OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Clintons promote their second Monsanto 'fake food safety' plan that destroys farmers

There is already experience that these WTO “free trade” and “Farm to Fork” laws drive out farmers. The EU already has them and they are not protecting either EU consumers or their farmers. But they have increased factory farms and are good for corporations reaping huge profits from rigged "free trade."

Before they joined the EU, the UK fed itself. “Regulations are the EU's hidden weapon of mass destruction of farmers.” Sir Julian Rose reported. Top brass at the EU admitted they had already removed 60 percent of Portugal's farmers and planned to shift one million Polish farmers off their land.

In India, 8 million people have left farming altogether, and the farm suicides – the largest sustained wave recorded in history – are on-going now with a farmer committing suicide there every 30 minutes. The rate has worsened since 2001, by which time India was well down the WTO plan for agriculture. P. Sainath, the acclaimed Indian journalist who won the Magsaysay award for journalism in 2007 (the Asian Nobel prize), rightly named it "Neoliberal Terrorism ."

But even if it's terrible for farmers, don't people at least get "food safety"?

Here in the US, we can tell in advance merely by looking at how well the same laws have worked in the EU, because they are, in fact, the same laws - just as Bush promised, it is about “harmonization” with EU regulations. So, what is happening there?

Farmers in the UK feared FMD (foot and mouth disease) tainted meat coming in from Brazil and yet they had an uphill battle getting any import ban from the EU. (The same issue exists here, with farmers desperately trying to shut borders to infected animals, only here the USDA allows import from Brazil.)

With Brazilian cattle , there is non- existent or unreliable traceability, removal of tags, inadequate movement and border controls, ineffective Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) eradication measures and the use of banned medication.

“We visited over 40 farms and repeatedly found heaps of tags which had been cut out of ears."

The EU imposed a month long ban and then lifted it , a mere tip of the hat to "food safety." JBS Swift , owned by the Batista family and the Brazilian Government, is THE world's largest meat packer whose buy out of US companies reduced the big packing houses here from five to only three, despite intense farmer protests over monopoly. Will international “farm to fork” laws even apply in Brazil when the government owns an interest in the meat packer? Or will Brazil be an unregulated source of cheap meat which can through these bills more easily be forced onto the US by multinationals through these border-opening "food safety" laws?

It has been only our own farmers who have been our only protection from food safety dangers.

First, they offer true competition to a "rotten" system by supplying clean food. And second, they have actually been fighting in court to stop dangerous monopoly mergers and the opening of borders to infected cattle and meat. Giant Agribusiness has two reasons for wanting to get rid of American farmers, right there.

But it gets worse than FMD. After recognizing the connection between meat and bone meal (MBM) and BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephaphitis - Mad Cow Disease), the UK banned MBM in all UK feed. That meant left over contaminated meal so, instead of getting rid of it, in order to not lose money, the UK exported it for eight years . They “informed international bodies", leaving it to member states to decide whether to "import”. The USDA knew, it allowed the import, and now actually refuses to do adequate testing for BSE , even when farmers are offering to pay for it themselves.

But how do we know for sure the new laws will not improve food safety?

Because they substitute paperwork for disease testing. Food quality professionals know - actually anyone with commonsense knows - paperwork never insures quality, only testing does.

A retired Quality Engineer who ran testing labs for years, said this of the "new improved system of "Risk Assessment" "Traceability" and “HACCP”

“It's the same “ISO ” management techniques that allow corporations to sweep problems under the rug. I witnessed it for 25 of my 40 years. I conducted FDA inspectors on tour, the inspection is a laugh. They look at paperwork, how clean the place is and that's it. I never saw anyone take a sample [to] retain for comparison to our test results. How else can you tell if lab results were faked? I have been fired five times for refusing to fake lab results, so I only trust independent lab results not corporate paperwork. Looking at paperwork tells you nothing.”

Testing and GOOD inspection are the ONLY thing that works. ISO (International Organization for Standardization), "Risk Assessment" "Traceability" and “HACCP ” are Management Systems ... period. When the article, "Eliminate ISO? " blasted ISO appeared in Quality Magazine, it got a massive response with not one Quality professional defending ISO .

The alleged "food safety" bills in Congress will destroy American farming and leave us all in the hands of powerful (and filthy) industrial food corporations. These bills are the take over of the US food supply and the death of organic farming and must be stopped.

We have the opportunity to stop the threats to our food supply by commenting on these bills in committee and on the USDA proposed rule change in the Federal Register.

Go to this link , see if your representative is involved in HR 875, click on his name, and send him/her your opinion. It is really that easy.

And here is HR 814 to check.

The senate version is here .

Thanks to OpEdNews.com you can even submit a personal message to your local daily newspaper as a Letter to the Editor.

Here is an easy way to send a message to all your Congress people at once.

And do not forget to comment on the USDA proposed rule change in the Federal Register.

Write MoveOn and demand that they get involved. "Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action" ,

After the defeat of a similar bill in 2005, Monsanto is taking no chances. Both bills appeared simultaneously in each house, having been planned before the fact. They are pushing fast and hard.

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