USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

[petertribo]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Here is another link. I guess it was fearmongering to suggest there were no WMDs, no Torture, no Bubble, no FIRE, etc. When will people learn the lessons of the past and apply them to the present?

What this will do is force anyone who produces food of any kind, and then transports it to a different location for sale, to register with a new federal agency called the “Food Safety Administration.” Even growers who sell just fruit and/or vegetables at farmers markets would not only have to register, but they would be subject inspections by federal agents of their property and all records related to food production. The frequency of these inspections will be determined by the whim of the Food Safety Administration. Mandatory “safety” records would have to be kept. Anyone who fails to register and comply with all of this nonsense could be facing a fine of up to $1,000,000 per violation.

http://cryptogon.com/?p=7362

TSA should make a great Bookend for FSA, another new Federal Agency. Think of all the wonderful work TSA has done. Some folks just love those new Federal Agencies sucking on the Bankrupt US Treasury, just can't get enough of them

[dbarberic]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

I have to wonder why the all the United States wineries would not be all up in arms about this and fighting too against this.

Many of the great California wines, like Girgich Hills, have gone to bio-dynamic farming, which is even a more strict version of organic farming. Wineries are tweaking thier farming methods to make each of thier own wines more unique and better than others.

Occording to the proposed legislation, the Feds can come in and make a great winery spray artifical pecticides and use artifical ferterlizer. That is totally against what these wineries are trying to do.

[jtabeb]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Thank you! I can stop laughing about the original post now.

I would expect no less from a man who's title includes "bunker being built below dairy/ag complex".

[Spartacus]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

scientist who works with antibiotic resistance, this could be very, very bad news if it is true.

Does self-regulation in the industry work? Apparently not. Just look at the record

It works great when there's a populace with
not TOO much greed
some measure of public spiritedness

A little greed - enough to find better ways of doing things,

but not TOO much greed
which leads to cutting corners and compromising safety for pennies

EDIT: a bit or a rambling rant ....

I heard something very funny a few years ago.

One local practice a bit north of here is where the pig farmers spread the manure on top of the snow in winter. Somehow they have the idea that it fertilizes better that way. A farm economist said it's the cheapest way to get rid of the manure.

It's a problem because some bacteria seem to be getting into the ground water. One farmer interviewed said

"farmers can't hurt the environment. Farmers are the original environmentalists. "

Wow. A built in excuse to pollute. "I'm the original environmentalist. by definition nothing I do can cause pollution."

Reminded me of an interview with a Japanese person some time ago
"Japanese live in harmony with nature. We revere nature."

Yeah, that's why you've killed more whales than all other countries combined, right? Dangerously depleted fisheries all over the world with the widest, biggest, deepest nets.

So many people are just sooooo delusional.

[cjppjc]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Yes many people are delusional:

It works great when there's a populace with
not TOO much greed
some measure of public spiritedness

A little greed - enough to find better ways of doing things,

but not TOO much greed
which leads to cutting corners and compromising safety for pennies

[Spartacus]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Yes many people are delusional:

ooohhh apply the rapier at just the right point.

touché

a bit of my own self delusion ... that one could very finely titrate the exact amount of greed that's "good" for a society.

[cjppjc]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

ooohhh apply the rapier at just the right point.

touché

a bit of my own self delusion ... that one could very finely titrate the exact amount of greed that's "good" for a society.

Si Senor. But it doesn't make you a bad person.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Come on guys, can't we do at least a little bit of background research before posting fear-mongering stuff like this?

In case you hadn't noticed, there have been significant outbreaks of food borne diseases lately; spinach, tomatoes, peanuts, halapenos, and so on. The article about MRSA in pigs posted upthread is downright scary.

That's a nice bit of fear mongering there yourself, sir, with little apparent research into the bill to back it up.

You have an ingrown toenail. The doctor scares you with stories of gangrene and horrible death, and prescribes amputation of your left arm, for a princely sum.

