ConsumerismHealth & Disease

New Zealand’s 160-2 Food Bill – an Opportunity!

Some of you will have seen the sensational ‘news’ that the New Zealand government is planning to introduce a law that "takes away the human right to grow food". Hopefully you’ll also realise that good ‘ol everything-is-a-conspiracy Alex Jones, who has the Infowars site where the above-linked article has been posted, has a very strong tendency to instantly hop on anything that’ll make a headline, without too much investigation….

The reality is that the NZ government has been taken somewhat aback by the overwhelming negative response to the bill — and they’ve come to realise that their centralised decision-making with Food Bill 160-2 would unintentionally impact aspects of New Zealander’s lives that they hadn’t considered. The government minister in charge of 160-2, Kate Wilkinson, seems to be genuinely seeking to ensure there is not unintended collateral damage as a result of the 360-page document.

Yes, the NZ Government 160-2 Food Bill (see currently recommended amendments here) is a concern. And yes, it certainly looks like it needs to get reworked and further amended until it is no longer a risk to home gardeners, community gardens, farmers’ markets and anyone working with healthy, diverse, small scale systems. We certainly don’t want New Zealanders to see the kind of madness we’ve witnessed in the U.S. of A. of late, but, I think the bill, if worded thoughtfully, with objective input from a lucid, holistically-minded public, could not only protect consumers from the dangerous monocrop, nutrient deficient systems which favour pathogens (this was the original intent of the bill), but it could also go further — by adding impetus to the already-growing movement towards healthy polycultures by helping to incentivise the same.

Rather than shouting ‘conspiracy’ and thereby marginalising your impact, I think this is an excellent opportunity for New Zealanders to educate their government and fellow citizens about the importance of encouraging a diversity of soil life under our feet, so as to, in turn, ensure the foods we eat are not susceptible to the kind of horror-bacterias we’ve seen striking hard around the world within the industrial-food complex of late.

A reworked bill could go a long way towards ensuring small scale, localised, diverse systems get incubated and supported into existence. For example, if you’re a large-ish scale grower, and you see that if by changing your methods to become more localised and diverse you could fall under an annoying regulatory threshold, then you might just do that. If such a properly reworked bill was accompanied by a little holistic educational material, then I’d welcome it.

As I’ve shared before, it’s Big Agri who is significantly increasing risks to our health. And as I shared in the same article, when we suffer under their pathogen-filled hands we then often suffer a double indignity — in that we pay the price of their greed-blinded ignorance through increased regulations. New Zealanders now have an opportunity to spin this exasperating situation around, by ensuring that the bill focuses on the real perpetrators of nutrient deficient, pathogen-susceptible, chemically grown, monocrop, industrialised ‘foods’.

And, we have to learn to live without fossil fuels sooner or later. Given the oil intensity of food, and New Zealand’s awareness of its very vulnerable position in the energy market, hopefully the point can also be made that penalising unhealthy fossil-fuel intensive food systems should be the priority — and healthy, diverse low-carbon food systems should be supported in their stead.

If you’re a New Zealander, and you haven’t already, you can submit your petition against Food Bill 160-2 here. Or, much better yet, gather a few of your sensible and eloquent friends and have some meetings with your local councillors and (or, failing that) ensure it’s well covered by local media. Please don’t shout "conspiracy" — but do enunciate the great need to disincentivise dangerous, chemical-based monocrop systems in favour of incentivising healthy polycultural systems that build and develop soils and water tables, rather than deplete and contaminate them.

In short, if the original intention for Food Bill 160-2 was to protect the public from dangerous food systems, then just reword it until that is exactly what it does!

24 Comments

  1. Don’t think NZ is alone in this situation. Were they ” taken aback” because their constituants reacted to a false interpretation? Or, were they angry at the percieved attitude of their officials that had the hubris to even pen such legislation?

  2. I am totally against any process that would prevent permacultural means to provide our food. I have suffered the effects of the use of commercial neurotoxic chemicals & studies have shown that animals do too. This is against the natural process of how nature works & is against providing any good health. This therefore raises the cost of the medical services.As some of the chemicals used on GM products is now destrying the bees the real ongoing risk is that we will experience having no food if it continues. We must not only continue using permacultural mehtods for growing food but extend it.

  3. Craig, your naivete knows no limits. Using government to force people to act as you want is the basis of your political philosophy, I know, but I have some bad news for you: permaculturalists don’t and won’t control the levers of political power. Peaceful, thoughtful, sane people don’t rise to the top of organizations whose entire existence is based on aggression and physical domination of innocent people.

