Food, illegal? Not in my back yard.

nzfoodsecurity@gmail.com: Warrantless searches of houses and marae for food and seeds, even with guns, are coming to NZ soon thanks to the Food Bill – unless you do something.

The following video shows a SWAT team raiding a health food store in California. The Food Bill paves the way for this to happen in NZ (yes, also with guns). This site deals with Solutions to this Very Big Problem. Please watch the video, listen to the audio, and read the text and comments.

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What is the Food Bill?

- A Government Bill introduced to Parliament in May 2010, which has since passed its first reading and been through a Select Committee review. It is awaiting a second reading as at 20 July. It may be enacted in the near future.

What are the problems with the Food Bill?

- It turns a human right (to grow food and share it) into a government-authorised privilege that can be summarily revoked.

- It makes it illegal to distribute “food” without authorisation, and it defines “food” in such a way that it includes nutrients, seeds, natural medicines, essential minerals and drinks (including water).

- By controlling seeds, the bill takes the power to grow food away from the public and puts it in the hands of seed companies. That power may be abused.

- The bill will push up mainstream food prices by subjecting producers to red tape and registration costs. Food prices are already rising due to increased energy costs and commodity speculation, while effective disposable incomes are falling.

- Growing food for distribution must be authorised, even for “cottage industries”, and such authorisation can be denied.

- Under the Food Bill, Police acting as Food Safety Officers can raid premises without a warrant, using all equipment they deem necessary – including guns (Clause 265 – 1).

- Members of the private sector can also be Food Safety Officers, as at Clause 243. So Monsanto employees can raid premises – including marae – backed up by armed police.

- The Bill gives Food Safety Officers immunity from criminal and civil prosection.

- The Government has created this bill to keep in line with its World Trade Organisation obligations under an international scheme called Codex Alimentarius (“Food Book”). So it has to pass this bill in one form or another.

- There are problems with Codex also. Codex will place severe restrictions on the content of vitamins, minerals and therapeutic compounds in food, drinks and supplements etc.

- The Food Bill means that non-Codex-complying producers can be shut down easily – thus it paves the way for the legal enforcement of Codex food regulations. Producers will be denied registration (which is discretionary) if they do not keep to Codex food production rules.

What are the implications for Food Security in NZ?

- The bill would undermine the efforts of many people to become more self-sufficient within their local communities.

- Seed banks and seed-sharing networks could be shut down if they could not obtain authorisation. Loss of seed variety would make it more difficult to grow one’s own food.

- Home-grown food and some or all seed could not be bartered on a scale or frequency necessary to feed people in communities where commercially available food has become unaffordable or unavailable (for example due to economic collapse).

- Restrictions on the trade of food and seed would quickly lead to the permanent loss of heirloom strains, as well as a general lowering of plant diversity in agriculture.

- Organic producers of heirloom foods could lose market share to big-money agribusiness outfits, leading to an increase in the consumption of nutrient-poor and GE foods.

If the bill is going to be passed anyway, what can we do?

- People must decide if they will allow the enacted bill to apply them individually. The hardest thing to realise here is that we actually have a choice. Yet we do. The Crown tells us we are subject to legislation only by our consent – in other words by our individual, informed choice – here.

This consent can be formally revoked using a notarised Claim of Right (see www.claimofright.org for a template). If such a Claim is not disputed by affected parties like the police, Ministry of Justice etc, the claimant is no longer subject to legislation (though still subject to Common Law).

- Those who choose not to be subject to the enacted bill and other prohibitive legislation individually can then take steps to protect their collective interests using the formal contract the Queen has with the Natives of this country – the contract being the 1835 Declaration of Independence and its subsequent variation, Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840.

Again, the hardest thing here is a mental hurdle that must be overcome – our indoctrination over, or simple weariness of, the constitutional law of this country. But again, once this is achieved, the final solution is elegantly simple. For more on this, see the Maori Customary Law website, which helps hapu to stand in their own Sovereignty by providing template documents for filing with the Crown. You can also meet Maori sovereignty experts from all around the country, at Te Tii Marae, Waitangi, on 27th and 28th October – Independence Day. For more, see whakaminenga.

Details about the Food Bill

The bill is here.

Under the bill, any “undertaking” (anyone) that “processes” (grows/produces) “food” (plants/anything that can be eaten/plant material/seeds) for “sale” (bartering/offering/giving away/feeding people/selling for reserve bank notes etc) OR that just “sells” (barters, gives away) any “food” (plants, seeds etc) however that “food” is acquired will need to be licensed by the government in some way, or have a specific exemption.

