U.S. Food Modernization Act and Food Inflation

Senate Bill 510 Makes It Illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food

By Steve Green, Food Freedom
May 13, 2010

Since the story first broke, a lot has happened. One reason for this could be that food is being poisoned. Collecting rainwater is now illegal in many states. Your intake is being controlled. For more information, visit the following articles as well:

Raiding organic food stores. A sign of new times?

Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water

Why do people in America refuse to take active interest in their future?

S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.

“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.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower

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.

Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes. S.510 would give Monsanto unlimited power over all US seed, food supplements, food and farming.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat industry. Clinton’s HACCP delighted the offending corporate (World Trade Organization “WTO”) meat packers since it allowed them to inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into their control. Monsanto promoted HACCP.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton, urged a powerful centralized food safety agency as part of her campaign for president. Her advisor was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller, a giant PR firm representing Monsanto. Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as Rosa DeLauro, whose husband’s firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S.510.

S.510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.

1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency. It resembles the Kissinger Plan.


2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security. It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection. Instead, S.510 says:

   COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS

   Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.
   

3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.


4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements. Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.


5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.


6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals (see story below). The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease. Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents. Animal diseases can be falsely declared. S.510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.


7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.


8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer. The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.


9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe. The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.


10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied. It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review. It is (similar to C-6 in Canada) the end of Rule of Law in the US.

For further information, watch these videos:

Food Laws – Forcing people to globalize
State Imposed Violence … to snatch resources of ordinary people
Corporate Rule
Reclaiming Economies
Oak snake image at Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park, Florida
House Version of the Bill: H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (Passed 7/29/09)

Federal Food Police Coming Soon to a Farm Near You

By Ready Nutrittion
October 22, 2009

In an article published on Ready Nutrition titled, Is This The End of Microfarms?, I addressed my concerns on HR bill 875 or The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. This bill would literally change the procedures and ways of our farms as well as our ideals about the American dream as we know it.

HR bill 875 will:

”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 international contamination, and for other purposes.”

If passed, this would give government agencies the power to tell the American public what they should eat, how they should care for produce and care for livestock. The facility owners will have no say in these matters. The government has made the decisions for them (as they like to do). They must adhere to guidelines or else there will be hell to pay. According to the website Rogue Government:

“ The government even plans to set up a Food Safety Administration to authorize this agency to integrate state and local agencies as fully as possible into national food safety efforts by forcing them to enforce federal food safety regulations. This section completely ignores the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.”

At a time when businesses and consumers are already struggling, the price tag for this new agency will be in the billions. The L.A. Times says that the cost of reforms in the House bill is estimated at $3.7 billion over five years, with $1.4 billion of that to come from a $500-per-facility fee on food makers.

Voter support for this bill was at an overwhelming 90% according to a current voting poll from L.A. Times. The article states:

“There’s broad public support. It would be a quick win for both parties,” said Erik Olson, director of chemical and food safety programs in Pew’s Health & Human Services Policy program. “This is a rare situation where the industry is shoulder to shoulder with consumers.”

The bill was slated for hearing in Congress today. It is nice to see that Congress has enough time on their hands to overhaul a health care system and destroy our ways of life as we know it. Although, I should not be surprised, they passed the “bailouts” even though the citizens of this country adamantly opposed it. Interestingly, L.A. Times made no mention of the actual name of the bill or the effects and implications this bill would have on small farms and ranches as we know it. That’s the kind of reporting we are used to. It’s just another half hearted attempt at delivering what they think we should know about. As far as the media is concerned, we are on a “need to know” basis.

Do not get me wrong, I agree with finding vulnerabilities in our food sources and combating contaminants to improve the quality of food we eat. However, it is the “fine print” and vagueness of this bill that is concerning. According to Campaign For Liberty:

“It will affect anyone who produces food even if they do not sell but only consume it. It will literally put all independent farmers and food producers out of business due to the huge amounts of money it will take to conform to factory farming methods. If people choose to farm without industry standards such as chemical pesticides and fertilizers they will be subject to a variety of harassment from this completely new agency that has never before existed. That’s right, a whole new government agency is being created just to police food, for our own protection of course.”

I ask you – what is to stop the government from defining a small home garden as a food facility? Because of the vagueness of this bill, it is not only the micro farmers that are affected by this. Anyone who has a garden, or shares their produce with neighbors or even owns a local restaurant that supports local farmers and buys their produce could be affected. We could all be affected and pay the price dearly for not speaking up. Many say that this bill is unconstitutional in that state rights will be stripped away. If passed, the state cannot go in and take care of the problem. It is a federal issue, thus will have federal repercussions.

“This Is a Vehicle For The Large Corporations Of Industrial Agriculture.”

Who is pushing for this bill to be passed? Some feel this bill is quietly being pushed by big agribusinesses, herbicides and pesticide companies who want to take out the little guy (organic farmers, micro farmers, and ranches) as opponents. Save those too big to fail.

