s.510, food safety, the tester amendment, farmers markets

oh, and no doubt it is

every new law these days seems to serve some corporate interest or another, thus the tsa scan/frisk mess

just hoping small producers can get a break after the shit settles

and don't believe that stuff about the seeds - hell, they haven't been able to put an end to pot after nearly 100 years of prohibition, how are they going to put an end to tomatoes?

 

I don't know about that. Considering Monsanto produces genetically altered seeds whose plants do not in turn produce seeds, thats the part of the bill that really scares me. Making it harder for farmers to obtain their own seeds could potentially create a dependence on these genetically altered seeds, which must be purchased year after year after year, thus rendering self-sufficiency impossible. Which I am sure is Monsanto's intentions both in supporting this bill and genetically altering their seeds.

 

small farmers often don't use monsanto seeds

organic farmers don't

truck farmers don't

 

Rouge seed!

There are 1.5 million acres of canola grown in the U.S., primarily in North Dakota, Minnesota, Oregon and Montana. Canadian farmers have produced canola on up to 15 million acres annually in recent years. Those numbers are expected to grow as both nations search for new sources of biofuel.... As much as 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian canola crop is grown from biotech seeds, according to Barry Coleman, executive director of the Northern Canola Growers Association and canola grower in North Dakota....there apparently is plenty of biotech canola on the roadsides. At the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting researchers reported that 86 percent of 406 canola plants collected from 5,400 kilometers of interstate, state and county roads in North Dakota tested positive for glyphosate or glufosinate herbicide traits. Two samples reflected stacked herbicide resistant traits, even though Canola varieties with multiple transgenic traits have not yet been released commercially.

http://westernfarmpress.com/management/rr-canola-evolves-vexing-weed

ZW

 

yes I know, but this bill makes it more difficult for a farmer to obtain his own seeds (I don't think its likely that the govenrnment is efficient enough to send out inspectors for every small farmer in america that will be required to have his seed-cleaning machine inspected before he can sell the produce created from those seeds), in which case he could potentially be forced into buying seeds that have been genetically altered and then patented by monsanto. I am sure this is the exact scenario that the kind people of monsanto envisioned when supporting this bill.

there are lawsuits going on right now in which monsanto is suing small time farmers because pollination from farms using monsanto seeds cross pollinated with nearby farms. Monsanto's case is that the nearby farms should be required to pay a technological fee because their seeds are patented. Even though these farms had no knowledge of the cross pollination that was occurring. thats a bit off topic but it really illustrates how far that company is willing to go to obtain a complete monopoly over the food industry.

 

i dunno about that, i see real seeds everywhere

heirloom varieties are very popular, even in backwards eastern montana

maybe it's because we're backwards . . .

 

Sold out by Tester - http://activistpost.com/2010/12/why-tester-amendment-does-not-help.html

 

yes, i guess activistpost knows more about small-scale farming than the national sustainable agriculture coalition

as far as the "If Grandma wants to sell her famous raspberry jam at the county fair" argument goes, there are already in place laws in various states that prohibit this sort of thing

i think it's illegal in montana, for example, to sell homemade salsa at farmer's markets

ya know there's an ideal world out there, and you can waste your time dreaming about it all you like, but there's a real world on the ground here, and yes, it sucks, but no, your dreaming ain't helping any . . .

 

one more thing about activistpost

in the years i've lived in eastern montana, i have never seen even one activist come to help small farmers

i've seen msu help, the fed ag dept, and a few ngos, so i tend to believe them first - they are here, and they are helping

as far as activistpost's mythical grandma [everyone needs a willie horton, i suppose] goes, if grandma were in glendive, and wanted to produce her jam in a clean, safe, fully certified environment, she could bring her ingredients to our new, non-profit commercial kitchen, and boil away - without any paperwork, without breaking the law, without any health risks that her kitchen [kitty, get off the counter with your dirty paws!] might entail

 

Yeah, I grew up on a farm in Tennessee. Been there, done that, moving on. Everybody better wake up and take off the sunglasses and have a look around at what this S510 is really about. It's been sent back to the Senate anyways because it was a tax bill in disguise, and only the House can generate any bills concerning taxation. I hope it dies the death it deserves, in the Senate, DOA. The House Democrats sent it back because it is so bad they don't want to put their names to it.

 

And that's good, I always buy this one brand of orange juice, Florida Natural, that only uses Florida oranges. Not from Brazil or whatever. Keep the money at home, but why in the hell do we need the government to tell us to do this?

 

Ummm, that's not a very good idea, because I don't want cows (meat, milk and cheese), chickens (meat and eggs), pigs, salmon, mahi, tuna, shrimp, lobster, corn, watermelon, beans (all kinds), broccoli, spinach, lettuce, onions, garlic, tomatos, apples, oranges, strawberries, grapes, etcetera etcetera growing on my 100 X 100 suburban plot. Don't think they would fit. And where would I put all the fish. Especially the salmon, I don't think they would like Miami. Nah, I like Milam's just fine.

 

where?

do you seriously think there's enough arable land in this country for everyone to grow their own food?

[sorry, missed this bit of brilliance earlier]

 

probably not, I'm for all the people that can't grow/find their own food dying off though

whenever I post something that sounds utopian or unrealistic to you, you should assume that I'm adding that in my scenarios people have to die off for it to work

 

So, you want to go back in time 200 - 300 years? What the hell are you doing on the internet? Your computer was made marketed and sold and your internet service is produced by people who live in cities and work in jobs that don't leave them a lot of time to grow their own food.

 

exactly. It makes it easy to gather information that we'd normally have to travel or read books to acquire and I am completely against them. Believe me, I'm working towards not using them anymore.

Peoples' shitty jobs at the mall just aren't important like growing food.

It doesn't bother you at all that if the grocery stores got taken away you would die of starvation due to not being able to find your own food? Because if I couldn't do that I'd consider myself pretty worthless.

 

maybe to those that work at the mall they are . . .

 

perhaps you could help us by making this your sig?

it's nice to know exactly who wants us all to die . . .

 

I don't want everyone to die, just the weak links. I'm not for going around killing people, they'll do a fine job of thinning themselves out when the only skill they've acquired is how to sell spike bracelets to teenagers.

 

Nah, farming, especially on a large enough scale to sell your crops for profit is backbreaking work, I respect the people that do it. If worst came to worst though everyone(well almost) knows how to grow something, and can shoot dead an animal with a gun. Everyone can't be farmers, people need to do other jobs for society to work.

Also what would the farmers do if everyone grew their own food, they'd have no one to sell to, farmers gotta make a living too.