 | COOKING for
PEACE Cultivating Community, Reaping Revolution Preface Page 9 At the same time I was working on this book, the United States Congress and Senate were busy drafting a Federal Food Safety law. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 76 million people in the United States get sick every year with food-borne illness, resulting in over 5,000 deaths nationwide. Massive industrial farming operations are responsible for most cases of illness from food. Even so, the new Food Safety laws do not address the most dangerous aspects of industrial agriculture. Millions of animals living in cramped conditions fed nutrition-free, genetically engineered grains are providing the perfect environment to promote disease among the millions of animals housed together in giant stockyards, airless poultry sheds and high-speed slaughter facilities. The Food Safety Modernization Act was drafted with the aid of Michael Taylor, the Monsanto executive responsible for the company's campaigns to block the labeling of genetically engineered foods and conceal the dangers of rBGH growth hormones in dairy cattle. He not only helped draft the bill, but President Obama appointed him to be America's first Food Safety Czar. The Food Safety Modernization Act is supported by corporate interests like the Snack Food Association, General Mills, and Kraft Foods North America, while opposed by the National Family Farm Coalition and the Small Farms Conservancy. The cost of compliance for small organic farmers is likely to force them out of business or underground at a time when many Americans are starting to support community based agriculture, buying their food at farmers markets as well as cultivating their own gardens. Some of the requirements might be both expensive and harmful to the nutrition of organically grown food. As the bill currently stands, our food supply is considered a national security risk and includes provisions requiring Homeland Security to seize control of our food production in the event of an emergency. Many of these regulations require large amounts of money for compliance, and favor industrial food producers while threatening to bankrupt local agriculture. The Food Safety Modernization Act will contribute to an increase in the cost of food and may reduce its nutritional value as well. More people will go hungry, and what food people can afford will not be any safer to consume. |