This is outlined in the Meanings Sections (Sections 8-10, and Section 12) that are appended below in Appendix B.

The bill is vague on whether seeds are food if for non-grain-producing plants or others where seeds are eaten, like sunflowers. In other words seeds for rice, potatos, kumara, wheat, barley etc are all “food”, but seeds for brassicas may not be… but may also be.

And further it’s very vague on whether giving away for no reward (amazingly) constitutes “selling” under the bill.

People may be outraged that they can’t grow carrots and regularly swap them with their neighbour two doors down for his potatoes (or face jail). They will clearly be criminals under this bill.

However this is all side-show stuff.

The key factor is seeds. In many cases they specifically are food, of course. Grain seed, seed potatoes, rice, maize, quinoa, many staples etc etc – as the bill stands all these will explicitly be controlled substances, with similar penalties for possession as drugs.

Regarding not-normally-eaten seeds, it’s a short hop (via a single court ruling probably) that they are “food” by virtue of both being plant material and being “capable of being used for human consumption” (Section 8, see Appendix B below).

So the Food Bill is wide open for seed control – for staples already, and the rest by dint of a court ruling (after seed banks are raided without warrant and seeds condemned, perhaps, and the actions challenged).

This being so, the unenforceability of prohibiting people from growing food for local distribution becomes a moot point. No good seeds means no good food (if any food at all) to distribute.

OK, so that’s the problem…  what are the solutions?

In NZ there are protections against this kind of thing through the Treaty, highlighted in the WAI 262 claim Tribunal findings recently released in relation to taonga species, ie those considered to have human benefit. Such protection is enforceable via the Queen under the 1835 Declaration of Independence, which was reinforced rather than supplanted by the Treaty (Tiriti version, the binding one).

Simply put, to stop people from being able to trade food they grow, or to get good seeds to grow it, is just basic treason (the crime of betraying one’s country) and a breach of tikanga and thus the Treaty. The solution therefore lies in the Treaty (the Tiriti version, which on the issue of sovereignty/tino rangatiratanga/ “full authority” is upheld by the English law rule of Contra Proferentem in contracts. Thus the Queen is bound to be subject to the “full authority” of regional rangatira by her own laws… and the rangatira can overrule any food police. Hence the Governor-General has veto controls in the Bill – he is the Queen’s representative, and needs veto power to act as the instrument of rangatira where they wish to exercise their authority – anything else is unconstitutional.)

Again, details of how to use tino rangatiratanga in this way are available via the Maori Customary Law website, which helps hapu to stand in their own Sovereignty by providing template documents for filing with the Crown. You can also meet Maori sovereignty experts from all around the country, at Te Tii Marae, Waitangi, on 27th and 28th October – Independence Day. For more, see whakaminenga.

Individuals or collectives of people can also contract out from under this legislation by revoking their consent to parliamentary representation. This is done via a properly served Claim of Right. See www.claimofright.org. You can thus nullify your enforceable adherence to legislation enacted by a legislature you are no longer represented in. (See Appendix A.) By serving copies of your claim on all affected parties, you can enforce this contracting out upon agencies that would otherwise assume you’re subject. You file your Notice/Claim via a Notary Public, which leaves nothing up for any dispute that a judge might otherwise have to adjudicate over, and thus no case to defend.

It’s also worth noting that due to this point of consent, the legislation is neither in breach of the Tiriti, nor is it treason . This is the only way it can be got away with.

With luck this is not rabbit-hole stuff for you. It’s actually very simple. By contrast, legislation like the Food Bill is designed to get lost in. It’s 400 pages of mind-bending rubbish. We have the right to not have to consider these bills, nor get lost in them, nor have them apply to us, and to just go about our peaceful business – especially when legislation is enacted by people who don’t read it, nor even have it read to them anymore, and who we’re not represented by anyway if we simply tell them so. Judges uphold this basic truth, one might add. It’s about being right.

Meanwhile, the Tiriti holds the key for the country as a whole. Judges are sworn to uphold this too, because they have sworn an oath to uphold the law, and the Tiriti is part of our constitutional law. If they don’t uphold it, it’s because not enough people are holding them to account because they are snoozing as to what their human rights are and how they’re about to be seemingly (but not really) taken away. Rather they’ve been given away, by consent.

