Word that something is "rotten" in the USDA and that it is actually attacking our small farmers (in raids and with NAIS) is starting to "spread."
The concern for "food safety" by the USDA - which is busy raiding small and clean Amish dairy farms and community organic coops, but won't inspect the giant corporate CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operations - animal factories), the disgusting corporate feedlots where 800,000 head of cattle are confined and loaded up on antibiotics for the diseases there and on steroids to fatten them, the filthy corporate slaughterhouses - smells a bit like mayonnaise that has been left out too long. They can spread that stuff all they want and say it's for "food safety" but the stinky odor of corporate corruption is hard to ignore.
Obama says he wants sustainable, local, organic agriculture. That's the label on the bottle. Organic. He holds it up for all to see.
But when we open it, we find Vilsack in there, the guy who has been pushing Monsanto laws that preempt community control over what even gets planted in their areas. That is, he's been pushing laws to remove democracy, state by state. This means farmers and citizens couldn't stop the planting of genetically engineered crops no matter that they contaminate organic crops. They couldn't stop the planting of crops that grow drugs and even industrial chemicals. It's anti-organic slop served up on an anti-democratic roll. Yum.
"Vilsack was the origin of the seed pre-eption bill in 2005 [the brainchild], which many people here in Iowa fought because it took away local government's possibility of ever having a regulation on seeds- where GE would be grown, having GE-free buffers, banning pharma corn locally, etc. Representative Sandy Greiner, the Republican sponsor of the bill, bragged on the House Floor that Vilsack put her up to it right after his state of the state address."
Obama can hold up that bottle with its popular-with-the-people organic label and claim what is in there is his concern for us and the small farmers who bring us organic food, but we can see Monsanto's boy Vilsack through the glass, peeking out and sticking his tongue out at us, with his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers, for all the world like pickle gone bad.
The USDA is on a concerted tear to ELIMINATE local NON-corporate farmers. Is that rotten pickle likely to stop this, since the laws he's been pushing are in the service of the same and since his support of CAFOs in Iowa already wiped out thousands of small farmers there?
Or do we need to go back to the grassroots and let them know that Obama's showy organic label is no longer covering the genetically engineered junk in the bottle. Vilsack is the ideal person to lead the USDA ... in its already on-going actions to destroy sustainable, organic agriculture.
Shall we stop trusting organic labels and get down and dirty and start organizing?
From Food Chain Radio, sent out by a farming list, and now to you:
Should farmers be allowed to sell us their foods, or should we be forced to buy their foods from government-sanctioned corporations? (#617)
SWATTING FARMERS
(Food Chain Radio #617)
On Monday, December 1, 2008, members of an Ohio Department of Agriculture commissioned SWAT team carrying semi-automatic assault rifles forced their way into the farmhouse of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family into their living room, and held them there for nine hours while other team members ransacked the farmhouse for evidence.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