That's what the Banksters, who have been controlling the past three or four administrations at least, have been doing, and are especially doing now, with their Porkulus Stimulus packages and unaccountable bailout trillions, and that's what this farm bill would do, if enacted in response to scare tactics using such food borne disease outbreaks.

I can deal with fairly massive financial intervention and collapse rather well. But I value my physical health quite a bit more than my financial health, and the industrialized food produced by big Ag is deeply unhealthy. To be quite honest, I might not buy a gun to protect my gold or cash, but I might well buy a gun to protect my source of what food I consider healthy, even if it meant fighting to the death, and losing the fight.

This proposed bill is a massive flipping outrage. I take exception to efforts to justify it using fear mongering mentions of recent food poisoning outbreaks.

[GRG55]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

I would expect no less from a man who's title includes "bunker being built below dairy/ag complex".

Exactly!

And if they try to stop me from growing tomatos I'm going to call in for air support...

Completely off topic...I was chatting with the French chief pilot of my [ex]Chairman's G550 about the Turkish Air smackdown at Schiphol. He said that there was a check pilot in the right seat, and a third in the jump. Apparently a major difference between the port and starboard radar altimeter readings caused the autothrottles to retard and nobody reacted until it was too late? Now that kind of failure in CRM is scary as hell. Apparently they hit with the airplane stalled and the engines at full thrust. You hearing anything that contradicts this? PM me if so, please.

Maybe we need to start an aviation safety thread here, as an info source for people making decisions as to which carriers to fly, as things are bound to get dicier as the economy spins down and the airlines keep trying to squeeze costs...and confidence in government regulators [including air safety standards?] continues to erode. So far all the indications at Buffalo are that a low time-on-type crew stuffed a perfectly good airplane by flying it outside the envelope...

[bpr]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Rosa DeLauro is an idiot and should be out of office in the next election. What blatant cronyism!!

Unrelated, but DeLauro committed the single most idiotic act I've ever seen a public official do, when she buried her own motion.

The motion was an amendment to an appropriations bill that would repeal a DOL agreement to notify Wal-Mart 15 days before investigating child labor law transgressions.

I was watching C-Span at the time, because the bill was directed at limiting a lot of programs I'm personally interested in, but thought this moment was amazing. DeLauro's amendment came up for a vote and the Yeas had it, but just as the speaker announced that the amendment passed, DeLauro, expecting a Nay vote, requested a roll-call vote. Right after the words came out of her mouth there was some commotion and chuckling by the surrounding legislators and she herself let out a sigh of disbelief. When it came to roll-call, the amendment was lost, most likely due to congress members not wanting to be on record against Wal-Mart. Had she not requested the roll-call, the amendment would have been tacked onto the bill.

At the time, I thought it might have been on purpose (she was introducing popular legislation she did not actually want passed), but she later introduced the legislation again. I don't know if it ever went anywhere, or if Wal-Mart still gets a call fifteen dys before DOL sends in investigators.

[MarkL]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

The War On Drugs now comes to Vegetables:

Supermarket chains and Food Manufacturers will love this also since they are the purveyors of all the Industrial, Processed, highly chemicalized material passed off as "food". Nothing like getting the Government to criminalize your competition.

http://cryptogon.com/?p=7362

Obama has only been in a short time but the Lobbyists had this bill all ready to go and pillage the American Farmer and Consumer. Obviously, Agribusiness made sufficient "contributions" to get this bill started. Thanks a lot, Barry.

Over the last 10 years this has already been successfully done by Monsanto with seeds. They proposed and passed legislation that makes it illegal to store or sell seeds unless they've been processed through a 1-1.5 million dollar "seed cleaning" machine... again all under guise of public safety. Now guess who is "enforcing" these laws? Not the government. Pinkerton, hired my Monsanto, watches farmers markets and small seed supply houses where private seeds might be sold, and if they're not supplied by obviously big agribusiness (since they are the only ones that can afford the seed-cleaning machines) they threaten to both turn them in and sometimes sue. Naturally most farmers buckle. They can't hire a law firm for 2 years, and the community knows of the many cases won against their fellow farmers. It's then just easier to buy Monsanto...

