Can we feed ourselves?

This http://dailyoxford.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/say-it-aint-so/ would have been a brilliant article if they  would have managed to skip the horror scenarios. No, I am not in support of the food bill. But I see publications like the above as actually counter-productive. It provides ammunition to the government to stamp us all with the "Idiots who think we will use guns to arrest grannies" stamp. And it also provides the government with a tool to trade i.e. seed exchange and veggie growing and to distract from way bigger issues (which strangely enough do not seem to get much publicity).

New Zealand has a firearms law which doesn't allow anyone to be armed and storm other people's properties. Except if they are part of the police force or the defence force. A food officer who is likely to be an employee of a private and/or government owned organisation is allowed to use "reasonable force". This cannot include the use of weapons since that would require them to have a license for these weapons and a license to use these weapons while they perform their job. Although this could be a valid theoretical scenario it would need another law change which would arm this group of food safety officers.

Last time I checked even our police force was unarmed. Unless they are part of the AOS. So let’s say the scenario of armed officers storming a grannies veggie patch would become true, a food safety officer would have to get the AOS out to the grannies place to storm her veggie patch. Quite unlikely.

Another fact I don't quite see how it would happen is the link to Monsanto. I know it is quite popular to drag Monsanto into these sort of discussions but can someone please explain this link to me? If we would be talking about some agricultural bill which would allow patents on NZ seed or something similar then yes I would agree. Seeds in the scope of the Food Bill 2010 are included as food. So all seeds which can be defined as food (can potentially consumed by humans) are problematic. For example nobody would get the idea to eat tomato seeds, right? So Tomato seeds are not covered under the Food Bill 2010 because they can't be consumed by humans. Same for tomato seedlings. Sunflower seeds are an example of where the food bill poses a problem. You can eat sunflower seeds and you can use them for growing sunflowers. So these are the seeds we are talking about here. Just to make this absolutely clear, the food bill 2010 is only applied to food. Not to agricultural or horticultural seeds. Only where agricultural or horticultural seeds can also be seen as food i.e. can be consumed by humans do we have an issue.

I see a risk that we get lost in all those small issues while the government is happy to back off from our sunflower seed problem. Meanwhile they have a big grin on their faces because they managed to get all the other regulations through which are the really important parts of this bill. The real issues to me are:

The Food Bill 2010 is purely designed to allow big food corporations to trade with all our export partners. Our domestic food safety system works and doesn't need changed. It is the requirements the World Trade Organisation is putting onto us and the food import regulations of countries like the US (just compare their food bill which was recently updated (search for S510) with the Food Bill 2010) which require us to change our system. Something like 85% of food borne illnesses in New Zealand come from Restaurants, takeaways and caterers. So why do we need an update of our food safety law for all the producers and retailers etc? Because restaurants, takeaways and caterers are not exporting.

I wouldn't have a problem if the government would create food safety laws for export businesses. If you want to make big money with export you need to play by the big boy’s rules. But why do I as a small local food business apply the same rules?

I would like to see a Food Bill which provides New Zealanders with safe and healthy food. I would like to see a regulation framework which actively supports not only big companies but also small producers. I would like to see a New Zealand which follows the example of Cuba and writes it into her legislation that New Zealand's goal is to achieve the highest self-sufficiency possible. And the least dependence on outside food markets. Because this will be the greatest challenge we will face in the nearest future. If we keep being dependent on outside food markets and these outside food markets, profit oriented as they are might collapse we will be doomed. Can we feed ourselves?