Since those of us who want ORGANIC food don’t force anyone else to eat organic why should others care? Yes, it costs me more, but other food is cheaper because of the way it is grown. I prefer food without pesticides. I prefer meat and milk without antibiotics and growth hormones. Why should others care if I want healthier choices?

You can’t force people to use pesticides. You can’t force dairy farmers to use antibiotics and growth hormones.

A government that wants or wishes to regulate even agriculture, has another agenda with this measure. It wants to control its citizens in order to oppress them in the long run.

The bill has nothing to do with agriculture or organic food production. It has everything to do with remaking the USA according the ideas of mister Obama.

I don’t know anything about the bill but I know that the Obama administration is supportive of organic farming. They have already given $50 million to promote organic farming. I believe organic farming benefits from being regulated as that means that consumers can trust that any food that is for sale and claimed to be organic really was produced according to the organic standards. But is there a really a plan to regulate organic gardening (as opposed to farming and horticulture)? Surely it would be just for commercial use, ie. professional gardeners claiming to use organic methods?

I think you’re seeing black helicopters here.

Though there is some vagueness, to me the bill seems pretty clearly directed towards larger industrial type operations. There are no new regs for farmers markets or any direct marketing agreements like CSA’s. It doesn’t apply to any food not entering interstate commerce. Organic farmers already have to keep pretty rigorous records to be labeled, I don’t think yearly registration, or making a plan to prevent contamination is a big deal.

It’s a shame the woman sponsoring this bill has been painted as some kind of villain, in the pocket of monsanto; she seems pretty cool to me. Maybe it’s like, deep cover.

Most of those people on u-tube are repeating each other rather than actually reading the bill.
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The interesting question to me is how this paranoid mania went so viral? What was it that public enemy said? oh yeah: ‘don’t believe the hype’

EDIT:

I read the bill, I just got something different out of it. I don’t see how this legislation would disproportionately affect organic producers and small farms. ( it wont in any way affect your garden)

I’m sure the record keeping is irritating to farmers but I don’t see why it would be crippling. However we really have yet to see what will be required above and beyond commonsense measures producers already take to avoid contamination. If the FDA decides that some expensive machine for washing is required to market produce, than I’ll definitely agree that will affect smaller producers. Is this likely?

Traceability requirements in particular seem like they would be more burdensome for larger producers (producing ingredients for processed food that may change hands many times before reaching the consumer) than for smaller farmers (producing whole food often directly marketed to the consumer).

Notice there is no inspection frequency specified for food production facilities as there is for food establishments. I doubt the FDA could muster the manpower to go to every farm and ranch, I think they’ll reserve inspection for larger farms with greater opportunities for contamination. I’ll bet in most cases compliance will de done through the mail. I could be wrong though; we’ll see how the law is implemented.

I know the definition of food production facility is, as I said, vague but there is no way the FDA has the resources or inclination to enforce this law in every private garden. That’s not congruent with the spirit of the law and would be an obvious (and intolerable) waste of money. Policing the 321 million (!) acres currently producing food for sale (including 20,000+ USDA registered organic farms) as well as every facility that processes or stores food is already an incredible task, I don’t think they’ll be coming to your house.

Have a good day!

I was wrong:

SEC. 406. PRESUMPTION.

In any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce required for jurisdiction shall be presumed to exist.

That aint right.

This will hurt small local farmers, organic or other wise. It adds a lot of new fees and bureaucracy to selling direct from farmers to consumers. It will define tally kill farmers markets. Selling tomatos will be a bigger crime than selling drugs.

Crops can be grown locally using hydroponics. This uses very little water, much less space, does not result in fertilizer running off in to storm drains, lakes and streams. This is a very cost effective way of feeding people.

I don’t know why they want to bring theier techniques for insuring peanut butter is deadly to the small farmer.

It favors growing your food far away, having sit in trucks, and wasts lots of fuel.

Well, I listened to/watched the video, and it does seem disturbing. But like a lot of legislation, the potential consequences still sound vague.

Also like a lot of legislation, I can see what their goal is, but it does sound like it would have negative consequences on small farmer—I’m not sure it would affect only organic farmer, but all smaller farmers in ways that don’t seem right to me.

To say that it’s making organic farming illegal (as the video does, not you) might be a stretch. But the results could be tantamount to killing some of the organic movement.

Does anybody know when it goes before the House and the Senate for a vote?

I’ve hauled so called organic wheat, and it’s full of a product called joint grass, which on our farm we don;t have any cause of management, most neighbors around here spread their jointgrass to neighbors, so YES government should step in and regulate it. We haul cleaner product to the elevators and they don’t want to pay us for our clean product, there is something serious wrong.