How To Stop Senate 510

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010.

Aware: Senate voted cloture on S.510 – and it passed 75-25. It will be voted on this week: Tell Senators to OPPOSE it. Call Senators to VOTE “NO” on S.510.

S.510 is a major threat to the local food movement. It greatly expands FDA’s jurisdiction over intrastate commerce and imposes one-size-fits-all regulations that will make it more difficult for small farms and food processors to remain in business. This bill is an egregious encroachment of gov’t intrusion in the form of central-planning by Obama in favor of large food producers like Monsanto. A monopoly of the food supply.

Background

(NaturalNews) Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, has been called “the most dangerous bill in the history of the United States of America.” It would grant the U.S. government new authority over the public’s right to grow, trade and transport any foods. This would give Big brother the power to regulate the tomato plants in your backyard. It would grant them the power to arrest and imprison people selling cucumbers at farmer’s markets. It would criminalize the transporting of organic produce if you don’t comply with the authoritarian rules of the federal government.

It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. This tyrannical law puts all food production (yes, even food produced in your own garden) under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. Yep — the very same people running the TSA and its naked body scanner / passenger groping programs.

This law would also give the U.S. government the power to arrest any backyard food producer as a felon (a “smuggler”) for merely growing lettuce and selling it at a local farmer’s market.

It also sells out U.S. sovereignty over our own food supply by ceding to the authority of both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Codex Alimentarius.

It would criminalize seed saving turning backyard gardeners who save heirloom seeds into common criminals. This is obviously designed to give corporations like Monsanto a monopoly over seeds.

It also includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals allowing mass slaughter of heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease.

It would create an unreasonable paperwork burden that would put small food producers out of business, resulting in more power over the food supply shifting to large multinational corporations. These burdensome regulations on small farms and food processors include everyone from your local CSA to the small bakers, jam makers, and cheesemakers at the local farmers market.

More than ever S.510 represents a major threat to the local food movement, states’ autonomy to regulate food, and the country’s ability to become self-sufficient in food production.

TAKE ACTION:

1. Call both of your Senators and ask them to oppose S.510. You can call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.

You can also go to Congress.org and type in your zip code in the box in the upper right hand corner. Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number.

Once connected, ask to speak to the legislative staff person responsible for agriculture. If they are unavailable leave a voicemail message. Be sure to include your name and phone number.

2. Send a live email message to your Senators through the online petition.

Be sure to follow up with phone calls.

Your Message

Give them this message in support of the “Tester Amendment” which would exempt small farms from S.510:

“I am a constituent of Senator___________. I ask that he/she support the Tester Amendment to the food safety bill. The Tester Amendment will exempt the safest, small, owner-operator farms and food facilities and farmers who direct market their products to consumers, stores or restaurants.

Food safety legislation should not create inappropriate and costly regulatory barriers to family farms and the growing healthy food movement in the drive to crack down on corporate bad actors. Please support the Tester Amendment and market opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms, and small food processing facilities.”

In fact, explain that you oppose the Food Safety Modernization Act in its entirety, and it is a destructive, freedom-crushing law that will destroy the future of food in America.

Remember, America has already lost control over its money supply to the Federal Reserve (nearly a hundred years ago). America has lost its health due to the medical industry and its profit-from-sickness agenda. Now we may lose our right to grow our own food and save our own seeds if Senate Bill 510 passes.

This is a dangerous, tyrannical law that would thrust the American people into an age of darkness and malnutrition. It would criminalize many of the very people growing our food and turn food production into yet another corporate monopoly.

Please take the time right now to contact your U.S. Senator and voice your strong opposition to this bill.

Talking Points:

TALKING POINTS

1. FDA has more than adequate powers under existing law to ensure food safety and effectively deal with foodborne illness outbreaks. FDA has power to inspect, power to detain product and can readily obtain court orders to seize adulterated or misbranded food products or enjoin them from being sold. The problem isn’t that FDA needs more power; it’s that FDA does not effectively use the power it currently has.

2. S.510 will give FDA extensive power to regulate food in intrastate commerce; state and local governments are more than capable of handling any problems related to food in intrastate commerce. All the major outbreaks of foodborne illness involve either imported food or food in interstate commerce.

3. S.510 will hurt our ability as a nation to be self-sufficient in food production; it has more lenient inspection requirements for foreign than domestic producers creating an unfair advantage for food imports. Giving an advantage to foreign producers will only increase the amount of food imported into this country that does not meet our domestic standards. The bill does not address food security–the ability of a country to produce enough food to meet its own needs.

4. S.510 will provide a competitive advantage to industrial food producers–the sector of the food system causing most of the food safety problems; they will benefit from this legislation because it will cripple many small farmers and local producers–the solution to the food safety problems in this country. The bill will impose burdensome regulations that will punish local food producers, many of whom won’t have the economies of scale to comply with S.510′s requirements.

5. S.510 gives FDA the power to dictate growers’ practices by establishing national standards for produce; the same standards applying to big firms-where the food safety problems have occurred-will apply as well to small growers who have had no food safety issues. Small growers will be forced to change practices that have produced safe, quality food.

6. S.510 does nothing to address many significant food safety problems in this country, such as those resulting from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and various contaminants (e.g., BPA, pesticides, herbicides, etc.).