S510: Food Safety? Or Loss of Food Choices - you decide.

This bill has passed cloture by a vote of 74 - 25. Passing out of cloture means it is now on the Senate floor. The senate now has 60 days to vote on this bill.

It is imperative that you call your US senators and tell them to oppsoe S. 510.

Why?

Here are some reasons:
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio supports S 510, and called out the statistics by the Centers for Disease Control that report there are 76 million foodborne illnesses a year, with 5,000 resulting in death. What Brown did not say was that the FDA — the very agency further empowered by S 510 — is responsible for the approval of pharmaceutical drugs that result in 100,000 deaths a year.

None of the supporters of S 510 will acknowledge the corrupt nature of the Food and Drug Administration. Monsanto executives now work at the FDA or on President’s Obama’s Food Safety Task Force.

What legislators continue to ignore from the public is that we do not support giving federal agencies even more power — especially over something as inherently private as food choices.

None of the legislators will discuss the FDA raids on natural food operations which sickened no one, while it allowed Wright County Egg to sicken people for decades before finally taking action.

Blogger Steve Green http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/s-510-is-hissing-in-the-grass/ interprets the S 510 smuggling language to mean: “It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.”

§309 defines it as: “In this subsection, the term ‘smuggled food’ means any food that a person introduces into the United States through fraudulent means or with the intent to defraud or mislead.” Although only 150 new hires will be responsible for food smuggling under S 510, the total number of new hires sought is at least 18,000 employees.
IT IS TIME TO STOP BIG GOVERNMENT AND TAKE BACK OUR RIGHTS TO EAT WHAT WE CHOOSE!!!
Read the article in its entirety here:
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/11/17/breaking-senate-votes-cloture-on-s-510-m

Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121; ask to be connected to your Senator's office.
OR
http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=wm5dahcab&et=1103938566581&s=10576&e=001H67hbuFKpMxfpILESs9ssIjNU7gcld4E6ZMSUMhSJoU9XVHrjbCbr7HjMe6OFqEm5GRLm1g0dH-ISq2ro1aQvF2JZgTwuxidQu_5peecn7HyZ0gz9bvCrQ==
and  Enter your zip code on the right side under "Get Involved" and click "Go". Read the excerpt from Corrente: Write your senator and tell them to vote "no" on it when it comes up for a vote, or minimally, to vote yes on the Tester and Feinstein amendments.

Welcome to your new planet http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/seeds-how-to-criminalize-them/

From Food Freedom http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/

Now, watch how they will be able to easily criminalize seed banking and all holding of seeds. First, to follow how this will be done, you must understand that:
1. there is a small list inside the FDA called “sources of seed contamination” and
2. the FDA has now defined “seed” as food,
3. so seeds can now be controlled through “food safety.”
Those seeds (so far) include: “Contaminate” is their favorite word since the public fears the deadly contamination that industry itself – not farmers – has caused. That fear is valuable. Scare the public and it is easy to get “food safety standards” set without anyone reading them. 39 progressive co-sponsors leap on, thinking this is about “food safety.” But it is only about the use of “food safety,” not the reality of it

And to eliminate seed cleaning equipment, the FDA simple set minimum “food safety” standards for seed cleaning (the simple separation of seed from plant) such that a farmer would need a million to a million and a half dollar building and/or equipment to meet the new requirements … per line of seed.

On the ground, where reality lives, a farmer in the midwest who has been seed cleaning flax for 40 years with his hand made seed cleaner now can’t sell his flax on the market anymore. Never mind there are NO instances of anyone ever having gotten sick from seed cleaning equipment. And a farmer in another part of the midwest who has been cleaning wheat, corn and soy for years with one single perfectly fine piece of equipment would now need three to four and half million dollars for three separate pieces of equipment, in order to satisfy the “food safety” standards.

Read the entire article here:
http://correntewire.com/senate_bill_s510

When the Senate returns from the holiday on Nov. 29th, they will be voting on cloture of S.510.
Althought The tester amendment does assist small farmers to some degree, we would like for you to call the senators on the following list and ask them to vote "no" to cloture of S.510, and to consider the alternative food safety bill written by Senator Tom Coburn:

Senator Tom Coburn has written “The Ensuring Greater Food Safety Act of 2010″ as a replacement for S 510. Please call your Senators http://senate.gov/ and tell them about this alternative bill. The bill, a two-page
explanation of the bill, and a two-page section by section summary are posted on this site. Ensuring Greater Food Safety Act of 2010 http://nicfa.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/ensuring-greater-food-safety-act-of-2010.pdf

The Ensuring Greater Food Safety 2-page Description http://nicfa.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/the-ensuring-greater-food-safety-2-page-description2.pdf

Ensuring Greater Food Safety Act of 2010 Section by Section
http://nicfa.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/ensuring-greater-food-safety-act-of-2010-section-by-section2.pdf

The list of Senators to call is at this site:
http://nicfa.wordpress.com/

Talking points for opposition are included below, or you can visit this site:
http://nicfa.wordpress.com/

Talking Points
S 510 will eliminate the only productive sector of our economy - small farms and local food. The Tester amendment still puts additional paperwork, record keeping and scrutiny onto direct marketers.

The FDA fails to do the job it is charged with doing. Tell FDA to inspect the imports and the plants it has the authority to inspect and stay out of farming.

The rules and regulations the FDA will promulgate under S510 will harm our ability to get food that we want to eat. Tell FDA instead to require truthful labeling and disclose genetically modified products on labels. This would create a safer food supply and not harm the small family farmer.

S 510 will create even larger governmental bureaucracy, and the estimated costs don't include costs to individuals who actually produce food.

S 510 opens the door to violations of due process including illegal search and seizure and suspension of judicial review.

Fighting for your rights to choose,
Tricia

Hot Dog Days of Summer

Wow. It sure has been a long time since I have been here. Sorry for that. I have just been so darn busy I have not done much Internet stuff at all except posting on the Facebook group. Well, the season has been moving along - at a pace faster than a speeding bullet it seems like. We are in our 13th week of our CSA, and will be expanding next year to 200 shares. Holy cow (your are saying to yourself...), that is a lot of shares. But we are adding three more farms to our CSA in order to grow and feed more people locally - a win win for our local farmers and our local consumers. We are really excited. We added cooking to our repertoire at Earth Mother Market on Wednesdays, and are looking into renting a commercial kitchen space to continue that trend year round. I have folks clamoring for our freshly roasted coffee, and want to get back to catering and private chef services to round out the farm income. For those of you who don't know, I resigned my position of almost 10 years to make the farm my full time occupation.

Some of the goodies now in our CSA shares

The one bad thing I can say is it is way to hot and humid for my tastes. I made a quick trip back home to Vermont a couple weeks ago and was reminded of how tolerable the summers are up there! This week promises more of the hot and humid, every day in the 90's with a heat index of over a 100 and humidity up in the 70's where just moving causes profuse sweating. Uggh. The pigs live in the pond - up to their piggy snouts in water and mud. See, pigs are smart (plus, they cannot sweat so to live they must keep cool, hence the water and mud). Well that's it for today - lots of canning to do. Hopefully, I'll get back soon.

The New Portable Poultry House

Well, we finally got the new portable poultry house up and running. It certainly has been a learning experience, but all the chicks are now outside, with thier adopted mama hen. (Long story short: I had a hen that I had to bring to the house to nurse, and instead of putting her out with the breeding hens and roosters, I stuck her in with the new chicks. She immediuately took on  the role of mother hen, to 100+ chicks!) They all made it through their first night outside, and we have figured out how we are going to feed and water them as well as move the pen for the next 5 weeks until processing day.

I finished cleaning out the garage, and have decided no more chick brooding in the garage, too messy, too much humidity and I risk divorce if I continue that trend!

Here is a couple shots of the new mobile house.

Watering the group.

A closer look at the chicks.

Cheesemaking Class

Well, after two full weeks, I figure it is about time to get caught up here. Last week from Monday to Thursday was the first Kentucky Cheese School. The first day was classroom training, but Tues. through Thurs. we moved into the hands on portion. Dr. Steve Zeng, from Langston University in OK was our guide through the three days of extensive training.

http://www.luresext.edu/GOATS/goat_szeng.htm

The hands on took place at the farm and creamery of Bleugrass Chevre in Lexington. I drove down every day, that was a long drive - even longer than my usual daily drive to work! The farm was beautiful, Susan, the owner, has dairy goats and does all milking and processing there on the farm. Many thanks to her for all the wonderful lunches and great conversation...I might just have to get a couple goats now - her kids are so cute! In addition to many slide presentations, we made a lot of cheeses, including: cheddar, colby, brie, camembert, chevre, cream cheese and parmesan. Here are some of the pictures from the last day of class.

Colby cheese curds

Pressing the Colby curds

Display of all the cheeses we made and tasting.

I am so excited to get my hands on some fresh milk and work on practicing at home. Of course, I need to order a press and some cultures and rennet - I want to try a Camembert (which I love), that's pretty easy, and a parmesan, but that one will be a long time before tasting as it ages for a long time. So many things to do - so little time.

Duck, Duck...Chickens!

So much going on! Not enough hours in the day to do everything - or report everything. When last we met, we were snow bound and wild bird scouting....onto the domestic birds! I have been keeping up on things - but more so through my Facebook page, with daily little tidbits. But I need to do better here -and so I will! For those of you who might want daily (almost) tidbits, follow us on Facebook at: Napoleon Ridge Farm

Last weekend I attended the OEFFA conference in Granville, OH, just outside Columbus, OH. That was a wonderful experience. In addition to spending time with some of the most important people in my life, the seminars were (for the most part) amazing. While there, Gretchen, from Greensleeve's Farm bought two ducks and three chicks, which I am babysitting until they get about 6 weeks. The ducks are so funny - they LOVE water, so I have built them a little water complex, a few pictures here of their bathing so Gretchen can check them out.

Getting their feet wet.

Then getting everything else wet!

Gretchen's three chicks.

My five new chicks, hatched Sunday.

Cardinal Rules!

With all this snow, the feeder is covered(!) with birds. There are so many cardinals, I can't count them all. In addition, the robins and catbirds are around, and they are the reason I leave the crabapples on the trees over winter, as they have been eating that fruit non stop in this weather.
Also spotted yesterday at the feeder was a red-winged black bird, grackles and starlings and tufted titmice, red finches, gold finches, rufous sided towhees. Also german sparrow, chipping sparrow, and song sparrows. And of course, the chickadees, nuthatches, carolina wren, downy and red bellied woodpeckers.

The cardinal on the ground looking for seed.

The cardinal hanging out in the trees.

Peach was not even remotely interested in birds.
A nap was more his speed.

Snow, Snow and More Snow

Okay, a bit of a stretch after having lived in Upstate New York and New England for most of my life, but we have had a couple of storms one after the other in the past week. Today's was about 6 inches so far, with another couple being predicted for tonight into tomorrow. Had to cancel my egg delivery for Chalk Restaurant until later this week, and take yet another day off of work. And because neither I nor my husband has a 4 wheel drive vehicle (other than the Rhino utility vehicle at the farm), we walked to the farm this morning to take care of the chickens. Fran took a couple pictures as we approached the farm, included here for verification of our snowy day.

Heading up the road toward the barn.

Rounding toward the barn, lettuce in hand for the hens.

Once we got the hens all taken care of (that includes their daily lettuce since they are not going out on pasture and several leaves of straw for them to scratch through which keeps them entertained), we did take the Rhino back to the house just in case. It is about 4/10's of a mile walk from the house to the farm, and it was a chilly walk! Had a cup of hot cocoa once we got home, and enjoyed watching the other birds at the feeder. I sure am looking forward to spring.

Lots of cardinals in the trees.

New Chicks on the Farm

So far, 11 hatched, 2 died, and the other 9 appear happy and healthy. They are living, for now, in the upstairs bedroom until they get about two weeks old, then they will move into the garage brooding pen with their 4 older siblings that were born in December. I will then start another batch for February hatching, and keep on going until I get back up to about 100+ chickens. They sure are cute when they are little, I have attached a little video clip of them.

This afternoon, the ladies that comprise the board of Earth Mother Market, our Wednesday farmers market in Fort Thomas are coming over for dinner and conversations about the upcoming growing season. There is so much going on it is hard to keep up! I fresh roasted some organic Costa Rican coffee, an making several fresh pastas (spinach ravioli and garlic and herb fettucini) with our farm tomato sauce to go over it. And a lemon tart with hazelnut crust topped with fresh fruits for dessert. Should be a fun night of talking farming!

2010 CSA Memberships Are Available

This year we will be offering Community Supported Agriculture memberships in addition to our farm and farm market sales. With the expansion of growing acres, this seemed like the perfect time to start this program. I was a little behind in getting my informational brochure and application done, but everything is now ready to go...if you want more information on joining just email me and let me know and I will send along the brochure and application. The farm email is tricia@napoleonridgefarm.com. I have lots of ordering complete, with the remainder going in this week, there are going to be so many great selections this year! Already in is our potato order, we will be doing 4 varieties. We have a large fruit and berry order, with gooseberries, currants, 3 types of raspberries and new blackberries placed. And I have spent weeks perusing through the Fedco, Johhny's seeds and High Mowing seed catalogs. Now if it would just warm up a bit so I can get going on the hoophouses. And - a really big surprise for the next post!

This big old oak lives in one of the side fields, it is a huge tree up close.