Does this sound familiar?

If this pattern of accommodating corporate interests at the expense of small farmers persists, then we could eventually expect something similar to what happened in Russia with Stalin. Our right to choose what type of food we put into our bodies is on the voting block. Our food sources will be controlled by the government. They will tell us how we should grow our food, when we should harvest our food; and if we resist, we face massive fines, jail time or possibly our land could be confiscated. They know that if they control the food source, they control the people. Welcome to the New America.

Big Brother Is Watching You (and Your Livestock)

By The Marieta Register
May 5, 2009

The "land of the free" is becoming more and more restrictive for farmers and ranchers across the nation with the National Animal Identification System being pushed by federal and state governments.

"I'm totally, thoroughly convinced this will ring the death knell of small, individual farmers across the nation," said Donna Betts. A resident of Washington County, Betts raises chickens, goats, cattle and, until recently, sheep.

"I sold off the herd [of sheep] because I couldn't afford to keep them if I had to do everything NAIS and the state wanted me to."

The NAIS consists of two parts; premise identification and animal identification and animal movement tracing systems.

The premise identification portion of the system consists of livestock and poultry owners registering their facilities online, listing contact information and exactly what animals are present at the location.

The identification and movement tracing systems are a bit more complex and involve animals being "tagged" with a radio frequency identification chip, entered into a system and scanned.

While farmers across the nation are calling the NAIS a gross invasion of privacy, the United States Department of Agriculture insists that all information will be kept confidential.

According to an informational pamphlet put out by the USDA, "NAIS is a modern, streamlined information system that helps producers and animal health officials respond quickly and effectively to animal disease events in the United States."

While the stated aim of the NAIS is to prevent and respond to disease outbreaks in the U.S., some farmers, such as Betts believe the bigger problem is animals from outside the country.

"We've been pushing for 'country of origin labels' for years now," Betts said. "More than 60% of our food comes from outside of the country. The only reported case of 'mad-cow' came from a cow that was brought in from Canada."

However, many farmers like Darol Dickinson feel that there is no need for such a system and it would only force smaller farmers out of business.

"Take Ohio for example," Dickinson said. "We haven't had a 'reportable' disease in 19 years. That means something that could affect a large portion of stock or humans. They say we are not concerned about food safety when we don't want to comply, but we are."

Dickinson said he also feels "country of origin labels" would do more good for disease control than chipping and tracking American animals ...

The RFID portion of the system is estimated to cost farmers roughly $2,500 to get one animal chipped and have all the necessary scanning and reporting equipment, Dickinson said. The owner of NAISStinks.com, Dickinson raises about 1,200 head of Texas Longhorns, Dutch Buelingo and African Watusi cattle in Washington County and owns nearly 5,000 acres of land.

"We make a lot of our money from individual 'starter' sales," Dickinson said. "Someone comes in and wants just one animal, to get them started. If we have to chip and scan each animal we sell, and the buyer does too, less and less 'hobby farmers' will want to start."

The scanning Dickinson refers to is required for anyone participating in the animal identification and movement tracing portion of NAIS.

"Animal tracing involves the reporting of certain movements of an officially identified animal that present a higher risk for disease transmission," according to official literature on the USDA's NAIS website. "Reportable movements include: moving an animal through a public market or auction, private sale of an animal that involves moving it off its birth premises and participation of an animal in regional or national exhibitions or sporting events."

While the program is not mandatory in Ohio, it is mandatory in Michigan and Wisconsin and has received only tepid support from farmers.

"I contacted my congressman, Charlie Wilson (D-OH6), but he doesn't seem to care," Betts said. "It's an idiotic and asinine proposal and I won't have time to do anything but comply. It's absolutely to the benefit of agricultural business. They're getting tons of money to manufacture the chips and equipment, and they're forcing us to use it."

In states with Amish populations, mandatory participation is strongly opposed both for religious reasons as well as ideological ones."

Amish are opposed to electronic registration of any kind," wrote Brenda Murphy, managing editor of Agri-View, an agricultural newspaper for Wisconsin. "They believe the current system of tattoos, branding, back tags at the time of slaughter and metal vaccination clips are an efficient and workable system."

Dave Mathes, president of R-Calf USA-Wisconsin, also feels the NAIS is unnecessary. At a meeting in 2005 in Cashton, Wis., he agreed with the Amish view of the current system being enough.

"This is a system which has been in place for 30 years or more and has been proven to be effective," Mathes said. "We can trace back animals. It may take 72 hours, but it's effective and efficient. We've proven it works by how we handled the BSE [Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or "mad cow"] infected cow in Washington State. It worked then."

According to a June 2008 poll conducted by Western Horseman Magazine, more than 91% of animal owners would refuse to comply with NAIS if given a choice. According to circulation numbers, Western Horseman Magazine has the world's largest circulation of any livestock publication.

