Virginia is for Food and Farm Freedom Lovers

Virginians are not taking lightly the NGOs environmentalist assaults on their land and the right to farm. They are fighting back with the Virginia Small Farm and Food Freedom Resolution in support of the Farm and Food Freedom Act. (www.vafarmandfoodfreedom.com)

Many Virginians testified in Richmond in support of HB1430, The Right to Farm Act, better known as the Boneta Bill, which passed the House of Delegates 77-22 in February 2013 but was blocked by the Senate Agricultural Committee by a vote of 11-4. Delegate Scott Lingamfelter promised to reintroduce the bill next year.

Virginians have vowed to continue the fight. Chairman Mike Thomas and his committee of 12 proposed a resolution on May 4, 2013 to be included and published on the Republican Party of Virginia website with a link on the home page.

It remains to be seen if any of the parties and members of Congress represent the wishes of the majority of the people anymore. Would lawmakers continue to pass laws just to protect the loudest minorities, the illegals, those on welfare, and the elites in power?

The Resolution calls on the Republican Party of Virginia to “support state legislation and local ordinances consistent with each farmer’s right to determine what best constitutes farming, farm life, the best uses of his/her own farm land, respect for their neighbors,” market pay for their labor, and to repeal state laws and ordinances inconsistent with the Resolution.

The Governor and the General Assembly have a duty to advance legislation in 2014 that respects the rights of citizens to pursue their self-interests as protected by the Constitution of the United States, the vision of the Founding Fathers, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Farmers engage in more than just production agriculture, they have the right to commerce, the right to enjoyment of their land, assembly on their property, the right to exercise religious freedom on their lands, the right to grow, eat, sell their locally produced foods without burdensome local and state government regulations or dictates from environmental groups sponsored by international groups and entities, including the United Nations ICLEI.

Government should not use laws, regulations, zoning ordinances, or cumbersome and expensive permits to violate or trespass on the farmers’ rights and freedom to farm under the guise that they know what is best for farming in general or one farmer in particular.

Government agencies or subdivisions that violate farmers’ rights and trespass on their property should be made accountable for their deeds. Americans should not be treated as guilty until proven innocent while giving environmental groups unlimited power without much redress for small farmers who do not have the means to fight back and must shut down their farming operations and farm stores as was the case of Martha Boneta in Virginia and many others across the country.

Less than three percent of American labor feeds 306 million Americans yet the government is making it harder and harder for small farms to operate and bring wholesome foods to the market. Why should farmers be subjected to “annual property monitoring visits and inspections” by environmental groups funded by U.N. Agenda 21 agencies and pursued by groups beholden to ICLEI and other environmental councils who have no idea how their food gets to the table nor do they care? Are “penny loafer farmers” and their horses the only Americans protected under the law? Don’t real farmers deserve the same protection under the supreme law that guarantees all Americans unalienable rights such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”