From: info@westonaprice.org
Subject: SENATE FOOD SAFETY BILL Take Action

SENATE FOOD SAFETY BILL

Start the New Year off right, by talking with your Senators about safe and healthy food!

Big Ag and Big Food have distributed melamine-contaminated milk from China and salmonella-contaminated peppers from Mexico. Yet Congress hasn’t gotten the message that they need to solve the real problems – the centralized food distribution system and imported foods – and not regulate our local food sources out of business.

In November, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) approved S. 510, the “FDA Modernization Act of 2009.” Although the Committee members made several comments about addressing the concerns of small and sustainable farmers, S. 510 still imposes many burdensome and inappropriate requirements on local foods, without solving many of the real problems in the mainstream, centralized food system.

The full Senate is expected to vote on it early this year, possibly even this month (January 2010). Please take action now!

TAKE ACTION:

Call both of your Senators. You can find their contact information at www.Senate.gov, or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or toll-free at 877-210-5351.
Ask to speak with the staffer who handles food safety issues. Engage that staffer in a discussion about the importance of local, nutrient-dense foods to you and your family, and why your local food sources should not be subject to FDA regulation. If you get their voice mail instead of the staff, leave the following message:
“Hi, my name is _____ and I live in ______. I’m very concerned that S.510, the FDA Modernization Act, imposes unfair and burdensome regulations on local food sources, which are very important to me. The Committee version of the bill does not address my concerns, and I’d like to talk with you about where the Senator stands on this issue. Please call me back at ____________.”

And stay tuned for the next alert! We will be asking you to call again when the Senate is about to vote on S 510. BOTH of these calls are important – the call now educates the Senators on the issues, and the call before the vote lets them know how their constituents want them to vote at the critical moment.

TALKING POINTS
1. The major foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls have all been caused by the large, industrial food system. Small, local food producers have not contributed to the highly publicized outbreaks. Yet S. 510 subjects the small, local food system to the same, broad federal regulatory oversight that would apply to the industrial food system.

2. FDA regulation of local food processors is unnecessary and overly burdensome. FDA has not used its existing authority well. Instead of focusing its resources on the problems posed by imported foods and large processing facilities, it has chosen to target small processors. While approving unlabeled GMOs to enter our food supply, it has outlawed raw milk and interfered with the free choice of informed adults who want access to this healthy food. Simply giving FDA increased authority and power will not improve the food supply because the agency needs to have clear limits set by Congress to prevent it from targeting small producers and raw dairy.

3. Relying on HACCP will harm small processors. Increased regulations and record-keeping obligations could destroy small businesses that bring food to local communities. In particular, the reliance on HACCP (the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system) will harm small food producers. Although the theory of preventative controls is a good one for large, complex facilities, the federal agencies’ implementation of HACCP, with its requirements to develop and maintain extensive records, has already proven to be an overwhelming burden for a significant number of small, regional meat processors across the country. In the meat industry, HACCP has substituted paperwork review for independent inspections of large meatpacking plants, while sanctioning small processors for paperwork violations that posed no health threat. Applying a HACCP system to small, local foods processors could drive them out of business, reducing consumers’ options to buy fresh, local foods.

4. FDA does not belong on the farm. S. 510 calls for FDA regulation of how farms grow and harvest produce. Given the agency’s track record, it is likely that the regulations will discriminate against small, organic, and diversified farms. The House version of the bill directs FDA to consider the impact of its rulemaking on small-scale and diversified farms, but there are no enforceable limits or protections for small diversified and organic farms from inappropriate and burdensome federal rules.

5. The bill’s requirements apply to all food, not just food in interstate commerce. On its face, the bill applies to any farm or food producer, regardless of location, size, or scope of distribution.

6. S. 510 favors foreign farms and producers over domestic. The bill creates incentives for retailers to import more food from other countries, because it burdens family farms and small business and because it will be practically impossible to hold foreign food facilities to the same standards and inspections. The bill will create a considerable competitive disadvantage for ALL U.S. agriculture and food production (see analysis at http://ftcldf.org/news/news-20Oct2009-2.html).

Hello NAIS fighters,
Please spread the news of this protest far and wide.  Email it to your entire contact list, call on your neighbors and let them know that there are people standing up for their right to farm as they wish without big brother constantly looking over their shoulder, and by all means contact your local newspaper editor and give them a copy of this press release.  If you have time, make the trip down to Jefferson City, MO and meet some of these fine people.  Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Association is sending six representatives down there to take part in this peaceful protest.  We could arrange some sort of group transportation if there are any of you who want to travel to Jefferson City, MO but are limited financially.

