although it will compete with a variety of high profile issues, including a defense authorization bill and whether to extend the Bush tax cuts. - It's Alive! Reid Files Cloture on Food Safety Bill, Food Safety News, September 30, 2010

November 2, 2010

The Micro Farmer - Who would ever in their right mind have thought that growing food or raising livestock could be considered a crime, but Senate Bill 510—the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010 (an amended bill to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) does just that: making the growing of your own food or saving your own seeds or raising your own chickens a criminal act punishable by law.

And once again you can thank one of the usual suspects in Congress—Dick Durbin [Democrud from Illinois]— for this piece of draconian legislature. But Dicky-boy is not alone in this bit of police state legislation, he has lots of co-sponsors on the bill, friendly folks like:


Lamar Alexander [R-TN], Jeff Bingaman [D-NM], Richard Burr [R-NC], Roland Burris [D-IL], Saxby Chambliss [R-GA], Christopher Dodd [D-CT], Michael Enzi [R-WY], Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY], Judd Gregg [R-NH], Thomas Harkin [D-IA], Orrin Hatch [R-UT], John Isakson [R-GA], Edward Kennedy [D-MA], Amy Klobuchar [D-MN], Ben Nelson [D-NE], Tom Udall [D-NM], and David Vitter [R-LA].

The last entry in this rogues gallery is of special interest to me. He’s my very own senator. I’ll have to fire off a quick fax and let the “Honorable” Senator Vitter know how he needs to proceed with this bill if he wants to stay in office. My rule this fall for voting: vote all the incumbents out. Even Ron Paul.

Now you’re probably wondering what’s so bad about this bill to warrant such a sensationalist headline. Here it is:

If this bill is accepted and voted into existence, you can expect to have the Department of Homeland Security oversee all food production in this country.

According to Dr. Shiv Chopra, a Canadian microbiologist and human rights activist:

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God. It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.”

Yikes!

I’m sure you’re wondering by now who benefits (or as the mob bosses used to say, “Cui Bono”). And you don’t have to look further that the people who appear to have written the bill, one Michael Taylor and his minions.

Who’s Michael Taylor? This is the guy that Barack Obama wants to appoint as the “Food Czar” at the FDA (let’s add another Yikes here). And where does Mikey come from? Monsanto. As Henry Kissinger so eloquently said:

“If you control the food supply, you control the people.”

And that is what this is all about. Make sure people can’t grow their own food, in particular food that doesn’t depend on chemicals, hormones, GMO alchemy and seed production control. That is the business model for multinational corporations like Monsanto, Archers Daniel Midland, and Cargill to name a few.

Everything you put in your mouth needs to pass through the multinationals, and at the same time make a tidy profit. If you follow the twisted logic of this bill, sustainable harvests must be criminalized.

Here are some details of the bill:

1. Put all US food and all the farms in the US under the direct control of the Department of Homeland Security, headed by Homeland secretary Janet Napolitano, and, believe it or not, the Department of Defense. I’ve heard of guns and butter, but this is ridiculous.


2. This bill would put a stop to food sovereignty for the US by tying it to compliance with one of the premier new world order groups, the World Food Organization, a branch of the United Nations.


3. Senate Bill 510 would remove your right to store, clean and own your own seed. I save seed all the time, so that puts me square in the crosshairs of the global food police. The only people that will be allowed to own seed with be the big multinationals like Monsanto. If you think this is impossible, consider this: they are already doing it in Iraq. All farm seed must be purchased from the multinational seed corporations. No seed saving is allowed.


4. It will allow Big Brother to mandate without a choice antibiotics, pesticides, GMO seeds and animals, whether you like it or not. If you’re going to grow food, you will do it under their microscope. You won’t be allowed to use compost as fertilizer, but will have to use chemical fertilizers or else. If you raise animals for food, you will have to register each and every animal, keep detailed records of that animal’s life and how and where it enters the food chain, even if it never leaves the farm. It takes away the fundamental protections laid down by the Constitution for all of its citizens, and make them subject to a tribunal ruled by corporations who will wield unlimited abilities and penalties, and without a review by the judicial branch.