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This is a sad day for American family farmers. Today, the House passed Produce Traceability Initiative and House Bill 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 by a vote of 283 to 142. The nanny State will now be able to control every piece of food consumers eat, down to the garlic that was used to make the garlic salt in our cupboards. What’s worse, not only will the Government be able to control what we eat, they now have complete control over what farmers grow and who we can sell our products to. The days of farmers markets, CSAs, and market gardens are long gone. Forever lost, thanks to the progressive fascists in Congress, is the ability of rural people to barter between ourselves for goods and services. We too, will be monitored by the Government to make sure our food is safe.
Yeah, I was going to say.
How many people have died from e-coli, lately?
Hell, how many articles on e-coli have turned up in this blog the last couple of years?
*Laughs*
First, this bill passed the House nearly two months ago. It is still in committee in the Senate.
Second, the bill exempts farms and food processors who sell at least half their product directly to consumers.
The bill isn’t perfect, but they have addressed some of the more onerous effects on small farms. The Senate will hopefully firm up the wording and protect small local and organic food producers.
See http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18709.cfm – they are no fans of this legislation as it’s moved through the House, but much less hysterical than the strange and dated article JD cited.
#29, SL
You clearly don’t understand the basics of the case.
The background is the guy tried growing more wheat than permitted to and was caught. His argument that it was for personal use and thus outside the scope of the Commerce Clause was rejected.
#36 You can use a lot of grain for personal use if you are raising cattle, swine, chickens, whatever for market. The grain would not be for sale to anyone but the livestock would.
Nobody has placed a link to the bill or case in point and I’m moving on to other things.
# 33 Terencia:
“These types of regulations have been in place for seafood and juice industries for some time, with less food borne illness resulting. So, what’s the (or your) problem?”
As far as I have been able to determine, reading this blog over the last few years, the problem is the attitude that “only the Free Market is good, all regulation is bad, all government is evil and all taxes are theft!” There’s more (lots more), but that’s enough to give you the idea.
“I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”
Wikipedia – Alexander Hamilton writing in the Federalist #84 concerning his oposition to the Bill of Rights.
Has this not been happening since the establishment of the Republic (Empire?)? Have any of the ten original amendments not been subrogated to the Federal government?
The Constitution says any powers not specifically granted to the Federal government by the Constitution would remain to the states and to the people. This could only be changed by an amendment to the constitution which then had to be ratifed by 3/4 of the states.
There used to be (until sometime in the 70’s) checkpoints at states’ borders where you had to declare any fruits, vegetables or plants. I assume they were done away with by the agri-business lobby. This bill only extends the Federal hand further into lobbyists’ pockets. But why should agriculture be different?
A large catalog listing each food production location, and everything they are doing recorded like in a diary would put most of the concerns to rest.