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. If you would like to access a
searchable archive of the all the previous Mich-Organic listserv
postings copy this URL and paste in your browser address field
http://list.msu.edu/archives/mich-organic.html
If you would like to access a searchable archive of the all the
previous Mich-Organic listserv postings copy this URL and paste in your
browser address field http://list.msu.edu/archives/mich-organic.html