How Obama-Monsanto’s Food Act Destroys Small Farms
Rady Ananda
Activist Post.com
Thursday, February 6, 2014
On par with Stalin’s farm collectivization program of the 1930s, Monsanto’s push (to the tune of $8.8 million in lobby bribes in 2008 alone) for the Food Safety Modernization Act is already achieving the nightmares of its worst critics.
Introduced in 2008 by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) as HR-875, the reworked FSMA was signed into law in January 2011 by President Obama. DeLauro’s husband, Stanley Greenberg, served as a consultant to Monsanto through his strategic political consulting firm, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. (GQRR also advised Tony Blair and Bill Clinton during their campaigns.)
Nothing in FSMA addresses the food safety issues of pesticide residue, genetically modified crops, or food miles (which increase the chance of spoilage). But FSMA requires all commercial farms to test the streams used to irrigate their crops.
“The 1,200 page act was designed to put small family farms out of business,” explains Michael Tabor in a recent Farm-to-Consumer interview. “Most farmers irrigate their fields from nearby streams. Now those streams have to be tested on a weekly basis.” At $87.50 per testing, this increases the cost of doing business by $5,000 a year.
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