BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 22 Nov 10 - 02:34 AM

Was only teasing, Jon .... :-)

At least some of it is now used in 'processed food' where cosmetic blemishes don't matter. What I think is criminal is when excess harvests are just dumped, or worse, farmers find that if they sell it they lose money and just dump it.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 11:42 PM

I mean the sense for example is there may be nothing wrong with an ugly looking potato or no need to see all apples on a shelf should be the exactly the same shape and colour. And yes I think that means stopping wastage of good food.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 11:20 PM

"I think at one time EU regs tried to do that but they later saw sense, "

I do hope you didn't mean they saw sens and stopped trying to track the wastage... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 10:39 PM

how much food worldwide is dumped and wasted because of purely visible visible defects?

I think at one time EU regs tried to do that but they later saw sense,

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 10:26 PM

"That is a matter of economics, not one of food safety. The steak you can buy at a supermarket just has more visible fat and gristle than the one served at a 5-star restaurant. The artichoke is smaller, less perfectly-shaped and may have spot or two. "

And it's expensive too - do you know how much food worldwide is dumped and wasted because of purely visible visible defects?

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 10:29 AM

QUOTE:

Cosponsors:
Lamar Alexander [R-TN]
Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]
Richard Burr [R-NC]
Roland Burris [D-IL]
Robert Casey [D-PA]
Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]
      
Christopher Dodd [D-CT]
Michael Enzi [R-WY]
Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Judd Gregg [R-NH]
Thomas Harkin [D-IA]
Orrin Hatch [R-UT]
      
John Isakson [R-GA]
Edward Kaufman [D-DE]
Edward Kennedy [D-MA]
Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Robert Menéndez [D-NJ]


ENQUOTE

I agree that some of those sonsors and co-sponsors should not be re-elected. Especially those who are no longer in office. As well as those who are DEAD.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 08:43 AM

True. California has a giant shrimp on steroids too. His name is Arnold.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 07:55 AM

I understand that shrimp / prawn in UK that is shipped from farms in Asia are pumped up with steroids to make them bigger.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: kendall
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 07:16 AM

Q I simply used Viet Nam because it was the first one that popped into my head.
Years ago we had tons of Canadian Lobsters coming into Maine and being sold as Maine Lobsters. Fishermen were furious, even though there is not one iota of difference between them.
However, seafood imported from some other countries, Viet Nam for example, is another story.
I'll just wait for Maine shrimp to come in season.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 06:19 AM

"Restaurants and food processing companies get to cream the best before supermarkets get a hand in. Am I wrong?

Yep, the most perfect vegetables, fruit and cuts of meat are shipped to New York City and other wealthy cities where people seem to feel entitled to the best of the best all the time. California's best produce also goes to Japan.

That is a matter of economics, not one of food safety. The steak you can buy at a supermarket just has more visable fat and gristle than the one served at a 5-star restaurant. The artichoke is smaller, less perfectly-shaped and may have spot or two.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 05:46 AM

Oh and on meat VT. Living with veggies. I eat little but the bacon from the local garage/come Spar shop comes from a local North Walsham butcher. It is far from the stuff UK supermarkets often sell that sort of disintegrates (or shrinks) generating a lot of froth.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 05:32 AM

I still think there is luck, it depends on where you live and where you shop in the UK, VT. My perhaps as a smoker can not always taste the differences but there are some things like a sack of main crop spuds or onions I'd use Groveland, a local farm shop in preference to a supermarket and they are reasonably priced.

OTOH, while it doesn't answer your GM question, some things simply can not be beaten from home. Peas, runner beans, salad potatoes, spinach, asparagus, sweet corn, salad leaves, tomatoes.... If I do have an opinion, it's a freshness and growing for flavour rather than a growing for qty.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 05:14 AM

Kevin, I read the large post from PDQ. And working in local government here in UK and having worked as an editor of US Federal Code for LexisNexis, I understand the problems of cross purposes and duplication of work between agencies.

The cost of implementation of many of the proposals is a worrying one. I imagine the price of food will increase hugely to pay for it. I have always thought it so odd that processed, over packaged and highly marketed foods (tinned, frozen, dehydrated, etc.) was cheaper in bulk than fresh meat, fruit and veg.

