Making naturally grown food illegal sounds insane, yeah.
Apparently the US is currently ramming through bill HR 875: Food Safety Modernization
Act of 2009 (full text here). The gist seems to be an effort to “improve security of food” by requiring more or less every food producer (including organic farms and family gardens, seemingly) defined as
(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.
who will be required to
(2) require each food production facility to have a written food safety plan that describes the likely hazards and preventive controls implemented to address those hazards;
(3) include, with respect to growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations, minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water;
the gist of which seems to mean enforced minimum standards of spraying, fertilizer, etc. The bill is pushed by agribusiness/Monsanto etc, so this seems likely to mean an end to organics.
Violation of anything is punishable by up to 1,000,000 per offense, per day.
That is just from a quick skim of the law. A farmer blogs here. Originally got sent an email linking to this alarmist youtubey thing. There seem to be a bunch more which are more reasonable and go into detail.
Sounds like it is being pushed through in two weeks with no discussion.
If this is scaring the shit out of you, a one page action webby thing is here to help people contact newspapers, representatives, etc. May well be worth spreading to any Americanos you know, as if it happens there, the pressure for it to happen elsewhere (like here) will grow.
All information provided as is, where is. Check it out, spread, act, as appropriate.