I’ve been spammed with no less than 30 emails this past week from people forwarding various cries of panic over bill HR 875. The first email I received contained links to two YouTube videos (Criminalize Organic Farming? and Follow up HR875 S425 Criminalize Organic Farming). Claims like “Monsanto sponsored” and “Ban organic farming” were pretty alarming so I immediately checked out the two videos. I didn’t make it through either video entirely: they both seemed dubious, claiming things that seemed outrageous and not backing their claims with anything specific.

I then went and read HR 875. It’s long and boring. But I could find nothing to substantiate any of the claims being made by the panicked emails or those two YouTube videos. As more emails were forwarded to me I became annoyed: first because of the “cry wolf” factor. Food is an important issue in this country and I don’t want to see legitimate issues polarized by association with these types of bogus email alerts. Second, has political action in this country boiled down to the act of simply forwarding an email without doing even some basic research or reasoning? There’s no excuse for anyone forwarding these emails around to not simply type “HR 875″ into the Google/Yahoo search box, open up the bill, and then perform a quick read or page search of that bill looking for things like “organic”, “ban” or “fine” in an effort to verify the issues.

On one Yahoo group in town, there were several people who forwarded this email to the group, apparently unaware that the same email had already been forwarded (and discussed) within the group several times before their message arrived. So it’s clear that these people don’t even read or participate in the group. While I applaud anyone’s intent to be politically active and get the truth out; this method of spreading information is the drive by shooting of political activism.

Finally today I had some reasoning infused into the frenzy. I received the following email from the owners of Seeds of Change (who sent it out on their Yahoo Group):

All:

Thank you for your contact and for the opportunity to comment on HR 875 and S 425. We do not believe these bills will outlaw organic farming or backyard gardening.

These are food safety bills, which is a political necessity now. The bills do not make statements about chemical inputs, organics, seed supplies or gardening, it calls for min standards for production, processing (slaughtering etc), distribution and preparation of food. These standards do NOT call for the use of chemicals, but do call for standards in terms of soil fertility (does not say to use fertilizers….), hygiene, processing, packaging, storage etc. The rule also calls for traceability, already a big part of organics and one of our inherent advantages in our process based system. The rule calls for foreign food production to meet the same standards, and be subject to US accredited certification. This is the exact same system as we use in organics already, and frankly, if offshore food production needs to meet more strict quality standards, this in theory will increase US food production, which has been on the decline for many years. Reversing this trend and maintaining high food quality standards (based on processes, not only testing) is a good thing, and we are already doing that in organics.

Obviously, one area of potential concern could be if the standard includes for instance mandatory irradiation of food (banned under the organic law). Another area of concern could be combination production practices of animals and plants. Historically common, scientifically useful, but when the numbers get excessive, a problem. The problem is the numbers, not the practice perse. Raw milk, free range eggs etc, could all also be subject to new and more stringent food safety and ‘treatment’ regs. However, none of this is stated and would be subject to review A solution to the above would be in the clause allowing for variances, which these folks would have to apply for.

We feel these bills use common sense and need (we must look at food safety, which should be the concerns in organics as well…some of the recent peanuts were organic) and are an opportunity for organics as a process based, traceable and scientific system, to be proactive and to grow the use of sustainable, organic crop/food production.

The Folks at Seeds of Change

The following website gives an overview also of the food safety issues;

http://foodandwaterwatch.org/food/foodsafety/background-on-h-r-875/?searchterm=875

In my opinion this email, and the information contained on the link to Food and Water Watch, are the most reasonable and accurate description of HR 875.