Another thing that galls me, in the US is the quality of fresh meat and produce left for supermarket shelves. Restaurants and food processing companies get to cream the best before supermarkets get a hand in. Am I wrong?

And another thing, I find the quality of the fresh food in the UK to be of a much higher standard then in the US, unless I shopped at a farmers market or an organic shop which was way out of my price range.    The fruit and veg are much more flavourful. Is this because there is little or no genetic modification in UK fresh foods?

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Janie
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 01:49 AM

pdq? I think you are arguing with yourself, bro. Seems to me that you are on more or less the same page, in actuality, as about anyone else who has posted thus far.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 01:26 AM

What an amazing thought!

From an ignorant UK POV, I think there are reasons for some regulations, eg. if my "diagnosis" is right mum taking a cabbage from next door and our soil as well as his getting club root can not be a good thing...

But banning home grown veg would be crazy. And while I haven't read the full thread here would find difficulty in imagining any government would go that far.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 21 Nov 10 - 01:21 AM

Here's the 'sponsor' (Democrat) looking out for you, and the co-sponsors:
Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL]

Cosponsors:
Lamar Alexander [R-TN]
Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]
Richard Burr [R-NC]
Roland Burris [D-IL]
Robert Casey [D-PA]
Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]
        
Christopher Dodd [D-CT]
Michael Enzi [R-WY]
Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Judd Gregg [R-NH]
Thomas Harkin [D-IA]
Orrin Hatch [R-UT]
        
John Isakson [R-GA]
Edward Kaufman [D-DE]
Edward Kennedy [D-MA]
Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Robert Menéndez [D-NJ]

None of these 'bought off' idiots should be re-elected!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 09:28 PM

Monsanto has been at this for 15 years.
They will not give up
They have had many victories in the courts.
They will have many more in the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 09:07 PM

pdq, that second link of hers went to a blog that is a year and a half old. 18 months in the life of this kind of legislation means it is nothing about what they're working on today.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 08:04 PM

Of course, anyone who bothers to actually read the proposed law rather than the misinformation in the blog-o-sphere will realize that there is nothing in it about controlling what food anyone eats.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 08:00 PM

A full text of the bill can be downloaded (pdf) at usfoodtrace but as is often the case it's an "edited copy" with removed portions still shown as "strikeout" text, and with numerous references to other laws/regulations that are "amended by citation" so it's almost impossible to read as is.

Nearly all of the first 120 pages (of 266) are "strikeouts," although there may be "fragments" that remain.

I did a pdf to Word conversion in the hope that the char format would come across and I would be able to delete "everything in strikeout characters," but the conversion lost the strikes, so it's useless (despite running for more than an hour trying to handle all the strike-thru linework, which it then dropped out).

On the surface, the bill appears to address many recent complaints that existing laws allow regulatory agencies to "complain" about food safety and sanitation violations, but gives them no actual authority to force anyone to comply with existing standards. If it does that, and doesn't extend into other areas, it probably is a valid and much-needed bill. I can't tell, as yet, what it actually does in its present form.

Interestingly, it specifically exempts virtually the entire liquor industry from any effect of this bill. That could be another instance of "industry influence" or it could be because the liquor industry is already under good (excessive?) control. There are some other "limits" but I can't decipher them as yet.

The main application appears to be only to "facilities" already required to register with existing agencies; but I haven't yet found what constitutes a "regulated facility." The Fed generally has to use the pretext that someone engages in "interstate commerce" in order to regulate them; but reporting and traceability requirements that appear to be in the bill could require registered facilities to require additional record keeping by "local suppliers" whose product is mixed into something they ship across state lines(?).

That current agencies have authority to inspect, but NO AUTHORITY to require compliance, is a very big hole in food safety oversight. It does need some correction; but I can't tell whether this bill does that, or something else.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 07:54 PM

Most people in Jefferson's day didn't live very long. U. S. life expectancy in 1800 was 35. Bad food was part of it.
The quotation above shows that Jefferson was quite capable of equating apples and oranges.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 07:42 PM

VirginiaTam,

The link you provided in the second post is actually very good and should be read by anyone who actually wants to know what the bill is about.

Obviously, some folks here aren't interested in the facts, but that's always going to be the case.

