Join Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Supporting Urban Ag

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Apr 04, 2010 at 19:47:48 PM PDT

H.R. 4971: Greening Food Deserts Act

To increase the emphasis on urban agricultural issues in the Department of Agriculture through the establishment of a new office to ensure that Department authorities are used to effectively encourage local agricultural production and increase the availability of fresh food in urban areas, particularly underserved communities experiencing hunger, poor nutrition, obesity, and food insecurity, and for other purposes.

This bill was introduced by Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and it already has 23 co-sponsors in the House. EMAIL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND ASK HIM OR HER TO CO-SPONSOR THIS BILL!!!!

Details of the bill are below...

New Food-Related Bills in Congress

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 08:31:18 AM PDT

Dairy
H.R. 3674: Milk Import Tariff Equity Act - This is a GREAT bill that would slap a tariff on the Milk Protein Concentrates (MPCs) that come from other countries to undercut American dairy. This was also introduced into the Senate as S. 1542 by Chuck Schumer.

School Lunch
S. 1737 by Sen. Al Franken, to increase the number of children eligible for free school lunch. The companion bill is H.R. 3705 by Keith Ellison of Minneapolis.

S. 1693: The Safe Food for Schools Act by Kirsten Gillibrand. This bill seeks to correct current flaws in the government that have proven troublesome in keeping tainted food out of school lunches.

H.R. 3625: Food Marketing in Schools Assessment Act by Carolyn McCarthy. This bill calls on the Secretary of Education to study and report on the marketing of food and beverages in elementary and secondary schools.

H.R. 3277: Student Breakfast and Education Improvement Act by Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. This bill provide grants to expand the school breakfast program.

Food Safety
S. 1527: Unsafe Meat and Poultry Recall Act introduced by NM Senator Tom Udall. This bill gives the USDA authority to recall tainted meat and poultry.

H.R. 3624: The Poison-Free Poultry Act by Steve Israel. This bill bans the uses of roxarsone (an arsenical) in poultry. Roxarsone has already been banned in Europe for 10 years.

Food Stamps
H.R. 3587: Nutritious Food for Health Families Act by Mark Schauer of Michigan. This bill reduces the interval between issuances of food stamp benefits from a maximum of 40 days to a maximum of 17 days.

Labeling
H.R. 3317: Trans-Fat Truth in Labeling Act by Steve Israel. This bill requires labeling of trans fats even when amounts are under 0.5g. Currently, if a product contains less than 0.5g of trans-fat, it is allowed to claim itself trans-fat free.

Dead Zones
H.R. 3650: Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2009 by Brian Baird of Washington. This bill is to research and reduce the algal blooms that lead to hypoxic conditions and dead zones in our waterways. And to reduce the algal blooms, we must reduce agricultural and municipal run-off.

Biochar
S. 1713: Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Breastfeeding
H.R. 3626: The Exemplary Breastfeeding Support Act by Carolyn McCarthy of New York. This bill is to support and promote breastfeeding.

Seeds
H.R. 3299: Seed Availability and Competition Act by Marcy Kaptur. This bill is "To require persons who seek to retain seed harvested from the planting of patented seeds to register with the Secretary of Agriculture and pay fees set by the Secretary for retaining such seed, and for other purposes."

Racism and Discrimination
H.R. 3623 by Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama. This bill provides compensation for claimants in the infamous Pigford case, a case in which the USDA discriminated against black farmers. Some farmers have been compensated already, but far too few received compensation, and the issue is still outstanding.

Ron Paul Crazy Stuff
H.R. 3395: Health Freedom Act. This bill would basically remove any limitations on what supplement manufacturers could claim on their labels. Wanna say vitamin C cures AIDS? Go for it. Under this bill, someone would have to take you to court and prove that you were wrong in order to make you take that off your label.

A Rundown of New Food-Related Bills

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 24, 2009 at 17:47:19 PM PDT

Details on the Farr-Kaptur Amendment

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 24, 2009 at 08:08:04 AM PDT

ACTION: Support the Farr-Kaptur Food Safety Amendment

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 17:16:37 PM PDT

Two organizations - the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) have really stepped up to ensure that the bill is fair to small farmers. Here is some text from a recent PASA email (I haven't been able to locate the exact language of the Farr-Kaptur amendment yet):

To date we have achieved some things we can be proud of, including exemption for direct marketers from most traceability requirements (including for sales to restaurants and grocery stores), and now including some clear language in the bill to define what on-farm processing activities might be exempt from FDA registration as well.  Things are still in flux as I write, but we believe all such processing will be exempt as long as 50% or more of sales (including by Internet and mail order) are made directly to individuals (i.e. retail, as opposed to wholesale). And a huge gain just this week will likely be another exemption on sales of feedstuffs for livestock from one farmer to another, which had been included in the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 (thaaat's right...) as an activity requiring registration.  There have been other gains in specific wording of the bill, too detailed to enumerate in this email right now.

But we're still disappointed that the fee being assessed to eligible businesses, including some on farms, will be the flat rate of $500 instead of our preferred sliding scale for smaller operations, including a minimum size below which no fee would be charged.  We in fact would prefer to see a much higher fee paid by the largest food processing companies, from which most food safety issues seem to emanate in any case -- but that may not be achievable at this point. We also have other language we'd like to see in the bill that would focus attention on high risk aspects of food production, protect organic farmers from duplicative paperwork and expand the research agenda into more diversified systems.  All of these concerns are contained in an amendment being sponsored by Representatives Farr, Kaptur and others that E&C [Energy & Commerce Committee] must deal with if they expect to get their two-thirds vote to limit debate.

The bottom line from this email is: We need you to call, email, or fax your representatives ASAP and ask them to support the Farr-Kaptur amendment to H.R.2749.

Also... if you'd like to speak with your credit card, I'm sure PASA and MOFGA would appreciate your donations :)