New Zealand Becomes Codex Alimentarius Incarnate: Food As Commodity, Not Nourishment

In New Zealand, the goals of Codex Alimentarius are being implemented at a rate that can only make the technocrats of the US and EU envious. Proposed legislation—thus far sliding through the legislative process like a greased pig—will force controls on food production that can only favor multinational growers and threaten the existence of all small operations. It treats foods as a commodity and eliminates the presumption that people can grow and access their foods of choice.

Rather than being something we all understand and come to comprehend through the learning process that brings us to adulthood, food is redefined. According to the Food Safety Bill, food will no longer simply be “food”, it will become “food and food related products“. Food related products?

With the implementation of Food Bill 160-2, massive new powers, including powers of arrest, will be given to “food safety officers”, who can be members of the private sector. That means employees of Monsanto could be authorized to conduct raids. Worse, they will be given immunity from criminal and civil prosecution for any acts during those raids. Even marae, communal and sacred places, will be subject to their actions. Warrants will not be required so there will be no need for evidence of a crime, meaning anyone could be raided at any time…and there will be no recourse, no matter how egregious their acts.

Codex Alimentarius: The Reason for the Food Bill

The purpose of the bill—as stated by New Zealand Food Safety Authority—is to bring New Zealand into line with Codex Alimentarius provisions. It is the goal of Codex Alimentarius to bring the entire world under subjugation by multinational corporate agribusiness.

• They will define what food is.
• They will decide what we can and cannot eat.
• They will determine what we can and cannot know.
• They will control what we put in our bodies.
• Their will cannot be opposed, because they will have absolute power—with no means to check them with either criminal or civil sanctions.
• They will not even need the approval of courts: raids will not require a warrant.

They will enforce their control through whatever means they choose—and they will define their arena of control as they choose.

It’s being sold as needed for food safety—but the fact is that any need for such measures exists only because of modern factory farming and factory food production methods. Until their advent, food was simply food. We knew how to take care of it. We knew how to grow it. We knew what was healthy. Now, though, food has been redefined as conglomerations of chemicals, divorced from their original living sources.

And we will soon have no option but to accept it—unless you act now.

New Zealand’s Food Safety Authority

The images on the left were taken from the New Zealand Food Safety Authority website’s home page. They were interspersed with heartwarming food images, like one of a beekeeper, but they reveal exactly how they view food. To the authorities, food isn’t life-giving nutrition, a gift from nature. No, to them food is combinations of chemicals, put together in whatever fashion multinational corporations choose, sterilized and purified, denatured, fortified, and whatever chemicals they try to put into it because their processing has destroyed anything related to the life-giving gifts of Gaia.

New Zealand’s Food Safety Authority is already making arrangements to implement and promote the Food Bill, as if it were already in effect. Their website actively promotes Codex Alimentarius, saying that, “Codex plays a pivotal role in developing international standards for health protection and ensuring fair practices in food trade.” Notice the conjunction of health protection and fair practices? That’s no accident. Codex uses the excuse of health protection to cram “fair practices” for agribusiness down our throats.

Make no mistake about it: The purpose of Codex Alimentarius and its implementation by New Zealand and nearly every other country in the world has nothing to do with our health. It’s all about making the world safe for agribusiness—to give them complete control over what we eat, even to the point of defining what food is, so that nothing can stand in the way of making and increasing their profits. That’s why “food safety officers” will be immune from civil and criminal prosecution. They’ll be above the law, able to walk into your business—or simply claim that your home is a business and walk in—and take whatever they wish, damage whatever they wish, hold you at gunpoint, and arrest you. You will have no recourse.

Everyone Is Affected

The Food Bill will affect everyone. As NZ Food Security.org says:

• It turns a human right (to grow food and share it) into a government-authorised privilege that can be summarily revoked.
• It makes it illegal to distribute “food” without authorisation, and it defines “food” in such a way that it includes nutrients, seeds, natural medicines, essential minerals and drinks (including water).
• By controlling seeds, the bill takes the power to grow food away from the public and puts it in the hands of seed companies. That power may be abused. [That power will be abused! --Editor]
• The bill will push up mainstream food prices by subjecting producers to red tape and registration costs.
• Growing food for distribution must be authorised, even for “cottage industries”, and such authorisation can be denied.
• The Food Bill means that non-Codex-complying producers can be shut down easily – thus it paves the way for the legal enforcement of Codex food regulations. Producers will be denied registration (which is discretionary) if they do not keep to Codex food production rules.

The knock-on effects could include:

• Loss of ability to be self-sufficient.
• Potential loss of seed banks if they can’t gain authorization—and what’s the likelihood of Monsanto going along with that?
• Bartering becoming difficult or illegal, just as the costs of buying food goes up because of added costs and fees.
• Loss of heirloom seeds—an agricultural disaster.
• Loss of organic food.

NZ Food Security provides a wealth of information on these issues. Please, take a look.

Can This Travesty Be Stopped?

The question is, will enough people see the danger and act? It’s up to you. A good start is to sign the Oppose the New Zealand Government Food Bill 160-2.

Get informed, so you can tell people why they, too, should oppose this bill. These are websites and articles that can help:

• New food bill in New Zealand takes away human right to grow food (Investment Watch article)
• NZ Food Security
• Fresh Fruit Portal
• Bill sparks garden concerns (article)

Finally, New Zealand has just had parliamentary elections. Start sending letters and e-mails to your member of parliament. Tell them that Food Bill 160-2 is unacceptable, that it’s an abridgement of your rights. Let them know that treating food as a commodity is simply wrong. It’s nourishment—and its control needs to be removed from the hands of agribusiness multinational corporations.

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