Found at the site in your second post...

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and
what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry
a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

                                                      ~Thomas Jefferson, 1778

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 07:39 PM

Is Vietnamese seafood more chemically laden than that from North Sea? Mediterranean? Caribbean? North Sea?

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: kendall
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 07:16 PM

But it's ok to import chemical laden seafood from Viet Nam.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 07:08 PM

Good question Kevin. I read your remark right after I skipped over the really really long post.

One can always hope that if we ever get back to a healthier locally grown diet (and kick out the high fructose corn syrup and some other disruptive subsidies) that the savings in medical care will offset the costs of oversight for healthy food.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 06:55 PM

Well, LH, that was the attraction when The Roman Empire persecuted Christians ...

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 06:16 PM

Excellent point, Smokey! ;-) We should make honesty illegal too...more people would be attracted to the concept that way, and its value would go way up in the public mind. Teenagers would start acting honestly and responsibly just to drive their parents crazy.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Smokey.
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 06:13 PM

The sale and possession of all edible vegetables should be illegal. More people would grow them and kids would be far more willing to eat them.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 06:10 PM

I sure as hell don't want the producers setting standards. The government agencies may need to be integrated for efficiency in inspection, but no one else will safeguard our food.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 06:01 PM

Cuba has gardens set up in the center of the city. These have been the cause of much benefit when a hurricane hits, and damages the large crop growing areas outside the cities, as well as the transport vectors into the city. They learned the hard way.

By having smaller local growing areas within the cities, they tend to be less damaged anyway, and can regrow fresh food within a few weeks, alleviating much food shortages.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 05:33 PM

Don't forget the CO₂ that you breathe.

That was declared a pollutant so your exhaling is now under the control of the EPA.

Inhaling is still OK, unless it contains certain types of smoke. Contact our gov for details.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 05:26 PM

First it was homegrown whiskey they made illegal! Then homegrown marijuana! Now homegrown vegetables! Is nothing sacred??????????? Next they'll be making homegrown hair and toenails illegal and we'll have to pay a tax on our refrigerator mould!!!!!!!!! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 05:03 PM

Will anyone actually read through that?

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 04:42 PM

{We already have 15 different agencies doing the same thing. We need to make them function correctly, but that would be work. Legislation, on the other hand, is easy.}


Tom Coburn, M.D.
Sep 15 2010

Detailed Concerns with S.510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010

Growing an Already Disjointed and Duplicative Federal Government

In 2008, GAO testified before a House subcommittee that "FDA is one of 15 agencies that collectively administer at least 30 laws related to food safety. This fragmentation is the key reason GAO added the federal oversight of food safety to its High-Risk Series in January 2007 and called for a government wide reexamination of the food safety system. We have reported on problems with this system—including inconsistent oversight, ineffective coordination, and inefficient use of resources."

Specifically, GAO found that in 2003, FDA and USDA activities included overlapping and duplicative inspections of 1,451 domestic food-processing facilities that produce foods regulated by both agencies. This GAO testimony came on the heels of a 2005 GAO report that identified significant overlap in food safety activities conducted by USDA and the FDA, and to some extent the EPA and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), including "71 interagency agreements [to coordinate overlapping activities] that the agencies entered into… However, the agencies have weak mechanisms for tracking these agreements that…lead to ineffective implementation."

This overlap was evident in the egg salmonella scare. The Wall Street Journal reported (USDA Graders Saw Bugs and Trash at Egg Producer; Didn't Tell FDA) that U.S. Department of Agriculture experts knew about sanitary problems at one of the two Iowa farms at the center of a massive nationwide egg recall, but did not notify health authorities.) USDA inspects farms and gives eggs their "Grade A" label, while the FDA technically is tasked with the safety of the final egg product.

This discrepancy was the impetus behind an egg safety rule originally promulgated 10 years ago by the FDA. Unfortunately, three administrations sat on the proposed rule without finalizing and implementing it. FDA Commissioner Dr. Hamburg stated, "We believe that had these rules been in place at an earlier time, it would have very likely enabled us to identify the problems on this farm before this kind of outbreak occurred." A lack of regulatory bill isn't the problem.