KIA ORA.

PS: You can also save seeds, and keep them secure

Appendix A

Parliament Brief: The legislative process (from here).

“The law is the framework within which citizens consent to be governed. Democratic theory is that having elected their lawmakers (legislators), citizens recognise the legitimacy of the laws made ontheir behalf by the lawmakers and consent to abide by those laws.”

[In other words, if you tell your local MP that you revoke your consent for him/her to represent you, and don't vote, you can logically also revoke your consent to abide by all legislation enacted in Parliament - it being the case that you no longer recognise its legitimacy in relation to yourself because, as above, it no longer has any. Nice of them to tell us :-]

Appendix B

Meaning of food

8 Meaning of food

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, food—

(a) means anything that is used, capable of being used, or
represented as being for use, for human consumption
(whether raw, prepared, or partly prepared); and

(b) includes—
(i) plants; and
(ii) live animals intended for human consumption at
the place of purchase; and
(iii) live animals for human consumption that are sold
in retail premises; and
(iv) any ingredient or nutrient or other constituent of
any food or drink, whether that ingredient or nu-
trient or other constituent is consumed or repre-
sented for consumption on its own by humans,
or is used in the preparation of, or mixed with or
added to, any food or drink; and
(v) anything that is or is intended to be mixed with
or added to any food or drink; and
(vi) chewing gum, and any ingredient of chewing
gum, and anything that is or is intended to be
mixed with or added to chewing gum; and
(vii) anything that is declared by the Governor-Gen-
eral, by Order in Council made under section
355, to be food for the purposes of this Act; but

(c) does not include—
(i) any tobacco; or
(ii) any cosmetics; or
(iii) any substances used only as medicines (within
the meaning of the Medicines Act 1981), any
controlled drugs (within the meaning of the Mis-
use of Drugs Act 1975), or any restricted sub-
stances (within the meaning of the Misuse of
Drugs Amendment Act 2005); or
(iv) any cookware and related products; or
(v) any packaging (except edible packaging).

(2) To avoid doubt, neither subsection (1)(b)(iv) nor (v) requires
any ingredient, nutrient, or other constituent of any food or
drink or anything that is or is intended to be mixed with or
added to any food or drink to comply, on its own, with the
applicable requirements of this Act that specifically relate to
food in its final consumable form.

Meaning of food business

9 Meaning of food business

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, food busi-
ness—

(a) means a business, activity, or undertaking that trades in
food (whether in whole or in part); and

(b) includes a business, activity, or undertaking that—
(i) transports or stores food; or 35
(ii) sells food on the Internet; or
(iii) provides, for reward, premises (including mobile
premises) or services in connection with or for
the purpose of trading in food (for example, an
event organiser, an organiser of a market at which
food is sold, or a lessor); or
(iv) is declared by the Governor-General, by Order in
Council made under section 355, to be a food
business for the purposes of this Act; but

(c) does not include a business, activity, or undertaking
that—
(i) carries on any other business besides trading in
food and, in the course of which, acts as an inter-
mediary between persons who trade in food by
providing, for reward, premises a place (includ-
ing mobile premises) or services (for example, an
Internet service provider or an auction site on the
Internet); or
(ii) trades exclusively in food-related accessories; or
(iii) lets for hire any equipment (such as marquees,
tables, and chairs); or
(iv) is declared by the Governor-General, by Order
in Council made under section 355, not to be a
food business for the purposes of this Act.

Meaning of processing and handling

10 Meaning of processing and handling

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, processing
and handling, in relation to food for sale, includes any 1 or
more of the following:

(a) preparing the food:
(b) manufacturing the food:
(c) packing the food:
(d) transporting the food:
(e) storing the food:
(f) displaying the food:
(g) serving the food.

