Why I’m not Panicking About HR 875
Mar 16th, 2009 | By Sharon Astyk | Category: Food |I’ve gotten a lot of emails about HR 875, recently, asking me to weigh in, which meant that I actually had to go find the text of HR 875, and read it. This falls in the category of top 10 things I hate about writing – having to read anything created by committee, but I soldiered through it for y’all.
And I admit, there are some reasons to be a little troubled by this bill (and one not to be – from what I see, its chances of passing are very, very slim) – for example, some state laws about on-farm slaughter may be overridden by this. The national trackback capacity seems to reinforce the worst excesses of NAIS. However, it isn’t up there on the “signs of the apocalypse countdown” either.
The rhetoric has been overblown to a destructive degree. As Tom Philpott points out at Grist:
“I’ve been reading hysterical missives about H.R. 875 for weeks. I could never square them with the text of the bill, which is admittedly vague. For example, the bill seeks to regulate any “food production facility” which it defines as “any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.”
But then again, the USDA already regulates farms. And “24 hours GPS tracking of … animals”? Not in there. “Warrentless government entry” to farms? Can’t find it.
More recently, reading around the web, I found more reasoned takes on H.R. 875. The bill may not be worth supporting — and from what I hear, it has little chance of passing. But it hardly represents the “end of farming,” much less the end of organic farming. The Organic Consumers Association, an energetic food-industry watchdog, recently called the paranoia around H.R. 875 the “Internet rumor of the week.”
The Organic Consumers Association has this to say:
The Organic Consumers Association is not taking a position for or against this bill, but encouraging its members to write to Congress to urge it to enact food safety legislation that addresses the inherent dangers of our industrialized food system without burdening certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations.
Quite sensibly, the OCA wants Congress to avoid “one-size-fits-all legislation.” Regulations that make sense for a 1000-acre spinach farm could push a diversified operation that includes spinach in its crop mix out of business. Sustainable-food advocates should oppose H.R. 875 until it adds scale-appropriate language.
But effective opposition does not mean indulging in fictional rants about it. There’s no evidence that the bill aims to end farming; insisting that it does destroys credibility.”
Tom has this just right. Overstatement does not help our cause – this is one of the reasons I avoided writing much about the Manna Storehouse raid – because the internet version of this, in which a wild eyed SWAT team attacked innocent coop owners was, ummm…exaggerated. The best evidence I can find suggest that a Sherriff’s deputy did prevent the family (who had openly engaged in civil disobedience by refusing to conform to existing regulation for food sales – last I checked, when you flout laws you consider unjust, you probably will get a visit from said enforcers) from going anywhere while their facilities were being examined, but the SWAT team waving uzis around was no where to be found.
Now I am not happy about the way our existing laws favor industrial agriculture. I am not happy about the ways that government regulation has regulated small farmers out of existence. I don’t like HR 875, and am glad it doesn’t stand much of a chance of passing. I don’t like the assumptions that underlie HR 875, which implies that all agriculture should be regulated uniformly, and that the risk from small farms is equivalent to the risk from massive industrial farms, neither of which are true.
But I think the best way to defeat things like HR 875 are not by exaggerating their danger, but by addressing their limitations in a balanced way. So much of the job of small farming advocates is undermining the lies told by industrial agriculture – and they tell a lot of lies. We can’t afford to tell lies – they’ve got the money and resources to magnify any mistake, any falsehood, any mis-statement. We can’t afford, even honestly, to not make our case on the right grounds.
Sharon
Thank you for helping us with this. I would hate to be reduced to a serf on my own property.
Dear Sharon,
After reading your article, I’m shocked that you would have taken the stance that you have. The response to this bill is not paranoid, it is a very real concern for all small farmers across America. You failed to address relevant issues, such as DeLaurio’s connections to Monsanto, as well as the unconstitutional facets within this bill that will literally have every representative who votes for it, break their oath by this very action. Further, just for starters, how do you think the small farmer will pay a million in fines and how will they do if their farm is taken away from them? You decided, unwisely, to rest your laurels upon the organic certification’s standpoint, which makes it’s anti HR 875 stance quite clear, through the lines. Sharon, hang your head for a faulty job and go get your reading glassed back on and peruse this bill a few more times! Everybody should be terrified of this bill, both farmers, and consumers who deserve to have full access to organic food, naturally grown.