    Barefooted hippies vs Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, DuPont in a game of political lobbying… do you really have to see that contest happen to know the result?!?

    We shouldn’t give government any more powers over food whatsoever. We need to start chipping away at the monolith of oppression we already suffer under.

    If you want to change something, try changing someone’s mind without pointing a gun(government) at him. The results are generally better that way.

  4. Why is there a need for legislation about food NOW?
    I do not see hoards of people falling sick or dieing from food poisoning, so is there a requirement for this bill, except to fall in with the Us on it’s draconian measures. It is obvious that Monsanto is attempting to take control of all food worldwide and this is just another step along the way.
    Yes I know, more conspiracy theory but ask some of the thousands of farmers in India that are committing suicide because of Monsanto.

  5. JBob – my naivete knows no limits? That’s comical, in light of your unquestioning and unrelenting faith in the invisible hand of the market to make economic nirvana on the planet. Using government to force people? No, it’s using government to protect people from self-interested workings of the invisible hand of the market. You talk about these big corporations winning us over at lobbying, but in the next breath tell us that we shouldn’t choose which business to support based on their ethical values and business practices, but based on if their supermarket aisles are wide enough and if they have shopping trolleys with wheels that don’t squeak and which steer straight. You will support these big corporations, as long as they give you cheap products and ‘good service’.

    You are pressing for an economy based on total freedom. That works if absolutely everyone is operating objectively, compassionately and unselfishly. I can assure you, few are operating in this way. Most are working for short term profit – including yourself (made clear by your statements about your purchases from Wal-Mart, for example, regardless of that corporation’s impact on people and place). But more, you believe that the self-interested person is the best driver for economic bliss. And I’m naive??

    JBob – I can assure you, that just like in your garden, a political and economic system that actually works sustainably will not occur without good design.

    Robert – I fully agree with you. Search this site for ‘Monsanto’, or click on the ‘Why Permaculture/GMOs’ category on our sidebar. I don’t see a need for such a bill in NZ either, but if they’re going to apply one, then I do see it as an opportunity to ensure the ones who are a real danger to our food system (behemoth monocrop systems) are the bill’s target. If the bill in any way puts undeserved restrictions on the little guy who is working to improve soils and build diversity, then the thing should be quashed pronto. No question.

  6. Hi JBob,

    You have to be careful what you claim. You used the word “naiveté” to describe another person. So, you’ve earned yourself a history lesson. Well done, I hope you both enjoy it and absorb it.

    Much of the philosophy that you espouse in your comments on this website are based on the thoughts of Ayn Rand. This quote from the wikipedia entry for Ayn Rand sums her thoughts up nicely:

    “She supported rational egoism and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights.”

    Some of the people that you would describe as neo-liberal heroes are (or were at one time) followers of her philosophy. Does the name Alan Greenspan have any meaning to you?

    What you also may not be aware is that Anton LaVey paraphrased much of Ayn Rand’s philosophy when he prepared the Satanic Bible. If you don’t believe me have a look at the wikipedia entries.

    Food for thought! I’d also have to add that the philosophy that you espouse in your comments is clearly not in tune with the Permaculture ethical principles.

    So the questions really become:
    – who is the more naïve?
    – what are you trying to achieve in your comments?
    – who is ultimately pulling your strings?

    Good luck!

    Chris

  7. Hi Craig and JBob,

    Please allow me to offer some comments that I hope will improve our understanding of one another.

    First for Craig, I understand your negative perception on the free market economy based on ‘total freedom’. Your concern is valid and indeed, total freedom would lead to exploitation as you have highlighted a few times. But I believe what JBob and many libertarians mean when they say ‘free market’ is not ‘total freedom’, but rather, a system based on a few basic fundamental rules. Just like in Permaculture there are the three fundamental ethics, the so called ‘free market’ is also based on basic fundamental rules. And these rules need to be enforced by an authority. Personally, I prefer the term ‘market economy’ as the word ‘free’ can be misleading. I agree with you, that with good design, namely the appropriate set of rules, good market economy will flourish. What remains for you is to investigate what these fundamental rules would be.

