SAVE BERNIE'S FARM
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Grow a Garden... Discover REAL food...
Before it is Outlawed

One of the most wonderful benefits of a sustainable home, if windows are oriented to the south, is it's ability to generate food! Indoor gardens are a huge benfit to the air quality and produces the best food available!

The below articles, on the passage of a corruption to the USDA Organic label, is scary! The only way to affect any business, is to do what you would do with any product that is suspicious... Boycott!
"Phood" producers are moving closer and closer to selling us things that have no relation to real food. One can barely recognize what is being sold in stores. Many childern don't even know where the meat on their plate comes from: "from the store mommy!" There is no cow, pig or chicken, in relation to a burger, pork chop or "chicken fingers". There is no corn in relation to overly processed chips. There is no "cheese" in the macaroni. There is little, if any, cocoa in "chocolate". There is no humanity in "phood" production.

REAL farms are becoming extinct. Doesn't this scare the daylights out of you? Eminent domain (theft of property rights by politicians/corporations) and urban sprawl contribute to Corporate "phood" producers' farm take-overs. Farmers have become dependent upon various conditions, that we all have allowed to happen. They are dependent upon pesticides, rather than rotating crops, allowing government to dictate what they can or cannot grow, and extensive debt (to buy pesiticides, GE seeds, etc). They've become dependent upon government subsidies (Ted Turner, and other wealthy "pharmers", get millions of your tax dollars to keep their pharms "growing" - do you think Ted needs it?). Now... private ownership of water (the right to sell water) will add to the death of farms as their water rights are stripped away because they can no longer farm the food we need! It's a viscious circle, and we are just barely seeing the effects on our food supply. Wars of the future will not just be over oil... but water and food! And the corporations will win... as long as we keep buying from them.

All subsidies (government intervention - the theft and give-away of your hard-earned money) come with conditions that farmers MUST adhere to, or they lose that money. They become dependent, which eventually means that some big corporation will soon own that land and will begin using it for GE phood-stuffs and Terminator Seed phoods. We MUST stop sucking on the government TIT. We don't get nutin fer free honey! Farmers become dependent upon animal "pheed" suppliers that serve up cannibalized phood to naturally vegetarian animals, because most cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys, etc, are not grazed anymore.

50% of the corn grown in this country is genetically engineered (as are soy beans & strawberries), some with fish and pesiticide (Roundup) genes. But cows don't naturally eat corn! They eat grasses. Strawberries contain a fish (Cod) gene to make them less susceptible to cold - longer shelf life. Geez, can't do without a strawberry for a few months? No? Well then... dehydrate, or can them! Not enough time? Maybe we should rethink what we do with our "spare" time, and how much "stuff" we really need, which con-sumes all of our spare time!.

Many farmers in 3rd world countries are sold "terminator seeds" (from GE seed "manufacturers") that will not produce a seed, that can be harvested and planted the next year (a typical farm custom - do your children know this?); if they do produce a seed they cannot, by law, cannot harvest them... or they're sued! This makes farmers dependent, every year, upon the company that produces these "phood" seeds. They lose the farm, from the suit or because they can't afford to buy the seeds anymore... this begins the corporate take-over. Is it any wonder that so many are starving? Government/industry intervention into our food has NOT worked! Most Europeans won't buy GE phood.

Then corporate "phood pharmers" continue on, unhindered, with their "phood" program, and sneaking it into stores with hardly a notice (Taco Bell & Starlink Corn were the 1st, that we know of).

With seeds that contain pesticide genes (Roundup), farmers are finding that they still must use pesiticides, in increasing amounts. Duh. Bugs become resistent to that crop, just as they have to the pesticide, before the gene-seed was produced! All of this is all antithetical to a real farm! These GE seed companies are "patenting" seeds (and genomes), thus becoming the owner of many seeds (including natural ones), so farmers (and you) are not allowed to use them without permission and probably at great cost... every single year!

