First-ever National Heirloom Exposition in CA this September
By Rady Ananda
Billing itself as the "world's fair" of the heirloom industry, the National Heirloom Exposition will be held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California from Sept. 13-15, 2011.
Supported by firms "passionate about heirlooms and pure foods," the three-day event will feature over 250 vendors, plus speakers, workshops, films, tours, and, of course, FOOD - the all natural, organic, pure kind that farmers and gardeners have reared or raised for ages.
Over 60 speakers, including Dr. Vandana Shiva, Alice Waters and Jeffrey Smith, will offer ongoing training, workshops and presentations.
“We want a world of biodiversity, of safe seed and food, of seed sovereignty and food sovereignty,” Dr. Shiva told Susan Audrey. “That is why I will be coming to the National Heirloom Exposition, because it is defending our future.”
PermalinkUncle Sam Food History Exhibit Promotes Food Control
By Rady Ananda
Oh, gag me with a bowl of propaganda. The National Archives is hosting an historical exhibit on government say in what we eat and grow and how to cook it: “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam: The Government's Effect on the American Diet.” From the opening lines of the website, you know our control freak “Uncle” has launched another major psyops campaign to convince us that Government Knows Best when it comes to food:
“We demand that our Government ensure that it is safe, cheap, and abundant. In response, Government has been a factor in the production, regulation, research, innovation, and economics of our food supply.”
Though painting Uncle Sam as Mrs. Doubtfire, when it comes to the results of government intrusion into the food supply, he’s more like Joseph Mengele. Over the last hundred years, we've seen climbing rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease and neurological disorders, thanks to Uncle Sam's "regulation" of food additives and environmental pollutants. We've also seen the number of farms decline by 98%.
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Controversial ag spending bill defunds local food systems, promotes meat monopoly
By Rady Ananda
Plutocrats aimed another weapon at the nation’s poor and at small and midsized farmers, this time thru the 2012 agriculture appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, which the House passed on June 16. The 82-page bill returns some federal spending to 2006 levels and others to 2008 levels.
Now being reviewed by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, the final version of HR 2112 will lay the terrain on which the 2012 Farm Bill will be crafted. The House Agriculture Committee began preparatory hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill this week, reports NSAC.
Key sections provide deep cuts to domestic food programs, threatening food banks, low-income seniors, women and children, and farmers markets supported by WIC vouchers issued thru the Women, Infants and Children program.
HR 2112 also made deep cuts to rural development, conservation and eco-remediation programs, and to local and regional food system development programs. This can be seen as nothing other than a punitive response to the growing local food sovereignty movement.
Wyoming defeats, Georgia introduces Food Freedom Act
By Rady Ananda
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.
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 Franklin. H.B. 12, the Georgia Food Freedom Act, exempts from regulation direct farm to consumer products as long as they are "unprocessed" which is defined as those "that have not been shelled, canned, cooked, fermented, distilled, preserved, ground, crushed, or slaughtered."
Franklin also introduced H.B. 2, Georgia Right to Grow Act, which bans localities from prohibiting or requiring a permit "for the growing or raising of food crops or chickens, rabbits, or milk goats in home gardens, coops, or pens on private residential property so long as such food crops or animals or the products thereof are used for human consumption by the occupant of such property and members of his or her household and not for commercial purposes."
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