    Next for JBob, I understand your enthusiasm on liberty and your concern with government power. But what Craig and many permaculturists after is not simply more government power, but rather protection of people and places. Even in the absence of government, there must be an authority to enforce the fundamental rights of people. It could be that this is a private entity. But for now, what we have is the government. Many libertarians including Mises accept there is a place and role for a government. In permaculture, we learn to work ‘with’ instead of ‘against’ nature. I recall how Geoff Lawton planted an apple tree in the midst of bramble and the cattle later trample the bramble to get to the apples. Suppose you view government as ‘nature’ spawning nuisance regulations like brambles, then what remains for you is to investigate a permaculture way to work with this ‘nature’.

    I believe we all have common interest as permaculturist. Let us work ‘with’ one another.

    Cheers
    Johan

  8. Hi Johan,

    When you ignore evidence, you can believe what you will.

    The idea of a truly free market is purely that of an ideological concern. It is not based in reality.

    The reason for this is because some of the fundamental rules in a free market is that information is widely and evenly distributed. Whilst another of these fundamental rules is that people make rational decisions. Neither of these concepts occur in the real world. I dare you to prove me wrong.

    When either of those conditions can be achieved – and I can rest safely knowing that they are impossible to achieve – then I’ll be supporting a full free market economy exactly as the ideologues demand. Until then I’ll happily settle for government regulation.

    You’ll also note that resource inequality has increased hand in hand over the past few decades in first world economies with the reduction in government regulation of those economies.

    Johan, I have to work with plenty of people that I don’t see eye to eye with and that is part of being a member of a larger community. However, JBob on the other hand, uses highly emotive slogans which have appeal at first glance but fall down on closer inspection.

    This is important and I’m happy to argue this subject all year!

    Regards

    Chris

  9. Johan,

    In regards to what these fundamental rules might be – a key thing is something I brought to readers’ attention some time ago (see following link), that the central charter of business must include more than it does today. Today the central charter of business (almost globally) is that it’s a CEO’s primary responsibility to work in the interests of a company’s shareholders. This means a CEO can be prosecuted for putting the interests of people and place above the interests of shareholders. See the ‘Getting to the heart of the matter’ sub-section of this post:

    https://www.permaculturenews.org/2009/07/13/the-roots-of-change-in-ourselves-or-government-and-industry/

    A business’ central charter needs to include legal obligations to internalise the true costs of business, and responsibility for the people and place within its sphere of influence. At present, in contrast, a CEO needs to make maximum profit for shareholders – which essentially makes it illegal not to externalise the costs of business.

    There are some attempts to inch towards a legal change. An example:

    https://www.permaculturenews.org/2011/08/18/the-power-of-international-law-to-create-the-new-world-an-interview-with-polly-higgins/

    https://www.permaculturenews.org/2011/10/06/protection-rights-or-legislation-many-strings-to-our-legal-bow/

    Getting money/business out of politics is also another obvious great need:

    https://www.permaculturenews.org/2010/02/02/democracy-for-sale-by-the-corporate-citizen/

    Early politicians in the U.S. of A. watched in fear as democracy was getting eroded by large industries (which they had themselves created – a bit like Frankenstein’s monster). One of the first was the big railroad oligarchs who stripped away the rights of the little guy in their ambitious conquest for money and power. Since those days, the trend has continued and grown as corporations have steadily chiselled away at any regulations that would hinder this march. JBob’s call for complete freedom is to hammer in the last nail in the coffin – where we then have a government of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.

    The occupy movement is showing that people are beyond weary with this centralised corporate control of the economy and its corruption of government and thus the control and corruption of our lives. If the occupy movement is to make any difference, it will need to turn its attention to changing laws to ensure a more equitable world where industry works for the benefit of people and place as a priority. As Chris has noted, the inequality gap (and the gap between resource realities and our demand for the same I might add) has become enlarged in pace with the lifting of restrictions from these market players.

    A four part series that might interest if you haven’t read it – it at least gives some food for thought and practical examples of ideologies in action:

    https://www.permaculturenews.org/2010/10/15/free-fair-part-i/

    And perhaps the most significant thing that needs to occur is that people need to become more educated about how we got into this mess. A century of selfishness has lead us to this precipice – where corporations and government have focussed on ensuring our political and ideological apathy by distracting and appeasing us with the carrot of the consumer economy.

    The founding fathers that wrote the amazing constitution would turn in their graves if they could see how we’ve become such a dumbed-down, living-for-the-moment culture of ‘consumers’ (remember, the word ‘consume’ means to devour, destroy, waste and exhaust). They would be astonished to see us come full circle (see the ‘Tytler’s cycle’ chart in the article found in the first link in this comment), once more living under a rule of tyranny because we used our freedom for short-term, self-interested purposes, and neglected to consider the consequences of our labour and purchases. We, as ‘consumers’ have financed the building of a noose for our own necks – we’ve financed an industrial elite who have corrupted the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

    We need to again become politicians in our own back yards.

