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Do You Have a License for that Tomato?

04-19-2009

Did you know the federal government wants to regulate the food you grow in your own garden?

Sound absurd? Probably, but most of what the federal government has been doing lately is absurd. If you have time for a primer on absurdity, read the 2007 Farm Bill. But in brief the government likes to control markets in order to control the price of food and help out their big agri-business buddies. And one way to control markets is to make sure food doesn't enter them from "unapproved" sources - like your garden. After all, a tomato grown at home is one less tomato sold on the store shelves - and we have can't you exercising your rights to be left alone when they get in the way of the government know-it-alls micro-managing everything.

As Chuck Baldwin rights in "The big business/big government axis of evil" (a somewhat melodramatic title):

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) has introduced H.R. 875 to "protect the public health." But it is not the public health that Ms. DeLauro wants to protect. It is the health of the demonic duo of Big Business and Big Government. Two other bills with similar machinations are S. 425, introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and H.R. 815, submitted by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado).

In a nutshell, when these bills become law, every homegrown garden in the country will be regulated, inspected, controlled, and taxed by the federal government. (No, I am not making it up.) In addition, small, independent farms would most certainly be put out of business. In effect, the great Nanny State is posturing itself to completely take over the food business in America.

Just in case you think Chuck is playing to the loonies, see also this article by Warren Mass - Bill Would Give Feds Control Over Family Farms "

We need the FedGov to butt out of Americans' lives, to leave our backyard gardens alone, and to get their paws off of small farmers already hamstrung by too many regulations hidden in farm bills marketed as assistance but implemented as micromanagement tilted in favor of only the biggest players in the industry.

So - do you have a license for that tomato? A permit for that radish? Sound too stupid to be true? Unless you want the absurd to become reality, call your congressmen about HR 875 and tell them to draw the line and say NO, or you will pull the lever for the other guy in November 2010.

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