Charging the Bill to our Children and Grandchildren

The legislation will cost $1.4 billion over 5 years. This cost does not include an additional $230 million in expenditures that are directly offset by fees collected for those activities (re-inspections, mandatory recalls, etc.). The total cost of the bill is over $1.6 billion over 5 years. Of these costs, $335 million are for non-FDA programs – the food allergy grant program, implementation grants to assist producers, assistance grants to states and Indian Tribes.

Many argue that this spending is just "discretionary." It is important to realize that the CBO score reflects the cost of the increase in FDA's scope. It is true that this bill only authorizes funding (though problematically, for the first time ever provides an authorization line for just food activities at FDA).

If future appropriations do not add up to the amount CBO is estimating, the likely result is that none of these provisions can be fully implemented, or worse, the FDA is forced to cut corners in other areas it regulates (drugs/devices/etc.) to fund this added regulatory burden on foods.

Without paying for this bill, at best we are just passing it for a press release, and at worst, we shackle the FDA with unfunded mandates.

New and Unnecessary Non-FDA Spending

CBO estimates that implementing other provisions of S. 510 would increase non-FDA discretionary spending by $335 million over the 2011-2015 period. The bill would authorize three grant programs outside the purview of the FDA:

• School-based allergy and anaphylaxis management grants. Authorized at $30 million annually, CBO estimates that this program would cost $107 million over the 2011-2015 period. This program creates new federal standards for how local schools deal with food allergies and ties the "voluntary" standards to eligibility for federal grant funds. This is not a federal role, the standards are overly prescriptive, and it duplicates existing efforts. The CDC has already published extensive best practices for how local schools can implement sounder strategies for dealing with food allergens. The word "food" is the only relationship between legislation to dictate the food allergy policies of local schools and legislation to modernize how the FDA regulates the food industry.

• Food safety training, education, extension, outreach and technical assistance grants. Enacting the bill would require the Secretary of HHS to enter into cooperative agreements with the Secretary of Agriculture to provide grants for food safety training, education, extension, outreach, and technical assistance to owners and operators of farms, small food processors, and small fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers. Based on spending patterns of similar programs, CBO estimates that implementing this provision would cost $21 million over the next five years

• Food safety participation grants for states and Indian tribes. S. 510 would authorize the appropriation of $19.5 million for fiscal year 2010 and such sums in subsequent years to award grants to states and Indian tribes to expand participation in food safety efforts. CBO estimates that implementing this provision would cost $83 million over the 2011-2015 period.

Along with the grant programs, S. 510 also would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to participate in food safety activities and would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to enhance its participation in food safety activities. CBO estimates that EPA will incur costs of about $2 million annually. CDC is required to significantly increase its surveillance activities, which CBO estimates will cost $100 million over 5 years. CDC is also required to set up "Centers of Excellence" at selected state health departments to prepare for food outbreaks at a cost of $4 million annually.

Burdensome New Regulations

There are 225 pages of new regulations, many of which are problematic. While some regulations are potentially onerous, but perhaps reasonable – such as requiring every facility to have a scientifically-based, but very flexible, food safety plan—others give FDA sweeping authority with potentially significant consequences.

While it is hard to pull out just 1 or 2 regulations in the bill that make the entire thing unpalatable, on the whole this bill represents a weighty new regulatory structure on the food industry that will be particularly difficult for small producers and farms to comply with (with little evidence it will make food safer). The following regulations are perhaps the most troubling:

• Performance standards. The bill gives the Secretary the authority to "issue contaminant-specific and science-based guidance documents, action levels, or regulations." The way the bill is written the authority is extremely broad and could be used by FDA to issue very specific and onerous regulations on food facilities, without even the normal rule-making and guidance process FDA food regulations normally go through.

• Traceability. FDA is required to establish a "product tracing system within the FDA" based and develop additional recordkeeping requirements for foods determined to be "high risk." The House legislation includes "full pedigree" traceback which puts FDA in charge of tracing the entire supply chain. The final bill requires the FDA to do this for high-risk foods, and while there are some limitations on FDA, anything further than the "one-up-one-back" requirement in the bioterrorism law will be very onerous on industry.