Meaning of sale
12 Meaning of sale
(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, sale, in re-
lation to food,—
(a) means selling food for processing and handling or for
human consumption; and
(b) includes—
(i) reselling food for processing and handling or for
human consumption; and
(ii) offering food or attempting to sell food, or re-
ceiving or having food in possession for sale, or
exposing food for sale, or sending or delivering
food for sale, or causing or permitting food to be
sold, offered, or exposed for sale; and
(iii) bartering food; and
(iv) selling, or offering to sell, any thing of which any
food forms a part; and
(v) supplying food, together with any accommoda-
tion, service, or entertainment, as part of an in-
clusive charge; and
(vi) supplying food in exchange for payment or in
relation to which payment is to be made in a shop,
hotel, restaurant, at a stall, in or on a craft or
vehicle, or any other place; and
(vii) for the purpose of advertisement or to promote
any trade or business, offering food as a prize
or reward to the public, whether on payment of
money or not, or giving away food; and
(viii) exporting food; and
(ix) every other method of disposition of food for
valuable consideration.
(2) The sale, offer, or exposure for sale of any food is to be treated,
unless the contrary is proved, as a sale, an offer, or an exposure
for sale of the food for human consumption.
(3) The sale of any food for the purpose of being mixed with any
other food is to be treated, unless the contrary is proved, as a
sale if the bulk or product produced by the mixing, or any part
of the bulk or product, is intended to be sold.
(4) The supply of food by or on behalf of the Crown that is funded
directly in whole or in part by the Crown for the purpose
(whether in whole or in part), or that is funded by any other
means, is to be treated as a sale of the food, unless an enact-
ment provides otherwise.

Appendix C

Select Committee recommendations

Small scale businesses

We recommend amending clause 95 by inserting new subclause 95(5)
to provide an example of a person to whom the chief executive might
grant an exemption from the requirement to operate under a regis-
tered food control plan or national programme. This example con-
cerns someone who produces in his or her own home any food for
sale, and sells the food to a consumer only, and does not employ or
engage anyone else to assist in the production or sale of the food, and
does not otherwise sell or distribute the food.

The treatment of very small-scale food businesses has emerged as
a matter of particular interest in our consideration of the bill. Very
small-scale food traders, or “cottage industries” are not distinguished
in the bill. It would be difficult to quantify “small-scale” in terms of
profit, quantity of product, or number of people involved in the oper-
ation, and it is also difficult to define a “cottage” food industry. Do-
ing so could have the effect of inappropriately including or excluding
particular food-trading activities. Therefore we do not recommend a
generic “cottage industry” provision, and propose instead that any
exemption from the requirement to operate under a food control plan
or national programme regulations could be made on a case-by-case
basis through the exercise of the chief executive’s exemption power
under this clause.

SO, TO WRAP UP: Well, we’re not going to let a bunch of offshore lawyers have the last word.

Offshore lawyers, you say? Yes, you heard right. Kate Wilkinson, Food Safety minister, whose name appears on top of the bill, says she had Simply No Idea That Her Bill Covered Seeds. Nor, the Greens say, did they – even though they voted for the bill’s first reading and had representatives on the Select Committee that further approved it. (For both obfuscations, replete with spin, see here.)

Which all begs the question, do Parliamentarians even read this stuff? NO. Have it read to them? NO! Just the title is read in Parliament. How about, do they write it? No, lawyers do that.

So who are these lawyers, and where do they work from?

The idea that Kate Wilkinson does not know the implications of a bill with her name on it (or says she doesn’t) is pretty astounding. So again – who are her ghost writers? Where are these lawyers based? Freedom of Information Request, anyone?

We know the Food Bill is being pushed by the US Food and Drug Administration via its involvement in Codex Alimentarius (the “Food Book”), which is a decades-in-the-making initiative being foisted upon all World Trade Organisation member countries.

NZ is a WTO member. And all member states have to implement Codex or lose food trade disputes by default. So Codex implementation is spreading through WTO countries like a dominant gene.

And of course genes are in large part what Codex is about… spreading GMOs throughout the food supply, either by business practice or by hitching a ride on the regenerative process via cross-pollination. And thereafter royalties ensue, for the likes of Monsanto. Which, of course, is a major lobbyist of the US FDA and a proponent of Codex.

The lawyers that wrote the Food Bill, one way or other, some place or other, maybe even in Washington (read on) – well, they work for global commercial interests. They do not work for your interests.

It does come down to business in the end, and control. Control of the food supply. Control a nation’s food, and you control its people. What is certain about the Food Bill is that it takes control away from home gardener networks (which have to operate as networks to share food and seed meaningfully) by making them illegal, and it gives it to those who can afford the expensive registration costs of being Food Bill compliant – to commercial food businesses. Who are then beholden to the Codex architects.

This is so because these commercial business will have to adhere to Codex Alimentarius food regulations handed down by the US FDA via the WTO and NZ Govt, or they will have their operating licences revoked. So the food they grow will be Codex compliant – which means irradiated, GM, hormone-injected, pesticide (poison) laden, life-force devoid food that’s lacking in nutritionally important vitamins and minerals.