"When this was originally proposed, the government got a major lack of interest [from farmers]," Dickinson said. "But they wanted it (well, the computer and tagging corporations wanted it) and they entered into 'cooperative agreements' with the different states. Basically they bribed states to get farmers to do what they don't want to. It's like Payola but for farmers."

In mandatory states farmers who refuse to participate in NAIS can face $4,000 - $5,000 fines.

"If you control the food supply, you control everything, and the government is trying to control the food," Betts said.

U.S. Food Prices ‘Spiraling Out of Control’

By The Trumpet
May 5, 2010

U.S. food prices jumped by 2.4 percent in March 2010 in the largest monthly leap in more than 26 years, and the sixth consecutive monthly increase.

The National Inflation Association (NIA) issued an alert to its members April 22 warning that the sharp upswing in U.S. food inflation will soon lead to a situation as severe as that currently plaguing India.

Here are some of the most startling year-over-year price increases in the U.S. markets:

· Fresh and dry vegetables up 56.1 percent
· Fresh fruits and melons up 28.8 percent
· Eggs for fresh use up 33.6 percent
· Beef and veal up 10.7 percent
· Dairy products up 9.7 percent

In the alert, the NIA reminded its members that it has long predicted food sector inflation, but admitted having “never anticipated that it would spiral so far out of control this quickly.”

The rising prices, alongside pandemic unemployment, have nudged tides of Americans onto the food stamp program. After the 14th consecutive monthly increase, 39.4 million Americans are now enrolled in the program. This figure is up 22.4 percent from one year ago, and the U.S. government is now paying out more to Americans in entitlement programs than it collects in taxes.

Many pundits are proclaiming that the U.S. recession is over and that inflation threats have been neutralized. But their hasty optimism does not factor in that 58 percent of February’s year-over-year increase in retail sales was not from improving consumer confidence, but from surging food and gasoline prices. The NIA believes that price inflation is also accelerating in many economic sectors besides food and energy, and that any increases in 2010 U.S. retail sales will be the result of inflation.

Partly because the U-6 unemployment rate is on the verge of crossing the 17 percent mark, many retailers are reluctant to pass rising prices along to consumers. But if they wish to avoid reports of colossal losses to their shareholders, they will soon be forced to do just that.

Before this spike, inflation had not been a driving factor in the current economic downturn, and the Federal Reserve expected inflation to remain low throughout the year. But this unexpected jump in food prices and in other areas could quickly change that, especially when the increases are inevitably passed along to consumers and retail inflation starts to rise.

As shocking as it might be to a nation that has grown accustomed to abundance and convenience, mounting inflation and economic hardship will continue to feed each other, and eventually result in severe food shortages. The seeds of such a crisis have already been sown.



Watch the video above, and read the article 2010 Food Crisis for Dummies, carefully. My opinion is that these events (economic turmoil, terrorist threats, rising food prices, rising unemployment,etc.) are going to push many of the countries of the world (at the behest of elitists in positions of power who desire global government) to advocate consolidation of power into the control of the United Nations, IMF, the World Bank, and their affiliating institutions who have been behind the scenes pushing for a “New World Order.” - Sic Semper Tyrannis, Food Crisis 2010 and U.S. Dollar Impact, May 10, 2010

U.S. Food Inflation Spiraling Out of Control

By The National Inflation Association
April 22, 2010

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today released their Producer Price Index (PPI) report for March 2010 and the latest numbers are shocking. Food prices for the month rose by 2.4%, its sixth consecutive monthly increase and the largest jump in over 26 years. NIA believes that a major breakout in food inflation could be imminent, similar to what is currently being experienced in India.

Some of the startling food price increases on a year-over-year basis include, fresh and dry vegetables up 56.1%, fresh fruits and melons up 28.8%, eggs for fresh use up 33.6%, pork up 19.1%, beef and veal up 10.7% and dairy products up 9.7%. On October 30th, 2009, NIA predicted that inflation would appear next in food and agriculture, but we never anticipated that it would spiral so far out of control this quickly.

The PPI foreshadows price increases that will later occur in the retail sector. With U-6 unemployment rising last month to 16.9%, many retailers are currently reluctant to pass along rising prices to consumers, but they will soon be forced to do so if they want to avoid reporting huge losses to shareholders.

Food stamp usage in the U.S. has now increased for 14 consecutive months. There are now 39.4 million Americans on food stamps, up 22.4% from one year ago. The U.S. government is now paying out more to Americans in benefits than it collects in taxes. As food inflation continues to surge, our country will soon have no choice but to cut back on food stamps and other entitlement programs.

Most financial experts in the mainstream media are proclaiming that the recession is over and inflation is not a problem in the U.S. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that rising food and gasoline prices accounted for 58% of February's year-over-year 3.85% rise in retail sales. NIA believes price inflation is beginning to accelerate in many areas of the economy besides food and energy, and all increases in U.S. retail sales this year will be entirely due to inflation.

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