When The Fixx produced their eighties hit “One thing leads to another” they must of had Congressman Gene ‘Katrina’ Taylor in mind. Increases in the size and influence of the federal government occur in small increments. “Why don’t they do what they say, say what they mean… One thing leads to another…” If you would have told Americans 50 years ago that the federal government was going to micro-manage the family farm there would have been riots in the streets, but today the idea seems so vogue to a generation of citizens raised on the teets of government programs. Folks these days just can’t seem to get enough of big government. Such is the case with Gene Taylor’s July 29  ’Yes‘ vote on H.R. 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.

Supporters of the bill claim it will give ”the FDA more authority and real enforcement teeth to help prevent more outbreaks, illnesses, and deaths.”

Opponents of these new federal powers claim:

• Under the terms of the bill, crops must be grown in sterile areas, surrounded by 450 foot buffers, so that they are not exposed to other vegetation, runoff water, birds, beasts, or wildlife of any kind.
• Ponds will be poisoned; wetlands drained; and streams re-routed to safeguard the crops from untreated water.
• Fields will be lined with poison-filled tubes to kill rodents.
• All children under five will be prohibited from stepping foot on farmland or tilled soil for fear of leaking diapers.

The problem with handing more power to the federal government is that government is never satisfied. Now that Taylor supports federal enforcement/surveillance officials inspecting your farm - soon these officials will see the need for more authority as they find serious ‘deficiencies’ in their powers of usurpation. These federal powers will expand despite enforcement already being managed at the state level within the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

The commissioner of the MSDA states:

“If we continue as a nation to lose our production agriculture and become increasingly dependent upon other countries for our food, we will lose what is perhaps our most important strength as a nation – the ability to sustain ourselves with safe and abundant supplies of affordable food. Once lost, we will not be able to jump-start a new agricultural industry with quick infusions of manpower and tax dollars.”

Gene Taylor’s vote for more federal mandates on farming just hastens the demise of local community farms in Mississippi. This was a real win for corporate farming operations (many of which already receive federal subsidies) and overseas food importers. Oh I know…silly me… what harm could be done with legislation implemented in the name of ‘food safety’?

For those who claim the bill won’t molest local farmers you should be informed that the Supreme Court in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) defined growing food on your own land for your own consumption to be regulatable interstate commerce.

The language in the bill describes a farm as “an operation in one general physical location devoted to the growing and harvesting of crops, the raising of animals (including seafood), or both.” And includes “an operation that sells food directly to consumers if the annual monetary value of sales of the food products from the farm or by an agent of the farm to consumers exceeds the annual monetary value of sales of the food products to all other buyers.”

Dick Peixoto, a California grower, has ripped out such (possibly contaminated) plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers now demand sterile crops. “I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop,” Peixoto told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter. “On one field where a deer walked through, didn’t eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop.” – familysecuritymatter.org

The Food Safety Enhancement Act (a response to recent food contamination isssues), in many ways acts as nothing more than a subsidy for big, established, corporate farming operations – by increasing regulation on small community farms. Once the heat gets turned up many local farmers will simply halt the mules. Can you imagine the local farmer who sells produce in neighborhood markets and fruit stands across the country trying to co-operate with federal mandates and federal bureaucrat inspectors? Can you imagine ‘Grandpa’s Fruit Stand’ being shut down across the country because the FDA believes a child somewhere may have gotten sick from an apple bought at a neighborhood vendor? This legislation will lead to an increase of corporate/overseas monopoly on farming and the eventual nationalization of America’s farms… talk about being dependent on the government. Mother Russia would be proud!

“one thing leads to another...”

This discussion brings us to a bill that may soon be debated on the floor of the House and would compliment Taylor’s vote for the Food Safety Enhancement Act. S. 787: The Clean Water Restoration Act is another piece of legislation that Gene Taylor will likely fall in love with. Among other things this legislation:

Amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act…  to replace the term “navigable waters“ … with the term “waters of the United States,” defined to mean all waters…  including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds,and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting them, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.

Though this legislation hasn’t made it to the House floor this year, one can only wonder how soon government officials will demand the right to micro-manage our family ponds for ‘food safety’ and ‘pollution control’. Just as the federal government voted itself the right to oversee our farms… it will just as likely give itself the right to inspect our ponds and potholes. Is there a hole in your yard collecting water? You’ll need a permit for that and a federal inspection.

How long before the government denies private Americans permission to grow food on their own land for their own family? How long? Imagine going to Lowe’s or your local co-op and being denied the right to purchase seeds without a federal permit. How long before the federal government denies us the right to stock fish in our family pond because we didn’t properly comply with federal mandates?

“It’s getting rough, off the cuff I’ve got to say enough’s enough…”

How many years till they declare that:

• “No food of any kind will be grown without specific permit and surveillance by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration?”

When I was a kid we picked wild blackberries right off the side of the road and ate them. I wonder if they’ll offer up some federal regulation to the Almighty as well? They’ll sell these expansions of government in the name of safety…. and Gene Taylor will likely buy it!