If HR 2749 Passes the Senate, Small Farms Will Die

Filed Under: Environmental News, Green Politics on August 7, 2009

Soon to be extinct...

House Resolution 2749 passed on July 29, as reported here. The bill has entered the Senate and is, as of this writing, in the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Despite the controversy surrounding the bill in the House of Representatives, and its original failure to pass a vote, the bill was brought up again under a suspension of rules, allowing for it’s passage.

If you don’t find that questionable enough, you should see what some farmers are saying about the bill.

Pascal Destandau of Pugs Leap Farm in Sonoma County, California, wrote an article for Hartke is Online. In that article, Pascal shows how his artisan goat and cheese farm will be shut down by regulatory red tape, excessive compliance fees, and the virtual ending of most of his organic, natural farming methods.

His farm will be required to register for multiple permits and give detailed “plans” for the production of goods. Having retired from the personal care industry and having dealt with the Food and Drug Administration on issues like these in the past, Pascal understands the immense amount of manpower and money required to meet the requirements that will be set.

He knows it will mean the end of his business and his farm and probably the end of most artisan and natural/organic farms in the United States. Except, of course, those that are on the huge, industrial farming levels such as those owned by huge conglomerates like Bolthouse and Conagra.

Pascal is just one of thousands of small, heritage operations that will die if this legislation passes through the Senate and becomes a reality. Contrary to what you might have been told, there are no provisions to exempt some types of operation from the bill. Further, the “safety” being promoted does nothing to curb the largest issue in agriculture today: consolidation of crop seed types and the resistant disease formed thanks to industrial meat production. In fact, it enhances those problems.

For more information on the bill itself, visit my short article on the subject here.