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[Simon]

The Law For Food Facism: The Proposed Food Safety & Standards Bill, 2005
by Vandana Shiva; February 21, 2005

Food laws and Food Safety for India's diverse and local food economy

The Government has drafted a Food Safety and Standards Bill 2005 as an 'Integrated Food Law' which has been prepared with the intention to be contemporary, comprehensive, and ensure better consumer safety through food safety management systems and settling standards based on science and transparency as also meeting the dynamic requirements of international trade and Indian Food Trade and Industry. Clearly, the law has been designed to lubricate international trade and the expansion of the global agribusiness. Consumer health, nutrition, and food culture are not even mentioned as objectives of the integrated food law.

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The Law For Food Facism: The Proposed Food Safety & Standards Bill, 2005

Interesting read - I found it whilst looking for food safe clipboards.

Regards,
Simon

[Simon]

The previous link is to the ‘printer friendly' version of the article, here is the link to the original article:

http://www.zmag.org/...=66&ItemID=7289

About the author Vandana Shiva
'World-renowned environmental leader and thinker Vandana Shiva is director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, and the author of many books, including Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit and Monocultures of the Mind. In 1993, Shiva won the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize. Shiva is a leader in the International Forum on Globalization, along with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin.'

Below is an extract from his article:
'In the year 2004, we need to learn from the food mistakes of the industrialized food systems. Systems that have created Mad Cow Disease and unleashed an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. These diseases of unhealthy processing are not identified as 'food hazards' in food safety laws, though they are a hazard to health. That is why the proposed law is obsolete - it fails to take into account the diseases related to industrial food processing which are creating ill health and should be treated as unsafe.'

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Yes food may well be produced under exacting hygienic conditions but it can still be overly processed, full of additives and chemicals and unsafe to eat. Conversely in a suburb of Delhi an entrepreneur runs a market stall preparing and selling deliciously wholesome, organic foods but under slightly less hygienic conditions? Under the proposed legislation the author argues that by imposing their food safety rules the big buck food suppliers and their bedfellow bureaucrats would force this street seller out of business - and that's exactly (he says) what they want to do.

Certainly very interesting; but is Vandana Shiva right? Can / should food safety consider the long as well as the short term effects of consuming food products? And would the red tape of food safety really force the centuries old street seller out of business?

Food for thought.

Regards,
Simon