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March 20, 2018 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
13:29
Interview with Farmer Brad about S.510 Food Safety Modernization Act
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To me, that's so un-American to finally say, hey, you're going to stay in this box and you can never that's so un-American to finally say, hey, you're going to stay in this box and you You know, $500,000 is your cap.
It's like destroying farming jobs.
Well, like I said, it's made us...
Start to totally re-look at our business plan and how we're going to sell our food.
We're no longer going to sell wholesale.
We're no longer going to sell the chefs or restaurants.
It's consumer direct only.
So you're actually pulling back from some of the expansion plans?
Yeah, we are.
We have actually, this last year as we've been watching this happen, we've been putting plans on hold and pulling back our business.
We want to make sure we want to stay in that.
So again, that's how it's going to affect the local food system.
Right.
Because we don't want to get too successful.
Hello everybody, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger here for Natural News.
You know, we've been looking at this S-510 Food Safety Modernization Act situation.
Unfortunately, as you know, the bill passed both in the House and the U.S. Senate.
Looks like it's going to be signed into law very soon.
It may be by the time you see this.
But what's the real impact of this law on real farmers here in America?
To find out, I went to Texas, and I'm connecting with a few farmers around Texas, such as Farmer Brad, who you're going to meet today.
I'm on his farm right here, asking Farmer Brad, Who is, by the way, a local farmer providing food for about a thousand people through community-supported agriculture.
That's a CSA organization.
He grows that food.
He and his family grow it right out here.
It's a beautiful operation.
It's better than organic.
He doesn't use synthetic chemicals, by the way.
But I asked him, what is the impact of this Food Safety Modernization Act on your farm and your industry?
So here to answer those questions is Farmer Brad.
Hey, Brad, thanks for joining us today.
Yeah, thanks for coming out.
So can you tell us a little bit about your operation here, just so people know what you know?
Well, our program, it's a community-supported agriculture program, like you said, and basically we have, it's basically a membership deal.
Customers pre-order the season with us and commit to us through the year, and we're growing specifically for our customers before we even get a seed in the ground.
We already know who we're growing for.
And I think in one way maybe that how this Food Safety Act has changed How it's going to affect us is it's really starting to change the whole way that we even think about our business anymore.
In what way?
I mean, is it helping your business in any way or is it all making it more difficult?
Well, I mean, it could be helping our business.
Every time there's a food outbreak, you know, dangerous food, that helps our business because people want food with integrity and they know that they have to know their farmer in order to find food with integrity.
And us, being a local farmer, we feel like the most accountable thing to our food is that transparency that we have.
Those family members, our members, our customers know who we are, we know the names of those customers, and that's what ultimately holds us accountable.
And even you, you being here today, and our members in general, we encourage them to be their own farm inspectors.
For them to come out here, for them to see what they're getting into, for them to understand the real impact on what buying local food does, not just for their health, but for their whole rural communities around them.
But it seems like the federal government does not trust you and small local farmers.
I mean, they want food to be more centralized and more controlled through federal oversight, it seems like.
Well, yes, and now, unfortunately, the FDA, the last few years, has been very aggressive.
You know, very aggressive to small dairies and raw dairies and local food co-ops.
And that scares us now.
I think it's going to...
Um, discourage people for getting into this type of business.
You know, I've been involved for a long time, especially in Texas and the whole organic food movement.
And we're finally seeing young people wanting to come back into farming.
Yeah.
But this kind of a system is going to discourage that because, I mean, who would want to choose any kind of lifestyle or small business knowing that this aggressive FDA could unwarranted searches on your farm and your home and your records and just to have that burden on your back every day.
Right.
I mean, who would want that kind of a business and burden on their shoulders?
So I'm kind of disappointed as we've been seeing this local food movement growing with large strength in numbers is now going to be, you know, have that over their shoulders.
Well, there are a lot of people who would say that the right to grow your own food without intervention is...
some would describe it, some constitutional scholars might describe it as a natural law.
Others might describe it as a God-given right or a natural-born right.
How do you view the right to grow food and food freedom?
Well, of course I do.
I feel like it's one of the most basic rights.
This is one of the reasons why we chose this is because we wanted to live this lifestyle.
We wanted our children to have the absolute best food that they could possibly have.
And me being a background in horticulture, I knew I could do something about that by growing food for my family and my children.
But more even beyond that, I'm lucky and blessed enough that professionally, I can make a living doing it, providing that same righteous food in my community.
And that is, in our idea, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We are pursuing happiness here.
We're not pursuing wealth.
We're choosing a lifestyle and happiness.
And to us, that's what the greatest reward is.
Why would anyone want to work this hard, you know, unless you enjoyed it?
And that's the only thing that really motivates us.
But again, something that, you know, early in the 80s, this HACCP, the Hazardous Analysis Central Control Points, this was the very thing that started to put dairies and small meat processors and community, part of the community food system is already beginning to break down when they started this.
Creating burdensome paperwork, For the farmer, and now because of these regulations, if a farmer was required to get into this program, now they would have to go to the bank and finance the improvements that they need to make on their property in order to To meet those FDA standards, even though small local food has never been a source of the risk.
Exactly.
It's all been the big corporate farms.
Exactly.
The risk, and the greater the risk is, is we centralize food, and it's the industrial food complex where these outbreaks have been happening.
Exactly.
If I, by chance, by the grace of God, it never happens, but if a small farmer was to do something, Something to get some people sick, on a local level, that only affects 10, 20, maybe 100 families.