• Standards for produce safety. For produce, this bill gives FDA the authority to create commodity-specific safety standards for produce. Instead of trusting industry and the free-market, this provision implies that complying with government standards is the best way to keep consumers safe. A lot of the produce industry lobbied for these standards to provide "consumer confidence" after the jalapeno and tomato scare, but federal regulations could particularly adversely impact small providers.

Other regulations in this bill are overly punitive and could set up an adverse relationship with industry. They include:

• Administrative Detention of Food. The bill lowers the threshold for detaining articles of food to "adulterated or misbranded." The threshold is currently higher for a reason—administrative detention is an authority that should only be used when there is clear, imminent danger.

• Suspension of Registration. Facility registration may be suspended if there is a reasonable probability that food from the responsible facility will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. "Reasonable probability" isn't a difficult enough burden for FDA to prove when the consequence is closing down a private business.

• Fees. Allows FDA to assess fees for compliance failures (recalls and re-inspections). These fees give FDA incentive to find reasons to re-inspect a facility or order a mandatory recall—the only ways they can collect money for their efforts. Furthermore, assessing industry to pay for a new regulatory structure will increase food costs for consumers during a recession.

• Mandatory Recall Authority. Provides FDA with the authority to force a recall (and collect fees to pay for it). It is unclear why this authority is necessary – even in the worst food safety outbreaks, there do not appear to be any instances in which tainted products were on the shelves or with distributors that the company at fault did not work with FDA to conduct a voluntary recall. Allowing FDA to collect fees for forcing a mandatory recall could also push FDA to pull the trigger early on a mandatory recall – putting them at odds with the company responsible.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 04:18 PM

The United States lags far behind the EU where food safety is concerned. This bill will help to bridge that gap, and bring the safety of the US food supply up to acceptable standards. ThePeanut Corporation of America scandal, a massive salmonella outbreak that killed several people, would very likely not have happened in the UK, because there are checks and balances in place. The idea that if the bill is passed farmers' markets and backyard gardens would be illegal is just propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 04:17 PM

Sounds like another political urban legend, reminiscent of the stuff about imaginary EU rules about the shape of bananas and such like that surface in the crap tabloids here from time to time.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 03:20 PM

Well, it is an important issue, Tam, and any more it's a challenge to sort thru the info overload.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 03:07 PM

welllll..... this just makes me the boob of the hour..

sorry

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:52 PM

More recent info:

Sen. Tester web page on amendment

NPR Nov. 18

NPR Nov. 19

pdq: sorry, not drifting with you.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:46 PM

I have not posted a single word about the contents of this bill, exagerated or otherwise.

I said it is another in a series of bills that we have seen in the last two years that grow the power of the federal bureaucracy.

So, kindly tell the American people when the feds have enough power. Taking another hunk of our liberty on a bill-by-bill basis is dishonist. Just tell us where the power grab will end. Yes, please tell us how much is enough?

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:32 PM

Why are some here still debating the wildly exaggerated claims? Factcheck and Snopes are clear on what is being proposed and what is not even in the offing. pdq, if it isn't too much trouble for you, go read the facts and perhaps you will realize that 'passing the bill forward' is not the dire knell of doom.

There is NO way on the gods' green earth that within our or our children's or their children's lifetime that backyard vegetable growing will be banned or even limited.

Same as I have said for years, Social Security will never be discontinued. It may not provide the same things nor be paid for the same way and it may be called something else- but it will not be discontinued.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 01:09 PM

The Senate vote two days ago was simply to bring the bill to the floor for the final vote, but it does show where support is. All Democrats (except Ben Nelson from the farm state of Nebraska) voted for the bill, augmented by the usual herd of RINOS Including Olympia Snowe.



Who voted in FAVOR of moving S.510 forward

Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Brown (R-MA)
Burr (R-NC)
Burris (D-IL)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Coons (D-DE)
Corker (R-TN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
LeMieux (R-FL)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Manchin (D-WV)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (D-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

Who OPPOSED S.510

Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Graham (R-SC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Nelson (D-NE)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Wicker (R-MS)

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:46 PM

A person who says "all government is evil" is a Nihilist. They used to throw bombs and asassinate people.

This bill is just one of several we have seen in the last two years that concentrate control of everything in the federal government.

