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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] FDA FSMA Proposed Rule for Produce Safety | Organic Farmers Bash FDA Restrictions On Manure Use : The Salt : NPR

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  • From: "Pete Gasper, Gasper Family Farm" <farmer1@gasperfarm.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] FDA FSMA Proposed Rule for Produce Safety | Organic Farmers Bash FDA Restrictions On Manure Use : The Salt : NPR
  • Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 11:42:08 -0600

Bob's idea won't work. This sort of hyper regution happened before back in the 60's with the introduction of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance and then again in the 90's with HACCP regulations of butchers. In both cases it resulted in the mass loss of dairy farmers and small butchers as regulators used their new found uncheckable powers to drive them out of business.

The moment you become subject to the whim of a regulator to stay open it is game over. The only question is how long you'll be able to hold out. There is no logic or right thinking being involved here. FSMA is just a hammer to be used by BigAg to prevent the upstart competition.

The ONLY solution here is resistance.

And its not just the compost thing. The costs for bringing up to standard will wipe out most operations and those that survive will be whittled away by year on year compliance costs.

On 11/22/2013 12:56 PM, Lawrence London wrote:
On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Bob Waldrop<bob@bobwaldrop.net> wrote:

There will likely be a number of adaptations and this could be one of
them. In fact, I'm thinking we should be collecting a set of "best
practices for adapting to screwball federal bureaucrats who have never
farmed and don't have a clue but are trying to close down local ag at
the behest of their big ag money people."

You know what this is like? After WWII, Russia's imposition of pro Soviet
Stalin/Lenin-type Communist totalitarian dictatorship (still that way in
Belarus) governments
in Eastern Bloc countries within the greater USSR. That was a version of
what Stalin did in the Ukraine
and especially to the non communist free enterprise affluent farming class
called the Kulaks
The Communists controlled the production and distribution of all goods
ultimately benefiting the party elite,
insiders and chosen trading partners. Everyone else waited in woefully
inadequate bread lines.
The Yugoslavs, Slovakians and Czechs may have fared better. Romania still
has some of those former Communist leaders running that country.

See any similarities to the present state of affairs? It doesn't matter
whether it is capitalism or communism, its still the same old crowd
of greedy scheming freeloaders dominating the economy and eliminating
competition, in our case using ethically and morally corrupt means,
essentiallly fascist corporations corrupting government while taking
advantage of weaknesses in and polarization of our society (bread and
circus syndrome).
and erosion of the fabric of our culture. ("we don't need all those
subsistence gardeners, homesteaders and small farmers using natural methods
and materials,
earning their livelihoods in economies local to them, contributing to local
sustainability and environmental stabilization; don't want to have to
compete with them anyway;
they can shop at supermarkets and buy mass produced goods, no need to grow
their own or provide for others who don't or can't").

I have no idea how people in the USA will deal with this new FSMA (first
major revision in 70 years) but Bob's suggestion is a good one and maybe
the best so far. How to we get that going?

China's economy is failing; read this article: "The End Of The Chinese
Economic Miracle" - Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2013/07/23/the-end-of-the-chinese-economic-miracle/
Comments in a forum:
"The canary in the coal mine is China's physical gold imports. Why would
any country import so much, except as insurance against economic downturn?
After all, gold is a bad investment. It doesn't generate any returns."
"The canary in the coal mine is China's physical gold imports. Why would
any country import so much, except as insurance against economic downturn?
After all, gold is a bad investment. It doesn't generate any returns."

*"China’s Transformation * The Chinese are not going to completely collapse
economically any more than the Japanese or South Koreans did. What will
happen is that China will behave differently than before. With no choices
that don’t frighten them, the Chinese will focus on containing the social
and political fallout, both by trying to target benefits to politically
sensitive groups and by using their excellent security apparatus to
suppress and deter unrest. The Chinese economic performance will degrade,
but crisis will be avoided and political interests protected. Since much of
China never benefited from the boom, there is a massive force that has felt
marginalized and victimized by coastal elites. That is not a bad foundation
for the Communist Party to rely on."

LL




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