Global milk war ramps up as citizens face off with regulators

By Rady Ananda

The battle for food freedom intensifies across the planet as citizens assert their right to raw dairy products unadulterated by drugs and genetically modified ingredients – in the face of authorities seeking to restrict our food choices and to criminalize entrepreneurs who operate outside the monopolized factory food system.

The State of Maine recently sued farmer Dan Brown for selling food and milk without State licenses, despite a local law that permits it. “Blue Hill is one of five Maine towns to have passed the Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance,” explains Family Farm Defenders.

Factory Foods Cause 70 pct of all foodborne illnesses; Dairy safest

By Rady Ananda

With all the milk raids over the past few years, you wouldn’t think that dairy is the safest type of food in the U.S., or that factory foods cause 70% of all foodborne illnesses – but that’s just what a new study by the University of Florida reveals. [1]

Permaculture ends meat-vegan debate, promotes anarchy

By Rady Ananda

Review of Meat: A Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlee (2010, 322 pp.); and

Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale Integrative Farming and Gardening by Sepp Holzer (English version 2011, 232 pp.)

Notice: PBS is rebroadcasting Food, Inc. on Tuesday, August 9 and is kicking off its new Food site. Check local listings here.

While the Bush reign may be described as a war on privacy, Obama’s is clearly a war on food freedom.* As his Monsanto administration arrests organic farmers and distributors, seizing and destroying healthy foods privately contracted and sustainably grown, this tyranny is not unique to the United States.  All over the world, organic, sustainable farmers are under attack by large agribiz actors  who, through government and trade agreements, are regulating them out of business and destroying the environment in the process.

Two farmers arguing against ecocidal hyper-regulation and “conventional” and “orthodox organic” farming are Simon Fairlee of England and Sepp Holzer of Austria. Both have written seminal books that should grace the bookshelves of everyone who gardens, farms or cares about the impact of agriculture on the biosphere.

FDA Goons and the Second Amendment

By Rady Ananda

On July 16, the US Food and Drug Administration posted a libelous release linking a foodborne pathogen to a South Carolina raw dairy before confirming whether or not such a link existed. Two weeks later, the FDA determined that Tucker Adkins Dairy products were free of all contaminants but has still not issued a retraction at its webpage.

“How do we get our reputation back?”  That’s what Tommy and Carolyn Adkins asked the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. (FTCLDF)

Without a retraction at the web page, they can’t.

Rawesome Raided Again! Farmers and private food club owner arrested for selling fresh milk

By Rady Ananda

About 20 armed agents from various local, state and federal agencies, coordinated by the US Food and Drug Administration, staged another raid on fresh foods sold in California at a Ventura County farm and at Rawesome Foods, a private buying club providing members with unadulterated, unpasteurized milk and dairy products, among other items.

Healthy Family Farms owner Sharon Palmer and one of her employees, Eugenie Bloch, were arrested, along with James Stewart, the operator of Rawesome Foods located in Venice, California.

A protest is planned for tomorrow’s arraignment hearings (Thursday, August 4) at Los Angeles Superior Court, Criminal Justice Center, 210 W. Temple Street. Organizers are asking protesters to arrive at 7:45 am.

How Safe Is Your Food? GMOs, Foodborne Illness and Trade Agreements

Graph: Data compiled by GRAIN from government and UN sources, 2008-2010 (except Australia=2005)

By Rady Ananda

A research group that supports community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, GRAIN, has released a global report, Food Safety for Whom? Corporate Wealth vs. Peoples’ Health, showing how governments and corporations use “food safety” to manipulate market access and control. Rather than making food safer, domestic and trade rules “force open markets, or backdoor ways to limit market access.”

FDA claims power to seize food without evidence of contamination

By Rady Ananda

A few hours ago, the Food and Drug Administration declared it no longer needs credible evidence to seize food that may be contaminated. Ignoring the Fourth Amendment entirely, the FDA claims that based on mere suspicion that a food product has been contaminated or mislabeled, and that serious illness or death will result, it can hold the food for 30 days while it then looks for evidence. It claims this power under the Food Safety Modernization Act, which President Monsanto, I mean, Obama, signed in January.

On May 4th, the FDA stated:

“Previously, the FDA’s ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

Sebelius-backed biotech firm reorganizing under criminal probe

KBA urged Homeland Security to locate bioweapons lab in Tornado Alley

Kathleen Sebelius with Tom Thornton in this 2008 Topeka Capital-Journal image.

By Rady Ananda

The head of Health and Human Services not only denies that Americans have a right to bodily health and food of their choice, but Kathleen Sebelius is hell bent on spending taxpayer money to promote genetically modified food and drugs. One of her projects, Kansas Bioscience Authority, a publicly funded venture enterprise developed to promote biotechnology, is currently under criminal investigation. CEO Tom Thornton has resigned.

KBA also lobbied the Dept. of Homeland Security for the highly controversial bioweapons and cattle disease lab in the state, along with former Governor Sebelius, now President Obama’s Cabinet Secretary. Under her governorship and full support, the Kansas Economic Growth Act of 2004 passed, funding KBA’s mission with $581 million in tax revenue to develop a bioscience industry in Kansas.

