When Courgettes are outlawed . . .

[Ellendra]

. . . . Only outlaws will have courgettes!!!!

A bill was introduced to the US House of Representatives that could potentially outlaw both small organic farms and home gardens.

HR 875, with the succinct title "Title: To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes. "

Officially its supposed to impose regulations for food producers, processors, and storage facilities that would, in theory, prevent food scares like the contaminated spinach or tomatoes not too long ago. But, in addition to NOT doing that, the text of the bill contains no exceptions whatsoever.

None.
Zilch.
Nada.

ANY plot used to produce food for "retail purposes" would fall under these regulations, which dictate the chemicals, permits, inspections, etc needed before the produce could be approved for sale. The 10x8 backyard garden would be subject to the same approval process as the 1800 acre spinach farm.

Currently this bill has been passed to a committee. Most bills die in committee, so there is hope. But it still scares me.

Text of the bill can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov (sorry, that site doesn't allow for bookmarking one's place), just look for "Bills, resolutions" for the 111th congress, then click "Search Bill Summary and Status", "House Bills", and page to #875.

[Odsox]

Thanks for posting this Ellendra.
My OH works for a company who exports food products to the US and they didn't know anything about this.
She has scored quite a few brownie points thanks to you.

[invisiblepiper]

It's in line with the UK attempt to stop people growing medicinal herbs - on grounds of Health and Safety/ plant dangers. The multi national pharmaceuticals were behind that one! Wonder why.........

[MuddyWitch]

The multi national pharmaceuticals were behind that one! Wonder why.........

& I though it was just me, getting cynical in my old age...;)

Seriously though, we must all speak out about such infringments on our rights before we loose them.

MW

[sheena]

It sounds like disguised control to me, everyone must speak up to protect our rights or else we are all going to turn to guerilla gardening and have to collect our harvest on moonlit nights.
We can only hope this dies a rapid death at the committee phase

[Thomzo]

Shakes head sadly and starts looking on t'internet for an isolated island somewhere in the middle of nowhere and not subject to any stupid laws.

Wanna join me?

Zoe

[Big Al]

The multi national pharmaceuticals were behind that one! Wonder why.........

& I though it was just me, getting cynical in my old age...;)

Seriously though, we must all speak out about such infringments on our rights before we loose them.

MW

......And it was monsanto who done the GM plants..... I wonder if these come under this legislation ??

[Rosendula]

Text of the bill can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov (sorry, that site doesn't allow for bookmarking one's place), just look for "Bills, resolutions" for the 111th congress, then click "Search Bill Summary and Status", "House Bills", and page to #875.

Here's a direct link to the page. Did it by copying and pasting the address once I'd found it. Now I'll go and have a read....

[Ellendra]

Shakes head sadly and starts looking on t'internet for an isolated island somewhere in the middle of nowhere and not subject to any stupid laws.

Wanna join me?

Zoe

Sealand is for sale.

[Ellendra]

Text of the bill can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov (sorry, that site doesn't allow for bookmarking one's place), just look for "Bills, resolutions" for the 111th congress, then click "Search Bill Summary and Status", "House Bills", and page to #875.

Here's a direct link to the page. Did it by copying and pasting the address once I'd found it. Now I'll go and have a read....

That link will expire, I can't remember the time limit they use, but direct links are only good for a short time there.

[Rosendula]

Text of the bill can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov (sorry, that site doesn't allow for bookmarking one's place), just look for "Bills, resolutions" for the 111th congress, then click "Search Bill Summary and Status", "House Bills", and page to #875.

Here's a direct link to the page. Did it by copying and pasting the address once I'd found it. Now I'll go and have a read....

That link will expire, I can't remember the time limit they use, but direct links are only good for a short time there.

Gosh. That's clever. I didn't know they could do that.

[Ellendra]

To make matters worse, a Federal court recently ruled that the dust kicked up by farm equipment counts as a toxic pollutant.

[Ellendra]

And Now to add to the fun, we also have HR 1388, which talks about requiring 3 years mandatory
volunteer service, complete with uniforms and "camps". As I understand its
scheduled to be presented to the House of Reps on Tuesday.

God help us all.

[ellie12022]

I am so glad I am not living in the USA, we are still a little bit better off, although our basic freedoms are at stake too. I had already heard about this, also that now some followers of politicians like Ron Paul are potentially being classed as dangerous to society.

[Ellendra]

Yeah, I just read about that, something about one of the signs of a potential domestic terrorist is the presence of a 3rd-party campaign sticker on their car!!!!

I can just imagine the pranks this could cause.

There is one thing we have going for us so far: We are not unarmed. Yet. New legislation is restricting ammunition but the right to keep and bear arms hasn't quite been eroded entirely.