TOP TEN SOLUTIONS to the "problem" of food production:

1. Get government OUT of the business of regulating food. The USDA, FDA, EPA, ad nauseum, has proven themselves to be totally incompetent. Unless you consider that their agenda is not really designed to help, but rather to control you and the food supply. After all, it will be the next and near future world war... after the oil is gone. Stop relying on a nanny government that only seeks to control your LIFE.  FIND OUT.  Stop "believing" these bastards... Buyer Beware! We can find food that meets high standards, and we can demand (by withholding our money & putting it where our mouth is) that growers begin changing their practices. (Monsanto bought the "Terminator" Seed producing company). Poor farmers and third worldl peoples will be totally dependent on these phood phascists!

2. Begin a yard garden... Produce food. Tear down fences and Go Big! Encourage neighbors to begin. Help them if they don't know how. Begin living a "communal life"... Sell, Share or Trade your veggies.

3. Get rid of the lawn that sucks (water) and requires tons of pesiticides... which goes down the drain and into our water source! Eat your yard... :o) Dandilions are one of the most beneficial weeds (a weed is a plant that man does not understand). Grow herbal flowers. Work to affect change in your community if gardens are not allowed... Put up greenhouses to protect your food and to continue growing during colder seasons.

4. Get to know your neighbor like never before... Start talking. Suggest and help him/her clean up things you dislike, rather than force others to conform to your agenda, which only destroys our Rights and is EXACTLY what "they" want you to do. Return to the lost art of communication and negotiation, without government interventionist laws and regulations. Or simply leave others alone to relish, or wallow, in THEIR OWN RIGHTS! Move, if you cannot tolerate it or cannot come to a mutual agreement. We are an "intolerant" society, much as we love to assure ourselves that we aren't... Maybe we should consider dumping the word "tolerate" from our vocabulary. Instead... Understand and Accept.

5. Buy products, meat and veggies, directly from local, organic/natural farms. It may be possible to get a better deal by paying cash to farmers & ranchers. Request that they begin organic practices (if they don't). If organic is not possible for awhile, encourage them to stop using pesiticides, hormones (RGBH) and cannabalized "feed". Most farm feed contains left-over parts of dead animals. Parts you might not normally eat... certainly not (mad) cows!

6. Work to BAN "covenant controlled communities" that only allow water sucking grass and no food gardens. How insane and anti-humane is that?!

7. Buy, or Barter your veggies and meat from hunters who are willing to share their take. Elk, antelope, bear, deer, etc... Have a hunter fill your license if you can't.

8. Conserve WATER! You and/or your children can wear those jeans one more time before they need to be washed..... Run your grey water out to your garden. The plants will LOVE it! Collect rain in trash barrels and your garden with it.

9. Work to change the (water fascist) regulations that disallow this practice. Don't "believe" the lies they spew. Your Property Rights are at stake!

10. USE BIRTH CONTROL - a taboo subject... but human beings are the most destructive creature to the environment, next to government (are they human?)! Sometimes I wonder whether we aren't just an out-of-control virus on the planet... as Michael Reynolds, of Earthship fame has posited in his books on building an Earthship.

It's time we really begin putting our money where our mouth is... literally! It costs producers a huge chunk of money to add the (corrupt) USDA label to packaging. I had a conversation with Harvest Bread Company a few years ago and that's what they told me. I quit buying bread with that label, and I do the best I can to not to buy anything with that label. But people "believe" government labels. They trive on our "belief". Keep on top of who your food producers are and what they are doing... it is your life-line to real health, without drugs and the doctors who are "beholden" to pharma-con (pill) manufacturers, not to mention the insurance industry!

An old California Organic Food Act has been the most reliable and comprehensive label used. Find the foods that still use that label, and stick to them. Or ones that say "No GMO's", etc. It's very probable that producers are forbidden to use certain words or phrases on their label. Don't you find that outrageous? Isn't this a free society? ooops, I forget.... Not anymore! Of course there will always be those that will deceive us with their labels, but it is a minority. And with the use and non-use of our money they will be driven out of business. Free Markets Rule!

