American Legislation

Does anyone know anything about BIll S.510 ?  I got a frantic email about it but a) I'm not an American  and b) I couldn't quite make out the details which were alarming..

There was a discussion on that bill in this thread:  scroll down a bit -

https://permies.com/bb/index.php?topic=1535.0

I hope this helps....

Apparently you can't take a quote from one thread and put it into another so
Start Quote
"The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510), which was recently
approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions, would expand our food safety system and protect consumers
while exempting small farmers and local food businesses from unnecessary
and overreaching requirements. During the debate on the bill,
I introduced an amendment to ensure that farms, small businesses,
and businesses that sell directly to consumers are represented in the
process of developing guidance in the public safety standards and that
the FDA conduct outreach and education to these folks through local
public meetings. I am pleased to report that my amendment was accepted.

I also worked with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to
include language in the bill that would utilize current state food
safety inspectors  instead of new FDA employees, which encourages
better coordination among local, state, and federal food safety
agencies, and a common sense approach to food safety as it related to
small farms." END QUOTE

This sounds just like our politicians, the say a lot but none of it MEANS anything. Who is to say that something is unnecessary? Who decides what constitutes representation of the farmers etc ? Who selects the representatives and how many of them are there? Is their opinion binding or can it be ignored? Who decides what is "common sense", widely believed to be anything BUT common?

If this is the language of the Bill, no wonder the email was frantic; there isn't any protection here for anyone; it amounts to "there there, little one, don't bother worrying about anything, we know what's best, you can TRUST us" 

Whoever said "guard your freedoms well or you will lose them" was right on the money. If this was in my area I would be screaming with anxiety. Politicians always have your best interests at heart , dontcha know.....

the state of Michigan jumped out ahead of this bill and passed a cottage industry law that protects Michigan citizens from the bill

My understanding is that this gives small growers who sell produce and animals off of their farms an exemption from the requirements that the corporate giants have lobbied for. For example: I can raise healthy organic  pastured chickens and sell smaller quantities to you the consummer with out taking them to the USDA inspected processing plant to be intermingled with the thousands of confinement raised chickens. Or with the recent egg recall wouldn't rather buy eggs from a neighbor who cares for their welfare in a way where they are not in an environment that requires that they be vaccinated. Bills like this give us the freedom to buy local, health food, rather than factory farmed, environmentally damaging food.
kent

My understanding is that you already HAD that right; that this bill potentially restricts the right through requiring massive amounts of paperwork, inspections (which the producer has to pay for) and restrictions regarding what is considered safe. Some of these are already in place..there are few places where selling raw milk is allowed; potentially this bill would seem to go much much further in that direction.

guess I don't know what I'm talking about, sorry.
kent

There are a lot of valid concerns about this bill, but I have also seen some viral emails that are straight out of the twilight zone.

To keep up on this bill, I trust the folks at the Organic Consumer's Association. Here's their latest on this bill -

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21293.cfm

I know this thread is getting old but I wanted to point out that the feds only have authority to legislate in regards to INTERSTATE commerce, and not intrastate, so if you don't sell across state lines they can't enforce this legislation on you.
Of course, that being said, if they do show up at your farm, you have to have the gahonies to stand up to them on it.

People keep loosing their head over this bill, but no one who has actually read it seems to be in their number.  It's a lot like the Death Panels in the health care reform act (colloquially Obamacare [formerly Romneycare{Originally Dolecare}])