Good for agribusiness, bad for you.

In short, this Bill could kill you. Or your children. But don’t take our word for it. Research Codex for yourself.

Does Kate Wilkinson know this? Yes. She knows most, if not all of it.

Is she trying to cover it up or spin it? Yes.

Wilkinson has a track record of concentrating attention stage right while something very detrimental happens stage left. For more on this, consider the 2010 Mining Schedule 4 Conservation Land debate she staged as Conservation Minister – it was all about defusing the uproar over the fact Schedules 1, 2, and 3 were to be mined. They never intended to mine Schedule 4. It was a blind. Simple duplicity. And the media, public and Greens took it hook, line and sinker.

The Food Bill has had no coverage in the mainstream on the issues that will actually affect people – like do they suffer from malnutrition or food toxicity? And the deception runs very deep. First you must know about the bill, which until two months ago was totally under the radar. Then you must delve into its 400 pages of mind-bendery. Then you must read between the lines with an eye to its provenance – the US FDA and global commercial interests. Finally, you must get the word out – tricky, when the mainstream is wary of stories that stink to high heaven of high-level commercial and political c-c-conspiracie.

Still with us? Good!

So, to wrap things up, when you consider how NZ actually gets its $300m-a-week debt-backed loans – with “The Crown” being a registered corporation in Washington DC called Her Majesty the Queen in Right of New Zealand, that offers our labour and resources as securites on said loans that can never be repaid because there’s more debt in global circulation than credit (that actually bundles up and trades those securities on stock exchanges like the LSE)… well NOW you start joining dots in the bigger picture that hitherto only our PM and Cabinet and judiciary were privy to (plus us).

Basically, international bankers own NZ, thanks in no small part to our former Merryl-Lyncher PM John Key hooking them up with great material securities for their house-of-cards moneylending services. So who do you think really wrote the Food Bill? Well, it was bankers probably. With accounts at the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

We are caught in a web called Debt Slavery, through our ignorance and ultimately our consensual inaction. And very soon, it could cost us dinner on the table.

But word is quickly spreading – about the Food Bill, at least. Please, do your bit – SHARE a link to www.nzfoodsecurity.org on Facebook, print this out and pass it around at farmers’ markets, link in from your blogs and ring around local organic food suppliers and ask them if they’ve heard of the bill. Get their email addresses, send them the link and ask them to forward it and place printouts of this page at their point of sale. You could even hand out copies outside New World

Once you’ve got the word out, DO something. File a Claim of Right prior to the election (and don’t vote). Better still, become adopted by a hapu, because hapu can issue Orders overriding all parts of this bill for their districts (rohe). The Governor-General has to and will respect such orders, and exempt whole regions falling under hapu rangatiratanga that exerise their rangatiratanga. He is constitutionally bound to do so, and the bill gives very clear provisions for his intervention – it has to.

The bottom line is that kids in New Zealand are already suffering malnutrition from rising food prices. This Bill will make food even more expensive, and less nutritious to boot. And you won’t be able to grow and share food properly, so you’ll be beholden to a failing pyramid-scheme global banking system.

In lawyer speak, this country is about to be severely rorted. Which means screwed. Do you give your consent?

No?

Then cry “RAPE”, and loudly. And reach for your pepper spray.

KIA ORA.

Please share on Facebook on your wall, in groups, and with friends. Thank you!

MEDIA COVERAGE

SEPTEMBER 1: BFM’s The Wire - interview with Rosie Ryburn. Listen here.

SEPTEMBER 11: Sunday Star-Times – Rob O’Neill reports on the Food Bill, albeit with multiple errors and on September 11, thus burying the news under Rugby World Cup hype and Twin Towers flashbacks. Read more here.

SEPTEMBER 27: A Food Bill truth story hits number four on the What’s Hot page of Reddit – which is momentous For the story, and comments, see here. Meanwhile, 6400 people have now crammed Kate Wilkinon’s inbox via www.petitiononline.co.nz, voicing their disgust at the bill. And eight out of ten of today’s top results on a google search for “food bill 160″ are protesting the bill.

So while the mainstream media keeps up its near-total silence on the Food Bill, real people are using their own networks to spread information about the most important thing for us after water – food. This tide seems to be gathering pace. Share, share, share…

 

 

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