Did anyone notice that a doctor's "doctor-patient confidentiality" was throw out by ObamaCare. Yes, all the medical records of everybody in the US are being transferred to a master data base at this very moment. They will be seen by numerous faceless federal government employees with dubious credentials.

Fact is, anything this bill does right can be done without a new branch of government with 18,000 new unionized employees.

There is nothing in ObamaCare that could not have been done in smaller, carefully-considered steps. Same with this bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:41 PM

New word alert- "Budgeoning."

The bill contains some good provisions that will help to protect our food supply.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:40 PM

If you haven't seen the movie "Food Inc.", I'd highly recommend it for insight into Monsanto's practices. Monsanto owns patents on their modified seeds and saving them, instead of buying them from Monsanto, is a patent violation. Problems arise when Monsanto's proprietary seed is introduced into an area and surrounding crops are cross-pollinated with pollen from the GM crops. Even though the cross-pollination is accidental, if a farmer saves seed for his next crop and any of that seed contains Monsanto's patented genes, he's in violation of Monsanto's patent. Monsanto is basically polluting farmers' crops with pollen from their unnatural crops, and then reaping a financial reward by suing farmers whose crops have been polluted.

To my mind, it's like patenting a disease organism, spreading it around, and then suing the people who get sick for having the organism in their bodies.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:24 PM

pdq, they are out there; not to say you personally are one.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: pdq
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:07 PM

" ...but I also have trouble with the paranoid, 'all government is evil', anti-regulatory forces..."

I have never heard anyone say "all government is evil". In fact, I have never in my life heard anyone say anything close to that.

Will the Big Government types please tell the American people exactly how much power they really want our federal government to have?

Will they kindly tell us, up front, what the minimum wage should be instead of budgeoning people over and over with incremental increases?

How about federal income tax? Just how much is enough? Michael Moore said about 80%. Is that what they want. If so, just be honest ad put it up for public debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:01 PM

Great minds think alike, Becky!

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 12:00 PM

We obviously cross-posted, SRS!

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:52 AM

Undated blog posts are a menace. The second item you cite (which is what the first one cites) is a petition in support of the Tester-Hagen amendment to the bill -- to protect small/organic farmer -- which has passed. I wish these blogs were as successful in promulgating the updated facts.

I agree that Monsanto's seed patenting and control processes are evil, but I also have trouble with the paranoid, "all government is evil", anti-regulatory forces, who are quite audible here.

Here are Michael Pollan's comments from Nov. 18: click.

It would not hurt continue to voice your support for this part of the bill but be sure the whole thing is not tossed out with the bathwater.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:47 AM

You have to provide good sources and dates on articles for this kind of debate to make sense. They may mean well, but your initial source is a for-profit newsletter from Taiwan. Other links were over a year old, and a lot happens to legislation in that time.

I Googled "Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act" and looked at the results closely to come up with one I trust, the Washington Post and healthy food guru Michael Pollan. Michael Pollan on the food safety bill, from Nov. 18, 2010.

Posted at 4:36 PM ET, 11/18/2010
Michael Pollan on the food safety bill
By Ezra Klein

The Senate might get to the Food Safety Modernization Act as soon as tonight. Though I'm interested in the subject, I haven't been able to spend much time looking into the bill. But Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore's Dilemma, has. His summary judgment? It would be "a tragedy" if it didn't pass.

Ezra Klein: What's your bottom line on this bill? Is it good? Bad?

Michael Pollan: It's very interesting that the consumer groups and the people representing smaller producers and farmers have come together. It didn't look like that was going to happen a few weeks ago. The bill as originally written basically treated all farms and food producers the same. It was one-size-fits-all regulation. This was a problem for smaller farmers and processors because the regulatory burden was going to make life difficult for them. They felt they weren't the problem, and to suffer as part of the solution to the problem was an undue burden.

So Jon Tester, an organic farmer himself, came up with an amendment exempting producers according to three criteria. If you sold half of your food directly to consumers or retailers, had sales under $500,000, and sold within 400 miles of where you were producing, you'd be exempt from the provisions of the bill. The consumer groups didn't like this because they felt there was a risk to food safety no matter the scale. The e coli outbreak a few years ago was a small producer feeding into a big wholesaler, for instance. So they came out against the amendment. And there were many small farmers willing to see the whole bill go down if the Tester amendment wasn't there, which I think would've been a tragedy.