The corporations learn from each other. Mattel recently got a law passed that requires all toys and children's clothes to be tested for lead paint. Ironically(?) it was Mattel's own China-toy-boondoggle that started the public fear here. Lead testing on all toys and clothes for kids sounds great, eh? The result however, is that thousands of private American's that make natural wooden toys (even though there's no paint to be seen on them!) now must purchase a $700 scanner and scan everyone of their toys to comply. Home knitted and small organic children's clothing makers are all going out of business. This law went into effect just last month (Feb 09).

Some may think the referenced post is extremest... but it's not. These corporations are using our own government against us, and succeeding. It's simple to put in the law an exception for farmers market, growers under some fixed size, etc. But this didn't happen with seeds or toys that don't use paint, and won't for food either, because this is big corporation's way of killing off the small competition.

Don't believe me? Google the words "monsanto seed cleaning" or check out http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/14/smal...companies.smb/

[MarkL]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

A little more research will show that our corporations are using our government to put the small guy out of business. It'd be easy to put in a clause omitting farmers markets and growers below a certain size... but this won't happen. Oh... and please don't forget that it's NOT the small growers that have caused these health problems... it's the big ones. Check out my longer post on the subject tied to the main post on the proposed laws.

[petertribo]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

I can deal with fairly massive financial intervention and collapse rather well. But I value my physical health quite a bit more than my financial health, and the industrialized food produced by big Ag is deeply unhealthy....

This proposed bill is a massive flipping outrage. I take exception to efforts to justify it using fear mongering mentions of recent food poisoning outbreaks.

Spot on about the health. I am not financially concerned but health wise, the system is very bad on all fronts. Fortunately, we can get a lot of good food locally. A lot of people who post here have no idea of what food and nutrition are. Just like financial illiteracy, nutrition and health illiteracy will exact its cost, to them and their children. I used to attend the Northeast Organic Farming Association conferences at Hampshire College in Western MA back in the 80s. Changed my life.

As to the bill, it is indeed remarkable that after all the Bush/Cheney Fearmongering, Lies and Deceit over the past eight years to start wars, etc. that some people fall for the exact same techniques. That is what is really tragic. Just start the stampede and they join right in.

I also enjoyed the other posts demonstrating a good understanding of our Machiavellian and deceitful political process, and many of the other issues surrounding American Agriculture.

[petertribo]

Re: USA: Possible $1,000,000 Fine For GROWING A Tomato

Here's some GOOD AGRICULTURAL NEWS:

is.jpg

FDA APPROVES SALMONELLA

WASHINGTON—Calling it "perfectly safe for the most part," and "not nearly as destructive or fatal as previously thought," the Food and Drug Administration approved the enterobacteria salmonella for human consumption this week.

FDA director Stephen Sundlof okays the bacteria for eating, drinking, and applying directly to the skin.

The federal agency, which has struggled in recent years to contain the food-borne pathogen, and repeatedly failed to prevent tainted products from reaching store shelves, announced Monday that salmonella was now completely okay for all Americans to enjoy.

"Rigorous testing has shown that salmonella is...fine," FDA director of food safety Stephen Sundlof said. "In fact, our research indicates that there's no need to pull any more foodstuffs from the market. Not raw chicken. Not contaminated spinach. Not thousands of jars of harmful peanut butter. Not anything."

"It's approved," Sundlof continued."Healthy, delicious salmonella is finally approved."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/93748

Thanks be that we have those 10,000 highly paid Lobbyists working with a corrupt Congress to protect us all. And a new Decider to sign all their well crafted Lobbyslation.