    As I’ve shared before:

    Imagine instead, a lucid, educated populace organising themselves into groups that are like the cells of a body, or a plant. Imagine, say, the ten houses in your street forming a committee to discuss the needs and development of your street. From the people living in those ten houses you would all elect the person who you believe would best represent you all – someone you all respect for their ethics, practical wisdom and egalitarian attitude.

    If other groups of houses in your local community did likewise, then your suburb (if urban) or locality (if rural) would then have localized representatives all representing the needs and wants of these sub-communities.

    Now, taking this further: What if, say, ten of these representatives (each representing ten households) were to get together and elect from amongst themselves the best person to represent THEM, then you’d have one representative for a group of one hundred, all answering to the representatives of the groups of ten.

    You can see where I’m going…. You then get ten of the representatives of one hundred together, and they elect a representative from amongst themselves, so you then have one representative for 1,000 households…. And so on, and so on.

    The end result is a bottom up democracy where everyone is represented by people deserving of respect. If any of these representatives dishonours him/herself or fails to convey and work for the wishes of the people, then they’re simply replaced. Such a situation cultivates social advancement of the best kind – people striving to earn a reputation for being just. And, just as importantly, it creates a stable system. Representatives of cells might get swapped out from time to time, due to retirement, or perhaps someone losing credibility, but as a whole, the system remains largely intact forever – rather than the present situation where we have a complete change of government, and a potential complete change of direction, every four years, which discourages long term planning. (In this sense, monarchies are better than present centralised governments, as at least, if you’re lucky enough to get a ‘good’ King/Queen, they’re thinking over their lifetime.)

    And, such representatives would be seen as servants of those they’re representing, not ‘leaders’ or ‘rulers’ of them.

    Then, when policy decisions are made at the highest levels, they happen because from the ground up they’re reflecting the wishes of the people, or most of them. Such a scenario, combined with the right kind of education – practical and holistic – could transform society in very positive ways.

    I’ve shared all this with JBob before, and much more. But he always returns to a very simplistic view based in, well, magic. It’s sad, but I see many in the U.S. are programmed to view the world through binoculars, where one lens is the left and the other the right. One is complete communism, the other complete capitalism. I’ve repeatedly shunned both, making it clear they both result in a key enemy — that enemy being centralisation. One is political centralisation, the other corporate centralisation. We’ve tried both, and both have taken us to the precipice. We need a system that combines individual freedom, but freedom constrained by objective ethical values. We need system that prioritises the most important aspects of healthy human existence — holistic education, clean and developing soils and clean and recharging water tables, healthy natural buildings, etc. etc.

    My biggest fear is that if we don’t come to understand this, and to regain what we’ve lost, then what will happen is that powerful religious entities will begin to see this need for ethical values to be legislated and will themselves move into politics to create their own subjective ‘ethical world’, and enforce their own subjective ethical values regardless of the beliefs of individuals, and we’ll see a return of the kind of tyranny we saw through the dark ages.

    I’ll let Bill close:

    Hunger is rising, absolute hunger is rising, food’s badly distributed, not distributed at all often. The waste of food, the whole deal of it….it’s eh, a shocking situation, it’s just inhuman. It’s what nobody would intend, and somehow what we’ve arrived at, and we arrived at it by the erection of financial structures, totally divorced from resources. So that the fiscal economy has been a runaway system. We’ve gotta tackle that head on.

    That is, what I’m trying to tell you, it’s no good any longer just being an organic gardener or farmer, we have to be effective financial and political units. And we’re gonna have to face that. Just as it was very hard for us to learn to garden, then hard for us to learn to collect seeds, once the multinationals took over the open-pollinated seed market; we had to become seed growers.

    Now it’s very difficult, we have to become bankers.There’s no good trying to pretend we don’t have to. We can run away to the bush, build a mud hut and grow ducks in the garden, it’s not gonna do it. The coals will still be burnt, the land will still be eroded, and the forests will still be cleared for newsprint if we run away to the bush. So, there’s no escape, we’ve just gotta stop running away, stay where we are and start to face up and fight. — Bill Mollison, Permaculture Design Course 1983

  10. Craig, you say “…complete communism, the other complete capitalism. I’ve repeatedly shunned both, making it clear they both result in a key enemy — that enemy being centralisation. One is political centralisation, the other corporate centralisation.”

