Please read this - TRUTH ENCLOSED

http://www.govtrack.us/users/questions.xpd?topic=bill:h111-875


Q&A on H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
(from the U.S. government site of the bill)

Here you will find a Q&A discussion of those that have gone over this bill with a fine-toothed comb. And you WILL see, that depending upon how this bill is interpreted that it is VERY possible that a home gardener could be defined.

The exclusion is for 'non-profit food establishments':
(from the link above)-

--"Nonprofit food establishments" are not private gardens. They are nonprofit corporations established to provide food (for eg. the homeless).

--"promulgate regulations to establish science-based minimum standards for the safe production of food by food production facilities." The exclusions you keep quoting are only from a set of regulations. The FSA will still have authority to regulate what are classified as production facilities. That being the case, the fact that there doesn't seem to be any distinction among different scales of production facilities becomes a big issue.

--Re A9, the "Food Establishment" clause only supplies to areas which process the food. Gardens, in all technically, fall under the definition of "Food Production Facility" (Sec 3[14]) , which are subject to the restrictions of Sec 206. According to Sec 3[15][B] anything that can be defined as a "Food Production Facility" cannot also be defined as a "Food Establishment"
Currently, I don't believe a private garden meets the definition of a farm. I have read that the definition of a farm is any agricultural area that produces (or what have produced) $1,000 in agro products during that year (haven't looked it up in the actual law code, so I could be wrong here). It's important to note, however, that no restrictions are placed within the bill. It would be a simple action a little way down the line to simply redefine a "farm" to be any land that produces food products.

--The "Food Establishment" is defined as anywhere food is stored, processed, etc. I don't know about everyone else, but I store food in my pantry, and under the wording of this law, my pantry, as a food storage facility, would be subject to these rules. Therefore, any goods grown from my garden, and stored in my pantry, would be contraband goods. Read it as a shady lawyer would read it, after all, weren't most of our politicians shady lawyers at one time?