The USDA has banned Food & Water Watch from Combined Federal Campaign events. The nonprofit received a letter from the government that stated, “I regret to inform you that I’ve been notified your organization has not been approved for entrance into USDA to attend the USDA-CFC event on December 10, 2013.” Food & Water Watch was also turned away from a November 20, 2013 event, after they received an email confirmation from USDA.
Combined Federal Campaign is a workplace charitable giving drive. It supports and promotes philanthropy through a voluntary program. More than 4000 charities are registered by the CFC, including programs that support the environment, research institutes, and inner city schools. Food & Water Watch is #17460 in the CFC.
Food & Water Watch has been pressuring the USDA to delay HIMP, the “modernization” of the poultry industry inspection program that replaces government inspectors with corporate employees. They also disapprove of the USDA plan to import processed chicken parts from China.
Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement, “clearly, we are a thorn in USDA’s side. But to block us from entry to this event by denying our security clearance is not only bogus – it’s intimidation. But we won’t be intimidated. We’ll continue to force the USDA to do its job to protect consumers, not corporate profits.”
He who controls the food, controls the world. It is not terrorists we should be worried about, but our own government selling food companies to the Chinese and allowing food products from China to be sold in the U.S. with little to no regulation. The FDA and the USDA are also the same government entities that tell us that genetically modified foods are safe, while companies like Foster Farms and Sunland peanuts are allowed to continuously operate through large salmonella epidemics. Grow your own food and raise your own meat, if you cannot do that find someone you know and trust and start bartering.
No reason why the USDA would want to do anything to protect the health of Americans. Or allow any group who wants to do the job that the USDA refuses to do, into the events. The USDA will never put the health and safety of many, before the profits for a few. I quit eating chicken or anything that contains it, a long time ago, because it is not safe or healthy. I won’t even feed anything with chicken to my dog, because I don’t want her health to be harmed, either. I don’t trust the USDA, FDA or other agencies to keep our food supply safe. They don’t work for the people, anymore.
I don’t think it’s that black and white. FDA and USDA do a lot of good and do protect the public from unsafe foods. Their inspections have found a lot of contaminated food, their regulations help keep our food supply safer, and their investigations have solved many food poisoning outbreaks. I am disturbed about corporate influence at the agencies, however. The Foster Farms outbreak is one example, as is the approval of importing processed chicken from China.