But they managed a compromise?

Tester made some changes. The 400-mile radius struck a lot of people as very large. You could be near the Mexico border and sell in Los Angeles. But 400 miles is apparently an official USDA definition of local. So Tester shrank it to 275 miles and made some other tweaks to satisfy the consumer groups. So now the small and local food advocates and the consumer groups are together on this, and the Tester amendment will be in the managers amendment, which means it won't require a separate vote.

To back up on the bill a bit, what do you think of its overall thrust? There's obviously a lot going on in the legislation, but what problem is it basically aimed at solving, and does the solution make sense?

The big thing will be to give the FDA more authority and resources. The FDA has not until this bill had the authority to recall tainted food. This gives them that power, and more resources for inspections. It also pushes producers to write plans showing their points of vulnerability that the FDA can use. Now, it's essentially a voluntary system, and there are good critiques of that. But it's the best thing we've got going now. What this doesn't deal with is hamburgers and things under the USDA, which is where a lot of the risks are. But it could be a template for how we do it in the future.

This bill doesn't affect the USDA? That leaves a lot out, no?

In a better world, we'd be debating the creation of a food safety agency that doesn't separate meat from poultry. That balkanization is one of the biggest problems in food safety. FDA has fresh produce. They have eggs. But they don't have chickens. USDA has chickens. But once the egg is cracked and turned into Egg Beaters or something, it's back to USDA. It's completely absurd. And unfortunately, we're not addressing that.

Where do you come down on the safety of the small producers? It seems to me like leaving them unregulated could also endanger their business: If an artisinal cheese producer, or a farm with heritage pigs, ends up making a bunch of people sick, the resulting backlash and outcry could put all small producers at risk, or turn a lot of people off of local food.

It's an enormous danger. If there is a problem with a small producer, the FDA then gets authority over them -- they lose their exemption. But that's obviously after the fact. But look, there can be a food safety problem at your house or at a church supper or on a small farm. But the scope can be contained. It won't affect hundreds of thousands of people in 50 states, as is true with larger producers. That's little comfort to the people affected, of course. But there is some risk in eating and always will be. If we were to choke off the renaissance of small farms and local food, we'd be losing one of our alternatives to a highly industrialized system that has special risks of its own.

Back when I reported more on this stuff, I thought that industrial food was similar to the financial system. It had made a lot of changes that got rid of smaller, more routine risks, but in doing, had opened itself to catastrophic risks where the system can break down in enormous, extremely harmful ways. So rather than a few people getting sick semi-regularly, outbreaks are rare, but they can affects millions of people at a time.

There are quantum differences when you're producing for a small firm and a major producer. When you mix spinach or lettuce from 50 different farms and one is contaminated, you're contaminating all of it. There's more traceability and accountability when there's what Tester calls "eyeball-to-eyeball" contact between producers and customers. The industrial systems are brittle systems. They lose a certain resilience. And that leads to risks of another kind.

By Ezra Klein | November 18, 2010; 4:36 PM ET
Categories: Food, Interviews

Food for thought.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:29 AM

There is an even more interesting update on THIS PAGE which says they have to vote on this insanity within 60 days. Another letter going out to our congresspeople. Thanks for the heads up, VTam.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:29 AM

There is absolutely nothing in that bill that would outlaw (or regulate) home gardening, ban seed saving, control farmers' markets, or any or the other stuff that the scare mongers are promoting. Here is FactCheck.org's analysis of the companion bill in the House and Snopes' discussion of the same bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: GUEST,cs
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:24 AM

Monsanto are one of the most evil organisations on the planet. Stealing the very source of food from peasant farmers around the world. Stealing and controlling the very stuff of life. I'm pretty sure they would steal the very sunlight that nourishes plants if they could.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: Wesley S
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:19 AM

Good luck getting that bill passed. No way.

Subject: RE: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:15 AM

from Food Freedom on WordPress

Subject: BS: Home grown vegetables illegal?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Nov 10 - 11:10 AM

Can it be true? Not surprising that Monsanto et al are lobbying for this.

Senate Bill S 510 Food Safety Modernization Act vote imminent: Would outlaw gardening and saving seed.


article here