    Corporate centralisation happens when big businesses use a big government to forcibly gain wealth transfer or unfair advantages over competitors. It’s called “rent seeking” and it is NOT a part of libertarianism or capitalism properly defined or anything I’ve ever promoted. For xmas this year I wish for you to grasp this one concept so you will stop conflating “corporatism” and “capitalism.”

    Rent seeking: “Rent seeking is a short-cut to riches enabled by political government. It consists of manipulating the economic environment rather than abiding it, bribing regulatory bureaucrats rather than seeking an honest buck in profit from successfully competing with moral equals in trade and production in the economic environment as it is. Rent seeking is a form of robbery in which the law is an accomplice. The rude hand of government is used at the behest of rent-seekers and do-gooders to manipulate the market. It is a kind of protection racket that can only be accomplished in an establishment of institutionalized coercion, which is the monopoly of the state or political government. (Mafia eat your heart out!) Rent-seeking is most frequently associated with government regulation, and it is always evidenced by lobbying the government for economic regulations, tariffs, tax breaks and subsidies invariably favoring a special interest. A related symptom is collusion between the rent-seeking firms and the government agencies assigned to regulate them whereby the agency relies on the “knowledge” of cohort firms about the markets to be affected and the regulations to be justified.”

  11. JBob – and yet, you sponsor said rent seekers with your consumer dollars:

    You know why I shop at Wal-Mart all the time? I save money.

    … I don’t know and don’t care if working at Wal-Mart sucks or not. I know the difference in the price of garden hose at Wal-Mart vs the sanctified “local” stores on mainstreet; it is big. — JBob (here and here)

    Your own particular vision, as a self-interested, free individual is played out quite clearly JBob. You finance the corporations, they lobby government, government creates corporate nirvana, and the rest of us are screwed.

    I’m tired of your ideological nonsense.

  12. Hi Chris,

    Thank you for your comment. I would like to clarify the fundamental rules of the market economy. The basic rule for the ‘free market’ is the protection of people and their property. So the ‘free’ in the ‘free market’ does not mean free from rules, but rather free from aggression against people and their property.

    As for the evidence, it is easy. Please have a look at the Index of Economic Freedom. The more prosperous countries are those that are more ‘free’.

    Now that you have seen the evidence, I would invite you to investigate further to examine your current ideologies.

    The website mises.org has good resource for learning.

  13. Hi Johan,

    Thank you for your response.

    The evidence you have presented, the “Index of Economic Freedom” was provided by the Heritage Foundation. You should note that they are a conservative think tank and as such pursue the following agenda:

    “stated mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”

    No disrespect to them, but the promotion of those values is at complete odds with the protection of people and the environment (property protection is however strongly supported by them). Actually, the environment doesn’t even rate a mention in their indices! Sad. As a biased source of information, we can dismiss their thoughts.

    You may also want to note that the Heritage Institute is part of the Koch Foundation. These are the same guys that invest money in the Tea Party movement and other fun little enterprises.

    The mises institute which you also refer to is noted for the promotion of libertarianism and individualism! Hardly an unbiased source of information.

    Here’s the difficulty for me though. It’s such a small world. Both of the concepts of libertarianism and individualism lead you straight back to thinkers such as Ayn Rand which I mentioned in the comment above (please read the comment now, it’s truly fascinating).

    The economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, in his book “The crash of 1929” analysed the performance of economists in the lead up to the Great Depression and noted (the gist of which was) that they said what was needed to ensure that they got their next pay packet. This was also true of the pundits at the time.

    Do they know anything about practical agriculture or permaculture? Probably not, so ask yourself why are we bringing culture wars onto a permaculture website? What are you hoping to achieve? I would suggest that there is very little dissensus here.

    Also, be very careful of putting your trust in think tanks that are pursuing their own – or their owners / financiers – self interest. As a suggestion, spend less time on the internet and try reading some history or ecology.

    Regards

    Chris

  14. Hi Hugh,

    I’m not sure where this victim mentality has seeped into our collective conscience? No one forces you to purchase items from big business.

    There are still plenty of options for avoiding the influence of big business. Isn’t that the point of this website and permaculture generally? Growing your own, improving the soil as you go and hopefully providing for a surplus. These options are fairly cheap relative to buying from big business. If you were cashed up you could also just buy organically / ethically produced items.