So how’s the Food Patriot Act working out so far?

[Image]

By Rady Ananda

Another armed food raid – this time on a company that provides nutritional supplements primarily for autism spectrum disorders and Alzheimer’s disease – another day under the Food Safety Modernization Act. As predicted, the FSMA is turning out to be a deliberate plan to wipe out small (under a million dollars a year in sales) and medium-sized (under $10 million a year) producers of natural, wholesome food and supplements. This is what happens when corporations run governments.

The concept of “food safety” in corpogov-speak is really just food fascism, according to Vandana Shiva:

“Risk Assessment in the hands of centralized corruptible agencies is no protection for consumers as the disease and health epidemic in the U.S. linked to over processed, industrial foods show. Even while the U.S. is at the epicenter of the food related public health crises, the U.S. government is trying to export its Food laws which deregulate the industry and over regulate ordinary citizens and small enterprise. This deregulation of the big and toxic and over regulation of the small and ecological is at the core of Food Fascism.” [emphasis added]

Small scale producers of meat, raw dairy and veggies, and dietary supplements are under continual attack by food giants who have placed their former employees in positions of power and authority.

A Perfect Storm of GMOs, Chemicals and Cancer

By Rady Ananda

Several books, including Seeds of Destruction and Corrupt to the Core, along with the film, The Idiot Cycle, lay out the framework for and evidence of a concerted effort to sicken and then treat humanity, while earning obscene profits. When we factor in other recent actions taken by transnational corporations and lawmakers, the conspiracy adopts a more ominous tone.

Authors William Engdahl and Shiv Chopra appear in Emmanuelle Schick Garcia’s powerful film, The Idiot Cycle: What you aren’t being told about cancer. Both writers provide detailed evidence of a corporate-government conspiracy to adulterate the food and water supply with dangerous substances linked to a host of illnesses. The Case Against Fluoride, a book using hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, provides more evidence. In David Gumpert’s Raw Milk Revolution, we get a peek at the US government’s war on the natural dairy industry.

Wyoming defeats, Georgia introduces Food Freedom Act

Jan. 28 UPDATE: Wyoming Food Freedom Act back, sans raw milk exclusion. Also, according to the Tenth Amendment Center, Democrat Representative Walter Kumiega of Deer Isle, Maine has introduced a Food Freedom Act, similar to the one that was introduced in Wyoming.

By Rady Ananda

On Tuesday, by a vote of 5-4, agriculture committee members rejected the Wyoming Food Freedom Act which would have exempted some food products from government inspections and would have encouraged the sale and consumption of homemade foods. Sue Wallis, who introduced the measure, told the Billings Gazette its defeat was “disappointing.”

Georgia, however, will consider two bills to protect food freedom, introduced by Cobb County Rep. Bobby L. Franklin.

Foiled ‘terror’ plot on eve of passage of Food Patriot Act

By Rady Ananda

None other than CIA-run CBS News reported yesterday that the “Latest Terror Threat in US Aimed to Poison Food.” Though the stymied “terrorist” plot was “uncovered earlier this year,” the CBS exclusive report is filed on the eve of passage of the draconian Food Safety Modernization Act, otherwise known as the Food Patriot Act.

Apparently, official estimates of the number of foodborne illnesses (based on speculation and assumption) isn’t enough to scare the public in the minds of corporate officials. Adding to the long list of government-orchestrated terror events, we now learn of an alleged plot to poison the food supply. The transparent timing of such a “news” story couldn’t be more obvious if Obama had cried ‘Wolf!’

Canada Passes Draconian Food Law

Famine: Third Horse of the Apocalypse (Vasnetsov)

By Brigid of Gaia
Bring the Children Home

An Open Letter to the Police

On December 13, 2010, a piece of draconian legislation was passed into law by the Canadian senate. I refer to Bill C36, which is just one piece in the wider global plan called Codex Alimentarius. The bill controls consumer products and is widely understood to be the precursor for another bill that will give Health Canada the power to take some 75% of natural health products off the shelves.

At least as important as this is the part of the bill that removes the law of trespass. Until tonight, a police officer needed a warrant to enter private property in Canada. No longer. Under the new law, police can enter and seize private property at any time, for any reason, even if the person in question is not suspected of any crime.

“Unconstitutional” food bill driven by Big Food lobby dollars

By Rady Ananda
Food Freedom

While over 200 organizations lobbied on the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510), no one seemed to notice an unconstitutional section in the bill until after it passed on Tuesday. That day, Roll Call advised that the bill contained a provision, Sec. 107, allowing the Senate to raise revenues. This violates Article I, Section 7, of the U.S. Constitution, granting that power exclusively to the House. S.510 opponents now celebrate the House’s use of the “blue slip process” to return the bill to the Senate.

Criminalizing Nature’s Most Perfect Food: FDA’s war on private food contracts

By Rady Ananda

In his latest book, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle over Food Rights, David Gumpert details several cases of malicious prosecution against the natural dairy industry, reporting the myths, exaggerations and deceptions by authorities charged with protecting the food supply.

What you won’t get from the book is a whitewash of the raw milk movement.

S 510 is hissing in the grass

BUZZ THIS!

Guest Blogged by Steve Green

S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower