As the government continues to shut down family farms, your ability to make good food choices diminishes
Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Though much of it flies under the mainstream radar, there is a coordinated effort afoot to completely stamp out all private, small-scale food production in the United States, which means your ability to access the clean, high-quality foods of your choice is rapidly diminishing. In his new book Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights, investigative journalist David E. Gumpert covers this pertinent issue in depth, highlighting the ongoing string of government raids and other oppressive tactics regulators are taking to eliminate your freedom of food choice.
In a chapter entitled Is There Such a Thing as Private Food?, Gumpert paints a grim picture of what America's harsh regulatory climate has and is doing to family farmers. What used to be a free and open system of private food production and distribution has devolved into a type of corporate food monopoly controlled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and various other nanny state food agencies that have assumed authority over what people can eat.
Many of the cases outlined in this particular chapter have previously been covered here at NaturalNews -- the shutdown of Amish raw milk farmer Daniel Allgyer's Pennsylvania farm; the armed SWAT raid of the Manna Storehouse in Ohio; and the forced closure of the private Underground Market in San Francisco are just a few prominent examples. But each of these independent events represents just a small piece of a much bigger agenda to eliminate the fundamental right to choose one's own food.
"In the public system's expansion, farming has become increasingly removed from the output process of the nation's food," writes Gumpert in his book about the growing disconnect between people and the foods they eat. "More and more of the nation's farms have become essentially subcontractors to huge corporations that dictate the feed, breed, housing, and life span for chickens, pigs, and cattle."
Big Ag corporations using power of state to drive private food production into extinction
This, of course, has been the goal of Big Ag all along -- to buy up or put out of business all American farms that refuse to meld their production outputs into the larger public food system. Those that try to operate outside the system with private food buying clubs, non-inspected goods distribution systems, and other decentralized models eventually become the target of the state, which increasingly exercises the heavy hand of tyranny to force compliance.
For Daniel Allgyer, this meant facing armed FDA agents who showed up at his private farm one morning to conduct an illegal inspection, which eventually resulted in the shutting down of his farm. For the Stowers family of Manna Storehouse, it meant being terrorized by a SWAT team that held the family hostage while stealing their private files and other documents. And for Quail Hollow Farm in Nevada, it meant being ordered to throw away hundreds of pounds of farm-fresh food.
Even bake sales, lemonade stands, and other neighborhood-based food events have come under increased regulatory scrutiny in recent years, which in 2011 prompted the formation of an inaugural "Lemonade Freedom Day" protest to assert the right of Americans to freely choose their own food without having to first get permission from Big Brother.
"In the recent past, bureaucrats and law enforcers have shut down lemonade stands for not having permits or licenses," wrote the event's organizers on their website, echoing the sentiment of many others who have been targeted using similar tactics.
Be sure to read the full published excerpt from Gumpert's book here:
You can also check out his book to learn more about the ongoing war against food freedom in America today:
http://www.publishersweekly.com
Sources for this article include:
http://www.publishersweekly.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/z041359_Big_Ag_small_farms_federal_government.html