I have to say that I agree with Elizabeth. Thrift stores, libraries, and cottage industry producers of handmade items are already seeing the repercussions of the pernicious term “all” in regards to items for those twelve and under with the new CPSIA regulations. They can say all they want that it wasn’t “intended” that way, but the language is in the bill.
People can say all they want that HR 875 isn’t aimed at the small-scale producer, the homesteader, the farm market, but look at the language. “Any”. ANY farm. Look what happened with CPSIA’s three-letter word. What makes you think “it can’t happen here” as so many are saying about what’s happening in our country right now?
Not to mention what Elizabeth said: DeLauro has connections to Monsanto! That right there is enough to disconcert me, without the questionable bill language.
I just thought I’d add this viewpoint to the tally:
“I have no doubt that this legislation was heavily influenced by lobbyists from huge food producers. This legislation is so broad based that technically someone with a little backyard garden could get fined and have their property seized. It will effect 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.
…
Didn’t Stalin nationalize farming methods that enabled his administration to gain control over the food supply? Didn’t Stalin use the food to control the people?
Last word…… Legislate religion and enforce gag orders on ministers on what can and can’t be said in the pulpit, instituting regulations forcing people to rely solely on the government, control the money and the food. What is that called? It is on the tip of my tongue……….”
All of the above is from http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=12671
I’m just sayin’.
Hey Guys,
My name is Hayley and I work for Food & Water Watch, our policy experts have carefully gone over HR 875 and composed a response to it. I’m posting it here to hopefully clear a few things up. There are actually 6 food safety bills being circulated in Congress, but only one seems to be receiving a lot of attention. Representative Rosa DeLauro’s Food Safety Modernization Act – H.R. 875 – would overhauling the totally dysfunctional Food and Drug Administration. But the rumor mill has this legislation pegged as something entirely different.
Here are a few things that H.R. 875 DOES do:
- It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of FDA by splitting it into two new agencies –one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.
- It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of inspection on the risk of the product being produced – but it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees.
- It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.
- It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.
And just as importantly, here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:
- It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish.)
- It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.
- It does not regulate backyard gardens.
- It does not regulate seed.
- It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.
- It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food that is sold across state lines).
- It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve traceability of foods, but specifically says that recordkeeping can be done electronically or on paper.)
However! Several of the other bills include provisions that should worry small farmers – like H.R. 814, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system, or H.R. 759, which is more likely to move through Congress than H.R. 875 and calls for electronic recordkeeping on farms and registration fees for processing plants
I hope this helped!
This bill was drafted by madmen thinking that one agency could control growers, processors, distributors, food handlers, and others in the vast maze of individuals, industries and governments operating in the food world.
This very idea is insane. There are tens of thousands of producers, tens of thousands of processors and distributors and handlers. to think some bureaucrat could walk into a French cheese factory and tell the owner how to make cheese that complies with the agency’s absurd rules about pasturization, sanitation, cleanliness like make him get rid of his wooden vats, his wooden spoons, his wooden floors, his wooden shoes; that his counters must be stainless steel, his washroom and toilet facilities must be tiled, his factory must be temp comtrolled…stop right there.
How about farmers having to fill out yet another set of govt forms prying into their cleanliness? How often do you wash your hands, do you have certain kinds of approved soaps? do you check your water for contamination? No? Then chlorinate it. Do you check for certain microbs? No, then DO IT or ELSE.
Do you wash your pigs every day? No then DO IT ors ELSE. Do you wash your manure spreader with approved soaps? Do you have stainless steel wherever food is handled, stored or touched? Do all your workers wear plastic gloves all the time? How many string beans did you pick last week, this week? Who touched them? Where did your string beans go? Do you keep records of everyone that touches food, of every shipment , of every sale of string beans at the farmers market, every bean to be marked with your number. This govt is paranoid. They think collecting endless streams of info is going to deter microbs in the same way that endless checking of bags and shoes protects Americans from terrorists.
