Posted on 07/07/2012 11:31:23 AM PDT by JohnKinAK
This article was written by Cassandra Anderson and originally published at MorphCity.com
The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food is promoting the Utah Garden Challenge in order to collect information about independent food production for the USDA.
The Utah Garden Challenge is a voluntary contest to register 10,000 gardens. The data mining project has a broad interest in any "resource" who is growing food:
Whether you grow a tomato in a pot, a row in a community garden, have backyard gardens, a CSA or working fruit and vegetable farm, we want to hear from you because you are an important resource as a food producer.
While the contest paints a proud face on independent food production, it is important to remember that registering with the government sets up a system to track, tax, permit or confiscate the registered item. Gun ownership is a good example of this scheme.
According to a pop-up window on the official website, participants' gardens will be registered with the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS):
We need to know how much food is being produced in Utah. The Census of Agriculture is done every 5 years. Every agricultural operation in Utah, regardless of size, is vital to this question. If you produce $1000 of agricultural products, you can influence economic development and decision making by filling out a NASS survey. We will only share your information with NASS by your permission. Your response to the census of agriculture is protected by law. For more information, you can go to www.agcensus.gov.
In other words, people who produce $1000 or more worth of food have an impact on the food market, and the USDA wants to know about what you are doing in your backyard.
Victory gardens in America produced up to 40% of all vegetables consumed during World War II, with over 20 millon home gardens and community plots that produced over 9 million tons of food.
The USDA is notorious for its corrupt partnerships and revolving door business relationships with big commercial agriculture.
Government Crackdowns & Food Control
Food is under attack because if you can grow your own food, have access to water and shelter, then what use do you have for a government master?
The federal government has profoundly overstepped its constitutional authority on all fronts, and there are a number of examples of the USDA's outrageous control over food that include SWAT team raids on raw milk sellers and fruit tree confiscation.
The Food Safety Modernization Act expanded the power of the FDA and its sister agency, the USDA. The law is bad for many reasons and is an overwhelming burden on small and independent farmers due to over-regulation and increase in paperwork and reporting.
Additionally, the FBI identifies people who store food as potential terrorists!
Why Is Utah A Threat?
1. A few months ago Utah voted down a Food Freedom Bill that would have made it a crime for anyone, including Utah state agents, to enforce the Food Safety Modernization Act's unconstitutional mandates. It would have made farmers who trade only inside of state lines exempt. The bill was a direct constitutional challenge to federal overreach.
2. Highland City, Utah passed a Food Freedom ordinance that exempts residents from federal regulations on food that is produced, exchanged and consumed within city limits (state laws still apply).
3. Utah has the largest concentration of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons) who have an official policy of food storage, currently set at a 1-year minimum supply. This may be construed as a threat by the FBI, especially since a 1-year supply of food can cost as little as $225.
Conclusion
Survivalist.com points out that the Utah Garden Challenge is linked to the United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development plan for totalitarian control.
The Utah Garden Challenge is enticing Utahans with meager prizes (a 1-in-1000 chance of winning a giftcard or free restaurant dinner) to register their gardens and subject themselves to invasive government data mining. But is your food independence worth it?
FU USDA
/johnny
Unbelievable..... No, strike that. It’s believable. This country has really gone down the crapper. I’d usually say, “God help us” but it seems he’s leaving us to rot.
This is a problem. Shall we see it illegal to grow food even for your own consumption, since it hurts the sales of grocery stores and government give-aways with SNAP/food stamps?
What garden? No, that’s a weed patch out back.
It is already retty much, if you believe, along with the US Judiciary, that Wilkard v. Filburn rulz.
"Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it."
It is already pretty much, if you believe along with the US Judiciary, that Wilkard v. Filburn rulz.
"Filburn was ordered to destroy his crops and pay a fine, even though he was producing the excess wheat for his own use and had no intention of selling it."
I thought the Food Safety Modernization Act was dead.
Joseph Stalin: Control the food and you control the population”
Passively refusing to cooperate is not enough. What is needed to defeat a data mining operation is garbage data.
If enough people submit bad and conflicting data, not about themselves, but about other places, the data mining will be ruined.
So for example, list plants that do not grow there, like bananas and mangos in vacant lots, federal and state lands, inside buildings, etc. Imagine the statistic that shows Utah as being the biggest banana producing state.
Lots of plants already have intrusive regulation, so they would be a hoot to list as being grown as backyard crops. Like noxious giant hogweed, tobacco, or just ordinary wheat would make USDA inspectors jump in their cars and speed to where it is supposedly being grown.
And who says you can’t grow 5 acres of tomatoes in an apartment? Because you make your own sauce and you really like spaghetti.
If 10 or 15 people, using different computers hither and yon, inputted data like that, it would monkey wrench the whole corrupt machine.
They're coming for the gardeners now!
“Control the oil, you control the nation.”
“Control the food, you control the people”
.........................Henry Kissinger
First they came for the flower gardeners, and I said nothing.
Next they came for the vegetable gardeners.....
Don’t forget the drones and the Hi-Res satellite shots. Googleearth, anyone?
Gardening ping!
What is needed to defeat a data mining operation is garbage data.
Ha! I’m safe. Govmunt will never believe anything will grow on the rock pile I live on.
I’ve been raking rocks and turning them into fence posts.
I saw this earlier and added some keywords. Thank you so much for sending out the ping. Living here, I’d never comply. This is truly ridiculous, but then again ammo is getting banned by Herbert, and, after all it IS ILLEGAL to gather rainwater in Utah.*
(*You are now, as of last year, permitted to get a legal permit, allowing one to gather a few hundred gallons of rainwater, our benefactor’s gift to us peasants, just a small token of the government’s benevolence.)
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