Hello All,
First off I want to say that I have grave
reservations over HR875, and I also disagree with some of the things Vicki said
in regards to the bill, especially after having read some of it, the language is
very broad,general and interpretation could be taken from different angles in
regards to who is doing the interpretation. There seems to be many more
regulations and bookeeping involved( seems the onus always falls on the small
producers!),and is very invasive. The penalties are also quite extreme( possible
jail time and one million dollar fine for each offense and according to
interpretation, a million dollars a day for each day of non compliance), in the
case of the peanut debacle, if the federal and state regulators had been doing
their jobs, people would not have died or fallen ill. Paying off inspectors
seems to be the norm in much of the food industry these days( I have seen
it myself over the last thirty years), then you also now have,in many large
plants, the "inspector" being an actual employee of the company, this
has been going on now for a few years, HAACP trained employees doing the actual
inspection, no conflict of interest,of course. There is a lot going on "out
there" and has become very hard to even keep up with the overload of information
and fear mongering over food safety, many folks seem to forget that "life"
itself is not "safe"! I have requested from my house rep.( Bart Stupak) a copy
of the bill(HR875) as introduced to committee,as I have not been able to find
the "whole" bill, no answer yet. The bill may not be as bad as we think,as
long as there are some clear exemptions for direct farm to consumer
sales.
Secondly, there seems to be some
communication going on between inividuals, instead of sending to the complete
list-serve, please folks send to "reply all", it makes it very difficult to know
everything said when you do not receive ALL the e-mails, if you only hit the
reply button,your reply will only be sent to the individual that
originally sent the message. Receiving bits and pieces is very
confusing!!
I see there was a request to have
someone removed from the list serve for not following the 'rules", from what I
see, both individuals were rude to each other. Personal attacks and profanity
really have no place here, this only causes a communication break down and does
not resolve anything, PLEASE folks, just agree to disagree. Freedom of
speech and expression is fundamental, but should remain "civil". This type of
behavior is one of the main reasons the organic movement in this state has
remained fragmented for so many years, I believe we all have some level of
interest in moving forward and not to remain stagnated as has been. Michigan has
been trying to play catch up now for some time, especially in regards to the
progressive movements in the northeast and northwest portions of this country, I
do not believe any of us want to remain in the "dark ages". I really enjoy
receiving the information forwarded on this list-serve and would hope to
continue to do so, now more than ever, we need a united front.
Thank You All in Advance,
John Dutcher
Dutcher
Farm
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 4:10
PM
Subject: Fwd: More information sites - HR
875
Request this individual be banned from this site as they seem to not
want to follow any "rules" of interchange
Stan - Good Neighbor Farms
obviously you are
f*cked up republican
YOU!
In a message dated 3/25/2009 4:42:36 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
what is your
problem?
Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make
dinner for $10 or less.
Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner
for $10 or less.
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