Thinking of buying another lawn mower? Buy a SNAPPER! Or a goat...

 
 
 
 
 

INDUSTRY SNEAK ATTACK ON ORGANIC STANDARDS RAMMED THROUGH CONGRESS

Despite receiving over 350,000 letters and phone calls from OCA members and the organic community, Republican leaders in Congress October 27 attached a rider to the 2006 Agricultural Appropriations Bill to weaken the nation's organic food standards in response to pressure from large-scale food manufacturers. "Congress voted last night to weaken the national organic standards that consumers count on to preserve the integrity of the organic label," said Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the Organic Consumers Association. "The process was profoundly undemocratic and the end result is a serious setback for the multi billion dollar alternative food and farming system that the organic community has so painstakingly built up over the past 35 years. As passed, the amendment sponsored by the Organic Trade Association allows: Numerous synthetic food additives and processing aids, including over 500 food contact substances, to be used in organic foods without public review. Young dairy cows to continue to be treated with antibiotics and fed genetically engineered feed prior to being converted to organic production. Loopholes under which non-organic ingredients could be substituted for organic ingredients without any notification of the public based on "emergency decrees." OCA will work to reverse this rider with an "Organic Restoration Act" in Congress in 2006. www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm

The Right To Bear fArms

 

ALERT: STOP FACTORY FARM DAIRY FEEDLOTS FROM LABELING THEIR PRODUCTS AS ORGANIC

Organic consumers assume that when they're buying "USDA Organic" milk or dairy products, that the animals have access to pasture, and have been raised organically for their entire lives on sustainably-sized farms. Unfortunately, as the Cornucopia Institute has pointed out, companies like Dean Foods (Horizon) and Aurora have become leaders in the organic dairy sector by producing cheap milk on factory farm feedlots, feeding the cows organic grains, but providing no access to pasture, as organic standards require. The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has pleaded with the USDA for four years to clarify federal regulations requiring pasture access and to put an end to factory farm dairy feedlots calling themselves organic. Unfortunately USDA, no doubt under pressure from "industrial organic" lobbyists, has failed to act. In addition loopholes in federal organic standards are allowing unscrupulous organic dairy operators to increase their herd size by importing young calves from conventional farms, where the animals are routinely weaned on cattle blood, injected or medicated with antibiotics, and fed genetically engineered grains, laced with slaughterhouse waste and tainted animal fat. The NOSB will be meeting on November 16, at which time public comments will be reviewed on this issue. Please sign OCA's petition to the USDA, calling on the agency to close loopholes in federal regulations that are allowing factory farms to produce milk labeled "organic." Please give the US Department of Agriculture a call at 202-720-3631 and ask them to stop allowing factory dairy farms to use the "USDA Organic" Label. www.organicconsumers.org/organic/alert102505.cfm

 
           
   

WHERE DOES YOUR ORGANIC FOOD COME FROM?

Increasing numbers of food companies, including Brand Name organic companies, are "outsourcing" their ingredients from overseas in order to increase their bottom-line profits. Suppliers in places like China, where prices and wages are rock-bottom, are gaining market preference over "Made in the USA" products, where wages and environmental regulations are more strictly regulated. Consumers are left guessing which products to buy, due to a lack of "country of origin labeling" on grocery items (except fish). Congress passed a mandatory country of origin labeling law two years ago, in the wake of massive consumer pressure, but has not yet funded or implemented this law. Now transnational food giants and supermarket chains, like Wal-Mart, are pressuring congress to rid of mandatory country of origin labeling laws and make the labels strictly voluntary for industry. To learn more about organic outsourcing see:
www.organicconsumers.org/organic/imports101005.cfm
Tell Congress to make country of origin labeling mandatory go to:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Politics/cool091605.cfm

   
           
 
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