    I see this all the time though. For example, I make my own bread here from the sourced individual ingredients. People who eat that bread here remark how much they enjoy it. It costs about $1AU / loaf, yet takes about 15 minutes in preparation and handling time. Yet, these same people will also continue to eat purchased $1AU supermarket bread which stays soft for up to 2 weeks. To me it has no flavour and is probably of dubious nutritional value. What is worst though is that I cannot even imagine the chemicals required to keep the purchased bread soft for 2 weeks. It can’t be good for you.

    Yet, they still buy it and consume it. So, the question is, who is the more naive?

    Regards

    Chris

  15. WTF has that response got to do with my comment?
    FYI i don’t eat bread (or any grain) i don’t buy ANY food from big business.

  16. Hi Chris,

    The values promoted by Heritage foundation is inline with protection of people and property, and including environment. You will discover that they do cover issues including agriculture, for example farm subsidies.

    In any case, I was trying to understand why you have a bias against libertarianism, and I noted that your choice of quoted economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, is a Keynesian. Whereas I follow the Austrian School of economics which is at odd with the Keynesian. It is no wonder that we are at odd with each other on our comments.

    I have provided links to wikipedia entries, as it is considered a more objective source of information. I leave to the readers to explore further on the merits and criticism of the various economic theories.

    I agree that we should avoid dissensus here as the main focus on this site is still Permaculture. It might be challenging, as even every permaculturist would agree on polyculture and against monoculture, but when we step out of the garden into areas such as economics, politics, etc. there are bound to be differing ideologies.

    Regards,
    Johan

  17. Chris,

    I like your comment to Hugh, that we as consumers have power to choose. That is one of the merit of a market economy.

    In addition, I may add that Fukuoka in his book Natural Farming insisted that naturally produced items should be cheaper compared to non-natural items, due to the lower energy/input requirements (no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc.). I agree with that and I think it is the challenge for organic producers, which now can still command a premium price due to the limited supply.

    As more and more producers of organic/ethical items enter the market, the price would drop and eventually will match the non-organic items.

    Regards,
    Johan

  18. Natural items might have a lower energy input, but the energy put in is one of the most expensive ones.
    It won’t be a matter of organics becoming cheaper. As oil and food get scarce the price of ‘conventional’ and unethical products will go up to reflect the new financial cost of the energy used to produce them.
    When we can no longer save seeds or swap veggies with our neighbour (or require a special permit to do so), and can no longer afford the food and necessities (medicine, shelter, water) then we are in real trouble.
    This bill gives control of food to big agra and big pharma and the like because it this them who pay hundreds of millions in lobbying and bribing our government and ultimately deciding what is legal to grow and sell (and barter).
    You’d have to be pretty naive to believe them when they say “‘whoops’ that was unintentional”.
    The pollies who pass the bill may be ignorant (do you think they actually read the bill, at best they have someone who reads it for them and decides that they should look at bits of it).
    The people who wrote it? well, they all have agendas, that’s why they do it, that and the money, oh yeah, and the concern for our welfare, the love of the environment, and a deep holistic knowledge of the true value of life and ‘creation’.
    This isn’t paranoid fantasy, People buying raw milk from a farmer they trust is a crime in America but are encouraged to drink pussy growth hormone milk by the govt/corp. information machine

  19. I haven’t read all the comments but just want to make a brief comment on the original article.

    Really like your thoughts Craig and yes this food bill could/should have been an opportunity to steer food production in a healthier direction but sadly this bill has gone beyond the point of influence by individual members of the public. Submissions closed long ago and it is now in the hands of our very busy representatives.

    Because it slipped through to this stage all there is to do is react and stop it in its current form.

  20. Hi Chris,
    Are you aware that Monsanto now owns Blackwater(now called Xe Services), the largest mercenary army in the world? One of their contracted companies, Total Intelligence, is contracted to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant. Reported by J. Scahill(The Nation: Blackwater’s Black Ops, 9/15/2010).

    Are we a another potential victim (USA, Canada, India, etc) yet to be exposed?

  21. As a parent I have the right to choose where my children’s food is grown. As a human I have the right to choose where I source my food from. As I grow and give homegrown fruit and herbs, as well as receive vegetables from other households like us, I know this is where the quality food I expect is grown. Uncontrolled, fair traded, Organic, natural and full of life food. I refuse to allow any external authority to dictate to me what my basic human rights are. No need to go further into the drama of politics. Sourcing food as we choose is all so plain and simple with no further explanation required. Thank you!

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