HR 875

So this morning I came upon a group on Facebook called "Against The Organic Farming Ban". Obviously I was intrigued, considering I didn't think there WAS an organic farming ban. Turns out, there is a group that feels bill HR 875- Food Safety Moderization Act of 2009 contains a ban on organic farming. Rumors are swirling all over the internet. I took a look at the text of the bill, but there didn't seem to be anything explicitly banning or hurting local or organic farming. If anything, this seems to solve/slow many other food safety issues that we've been griping about for years, including e coli and salmonella outbreaks. Here are some other articles that try to clarify the real implications of the bill:

From the Daily Green

From Mother Jones

I will be keeping an eye out on this one. It seems to me that it is not as evil as some are perceiving it, but obviously we should be aware of what is happening with this legislation. There are in fact several food safety bills being worked on now. It's hard to regulate for agri-business and small local ag at the same time- while cleaning up agri-business, sometimes we create regulations impossible for small farms to meet. Perhaps we need different sets of regulations for different types/sizes of farms?