But when we centralize things, and we commingle all this food from everywhere else, and it's in shipping and containers, and two weeks later you finally get it, it's going to get thousands of people sick.
What do they say that a hamburger you buy out there, it could have meat from 20,000 different cows in it?
You don't know.
No, and it's got much more than even meat in it.
I mean, you don't want to be a part of that.
And again...
People have the choice.
Right now, people have the choice to get local and fresh food.
But we are definitely going to see food prices go up because of this, because of the standards and the regulations and the more paperwork and the employees now and the burdensome, you know, that expense will be passed on to the consumer.
But the whole ironic thing is that our food supply is larger and larger coming from overseas.
And this doesn't regulate them whatsoever.
Yeah, exactly.
And a lot of that food is, of course, a lot more dangerous.
They use more pesticides.
They have fewer safety, not to say controls, but just processes.
For example, you're more conscientious about your food than someone working for $3 a day in Chile picking food that's for export.
Right.
And we eat this food.
You know, again, it goes back to our family.
We're doing this for our health.
And that's our first, you know, after I harvest produce, I take it to my lab, which is our kitchen, and I add some, you know, and we determine if it's safe and if it's edible, and we would know right away, you know, if there was anything wrong.
That's accountability, and that's, that's, that's, um...
You know, minimizing the risk.
But, you know, as domestic food prices are going up, it's now opening the door for foreign food to come in here on the market even more.
And we are inspecting less than 3% of foreign food coming into our market.
And, you know, and if the FDA doesn't have money to, or the manpower to inspect more foreign food coming into our country, they could just put tariffs on that food as it comes in to pay for that, those inspections in those labs.
You know, it's just, the answers are there, but...
And without a doubt, the industrial food complex does need to be better regulated, you know, and does need to be cleaned up.
But we're not going to the source of the problem, and a lot of it is the production methods.
Right, and just for the record, a lot of people think that this Food Safety Modernization Act exempts small farmers because they cite the Tester Amendment.
But I don't think they know what's really written in there because it's not an exemption.
Small farms have to apply for exemption.
You have to send a bunch of paperwork to Washington and you have to be granted exemption.
It's like slaves groveling at the feet of the king.
Right, and the FDA still, even though that farm might be exempt, based on like three criteria, is 275 miles distance, selling direct to consumers, and your gross sales not exceeding $500,000 a year.
To me, that's so un-American to finally say, hey, you're going to stay in this box and you can never grow your business bigger than that.
You know, $500,000 is your cap.
It's like destroying farming jobs.
Well, like I said, it's made us...
Start to totally re-look at our business plan and how we're going to sell our food.
We're no longer going to sell wholesale.
We're no longer going to sell to chefs or restaurants.
It's consumer direct only.
So you're actually pulling back from some of your expansion plans because of that?
Yeah, we are.
We have actually, this last year as we've been watching this happen, we've been putting plans on hold and pulling back our business.
We want to make sure we want to stay in that...
So again, that's how it's going to affect the local food system.
Right.
Because we don't want to get too successful.
Wow, that is un-American.
It's very un-American.
I mean, that's anti-free market.
It's anti-American.
It's a violation of natural law.
And again, we need a marketplace to rule.
You know, I mean, if the consumers want to buy our food, you know...
If they feel more confident in our spinach than the spinach that's being sold from California and mass producers, they need the right to make that choice.
And it needs to be available for them.
Do you want to give out your web address or not?
You know, I'd love to.
We want to, we want, and again, and I'm happy to do it, more because our farm, I want our farm to be an inspiration to others.
And that was really, that was our way of always giving back is, you know, we want to prove to small families and to business owners that they can do it.
Right.
Agriculture is a viable, um, um, You know, a good business to get into, a rewarding business to get into, and that you can do it.
You know, we're not...
We didn't start with three or four generations of experience in our belt and a farm handed over to us.
I mean, this is a new farm, a new beginning that's being proven that it can be done because we're financing it through our community support, you know, becoming members with our CSA. So we're proving that it can be done.
And then again, at the same time, I'm thinking, I need to sell...
You know, make sure I get my mortgage paid off as quick as I can.
Yeah.
So, because one day I might not work this hard, you know, if they make it that hard.
I know old farmers that are doing diversified vegetable farms like we're doing right now.
And they're saying they're getting out.
They're throwing in the towel.
If this happens, we're going to see more small farmers get out of business.
And the average farmer right now is over 68 years old.
And they're talking about, those farmers are talking about throwing in the towel.
Because they won't have the time.
You know, to do all this burdensome paperwork.
So it will affect small farmers, even though we're exempt, it's going to affect us.
So it's going to hit the food supply.
So all these people all over the country buying local organic food from CSAs, they're going to see less supply, which means higher prices.
They're going to be paying more for local food, because there's less available.
Well, and you'll see, and because...
Local food still only supplies less than 1% of our food supply.
So for that to be any kind of risk to our national food supply is just ridiculous.
But also when we're talking about security risks and local food security, local food is food security.
You know, when Katrina came through here, you know, coming through Houston and people were evacuating, you know, RCSA members were literally able to come by here and pick up their food.
Yeah.
You know, because it was theirs, where the grocery store shelves were already empty.
Okay, yeah, let's talk about that in the next segment here.
I want to wrap this up.
We'll talk about food security and maybe a little preparedness in the next segment.
This is Farmer Brad, everybody.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to chat.
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