Feel free to contact me by phone about any of this.

Thanks,

C.J. Cordell II

WICFA – President

(715) 418-0424

cj@wicfa.org

www.wicfa.org

Press Release

Contact;  Paul Hamby  816 632 0602

For immediate release

June 5, 2009 Jefferson City, Missouri………….

Farmers, Ranchers and Consumers will hold a protest of the NAIS – National Animal ID System on Tuesday June 9 from 8 am to 12 noon. The protest will run concurrently with the USDA NAIS listening session at Truman Hotel & Conference Center in Jefferson City, Missouri.   More than a dozen organizations have signed on in support of the peaceful protest and will have members attending to speak out against NAIS.  The USDA has been pushing for mandatory NAIS, originally calling for mandatory in January of 2008 and with enforcements in January of 2009, but has delayed implementation due to huge public outcry against the program.   USDA is now asking for public input on how to overcome objections to the program.    Bob Parker, a southern Missouri farmer, has toured the state speaking out against NAIS,   “The USDA does not want to accept that the people are against this program.  They are asking how to make it more palatable. Our message to USDA is to end NAIS now.”

NAIS is a three phase program designed by the USDA and the Nat’l Institute for Animal Agriculture to advance guidelines for international trade through an agency of the World Trade Organization called the OIE.  NAIS will tag and track movements of 33 species of animals worldwide.  Phase 1 requires livestock owners to obtain a GPS linked Premise ID number for their property.  Phase 2 requires all animals be identified with an international ID device.  Phase 3 requires electronic reporting of movements on or off a premises to effectuate 48 hour trace-back to the premises of origin of any and every animal. Each phase is predicated upon the preceding phase.  There can be no NAIS animal ID without a NAIS premises ID.

Opposition to NAIS is strongest from independent cattlemen, small farmers and hobbyists.

Doreen Hannes  is a researcher, author and public speaker whose family has a small farm and raises much of their own food.  She states, “The design of NAIS is effectively a license to farm. This program would cost us at least $4,000 the first year. There is no method for growers to recoup the cost of the program, and the implementation of NAIS will be the destruction of the family farm and rural America. The cost to freedom is simply immeasurable.”

“The Missouri Libertarian Party has worked with farmers and ranchers in Missouri for years to prevent implementation of the burdensome regulations of the National Animal Identification System being forced on them by the USDA”, Glenn Nielsen, Missouri Libertarian Party Chair.

Paul Hamby, NW Missouri coordinator for Campaign for Liberty, states  “NAIS will put an undue burden on non-electric Amish farmers,  small hobby farmers, 4-H and FFA members while providing no benefit to them.  NAIS will not make our food supply safer.  I am against this international livestock ID program run by the same federal government who just bought General Motors. ”

The following organizations are sending members to Jefferson City to speak against NAIS on June 9.
R-CALF USA,  Missouri Campaign for Liberty,  Arkansas Animal Producers Association,
International Dairy Goat Registry,  Missouri Independent Consumers and Farmers Organization,
Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Organization,  Ozarks Property Rights Congress,
Missouri First, Inc.,  Liberty Restoration Project,  Legislators Against Real ID,  Missouri Libertarian Party,
Missouri Constitution Party, Missouri Rural Crises Center,  Citizens for Private Property, Douglas County Citizens for Liberty.

For interviews or talk radio guests call,

Doreen Hannes 417 349 9625/417 962 0030

Bob Parker 417 257 8711

Ray Cunio 314 223 6925

Paul Hamby 816 632 0602

Updates and links to organizations listed above www.missouriansagainstnais.com

Why wouldn’t Secretary Vilsack want to visit the first state in which compliance with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was made mandatory? After all, if it’s such a good idea, wouldn’t you think the USDA would want to show it off? Tom Vilsack gave Wisconsin a wide berth on his “listening” tour because he knows just how ill-received the program has been here, which proves that while he may or may not be “listening,” he sure has heard the ruckus small-scale producers in Wisconsin have been making over the program.

Family farmers across the nation are fighting mad over the NAIS, which most of us realize is nothing more than a veiled attempt at controlling our food sovereignty and our independence. And while farm advocacy groups and grassroots movements have done a pretty good job at putting up road blocks, the USDA just keeps coming. So, instead of always being on the defense, perhaps its time for family farmers, small-scale producers, and homesteading enthusiasts to go on the offense, to bring the fight to the USDA. (more…)