This is a huge exercise in giganticism. WE THE GOVT WILL PROTECT YOU FROM BAD, BAD BUGS. YOUR FOOD WILL BE SAFE BY DECREE. WE WILL DECREE THAT ALL FOOD IS IRRADIATED, CHLORINATED AND NUCLEATED UNTIL IT IS TASTELESS, POINTLESS AND WORTHLESS. THEN YOU WILL B SAFE.
Vote NO on this Bill.
Hi there,
I have heard alot of hear-say about this bill criminalizing organic farming on various blog sites,
and I too was very mad and concerned about the possibility of no more organics ( = cancer on a plate),
but I can’t find much official recognition through ANY credible sources yet of these implications being true. Finally I sat down to read the bill myself, and I am starting to understand Sharon’s point of view more. Also, Hayley from Food & Water Watch, which is an organization I follow, and would expect they can understand legal-ese speak much better than many of us laypeople. Thank you both for clarifying some issues.
I do still have my doubts, especially because HR 875, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro. whose husband Stanley Greenburg works for Monsanto! Naturally, that is cause for concern about fair play.
Just to clarify, I have my own sustainable business, so I am especially concerned about environmentally conscious issues, yet I am not a lawyer or politician, so I can’t claim to know anything for sure, but here are my own personal findings from reading the bill.
it says nothing specifically with the word ORGANIC or natural.
it does say no diseased animals will be sent to slaughter,
no animals should be slaughtered inside facilities which share other groups of food products,
(which would prevent the outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter and tomatoes?)
and any contaminants should be stated clearly, and related illnesses should be published,
including pesticide residue…
so that part looks like a really positive step TOWARDS organic foods;
still wondering if there’s others things hidden here that have been.
the big question I think is that it proposes setting up a new agency to investigate these things,
but WHO will inform these issues,
and depending on who they are WHAT they would deem to be a health risk,
which are big unanswered questions for me.
IF everyone played fair & took factual & experiential info from a variety of sources, it could be good.
IF not, and agribusiness sits on the board and thinks organics are dangerous, it could have disastrous connotations.
I do agree with Sharon, that everyone should go to her link and read the bills for themselves, and if you can’t understand the jargon, send it to a lawyer friend who will. I just did that and am awaiting their feedback. Will let you know if I discover anything else.
Take the time to read the bill yourself, please!
OK, I had some more friends who read legal-speak take a look at this bill
The biggest thing is that they are proposing a new government agency, but why can’t we just make the old one do what it is meant to do?
While those regulations and labeling looks great at a glance, and there is an obvious need for regulation to control contamination and hence illness,most of the specific things outlined here are ALREADY regulations that are in place, but they are NOT being followed up on,
hence that is why diseased animals are sent to slaughter and fed to humans, or fed to vegetarian animals resulting in mad cow disease, or meat gets into a facility that makes peanut butter and causes salmonella, etc.
So, more than needing a new law or regulating agency, they need to do a more extensive investigations with the FDA or USDA already in place.
This bill doesn’t say anything specifically about organic. And for that matter, it doesn’t say that foods should ideally meet up to an organic standard to be “safe” for the consumer, or if they should measure up to a pesticide-laden GMO practices. It doesn’t define these things, I think it leaves too much room for unknown and questionable parties to make their own definition of what is right.
The rep. who wrote this bill, her husband works for Monsanto, a big agribusiness, who along with many others, including presidents around the world are trying to globalize the food industry, presumably as a way to further horde the or market for themselves, and furthermore control the people’s lifestylle.
In any case, it doesn’t look fair for smaller businesses, whether they are organic or not. And I think that is totally un-American. THAT is the biggest concern, that is Facism, my friends.
Tiffany
PS. I called my federal congress reps and voiced my concern.
Apparently they are already getting alot of calls in opposition.
Now I am waiting to hear more about it from credible media sources.
Some of the claims (like the Monstanto connection) don’t seem to be holding up to scrutiny.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/organic.asp
Not that we shouldn’t read these things very carefully. But fact-checking is a very important part of the process. A lot of things are getting thrown around (still) about this bill. Let’s not take anything for granted.
all very well said. thank you for being one of the few in the ‘blogosphere’ (groan) not exaggerating this bill to absurd proportions.