URGENT: Your Food Supply is in Danger!
by Vin MillerIf you value your health and your freedom to choose unpolluted food, then your help is needed. The USDA is trying to mandate a program that will be so costly and bureaucratic for small farmers that it will likely drive them out of business.
Small farmers are the most significant source of high quality organic food. If you don’t understand why their longevity so important, I suggest you read my articles about toxic meat and why to buy organic.
NAIS – The National Animal Identification System
NAIS is an animal identification system that the USDA has been trying to mandate for about 5 years. According to the USDA, the program is intended to improve food safety, but in reality, it’s more likely to worsen it.
Under this program, anyone owning livestock would be required to register their property, tag each animal with a computerized chip, and report the activity of each animal to the USDA. This even applies to some pet owners. For example, someone owning just a single horse would have to register their property and report to the government each time the horse was taken off the property.
While this program could potentially be useful for the regulation of large factory farms, it’s far too extreme for small farmers and can even be considered unconstitutional. Adding insult to injury, farmers would be required to buy the equipment needed to follow the program. If the hassle doesn’t push small farmers out of business, then the expense will!
Food Safety – What a Joke!
As I said, this program is intended to improve food safety. With a mandatory “48 hour traceback”, the USDA argues that they’ll be better able to manage the spread of disease outbreak, but wouldn’t it make a lot more sense for a food safety program to prevent disease rather than just manage it?
Because small farmers tend to follow natural and organic farming practices, they raise healthy animals that rarely get sick. This is in direct contrast to the factory farms where sickness is common and antibiotics are used as a preventative measure. While the practices of small farmers represent what food safety should be about, the NAIS program would make life more difficult for these small farmers than anyone else.
Furthermore, if the USDA is serious about food safety, perhaps they should revisit their own inspection process. In 2007, over 22 million pounds of ground beef were recalled despite every package of it being inspected by the USDA!
Is it About Safety or Politics?
Possibly the scariest aspect of NAIS is the potential control that it gives the government. Based on the political influence of agricultural companies like Monsanto, this control can easily lead to small farmers being forced to implement the highly toxic and destructive practices that these companies promote and profit from. With this in mind, do you really want the government deciding how your food is produced?
If you’ve never heard of Monsanto, I highly recommend that you visit Millions Against Monsanto and educate yourself about this dangerous company and the strong political influence they have.
Finally, consider who benefits most from NAIS. Technology companies will certainly benefit from the tags and computer systems that the program requires. More importantly, agricultural companies like Monsanto will benefit by their products being a part of the “best practices” imposed on farmers to control disease outbreak. In contrast, the small farmer gets nothing but grief and we lose the ability to choose where our food comes from. In my opinion, this sounds a lot more like corporate cronyism than a food safety program!
Take Action!
If you have any regard for your right to choose where your food comes from, please take action by opposing NAIS! The following website makes it very easy to send a letter to the USDA stating your opposition.
Unfortunately, speaking out against NAIS may not be enough. New legislation has been proposed in Congress that will combine the USDA and FDA into a single “Food Safety Administration”, but also create a backdoor for the USDA to mandate the NAIS program. You can voice your opinion against this legislation as well through the following website.
For more information on NAIS and this proposed legislation, visit:
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
The Death of Organic: UndergroundWellness.com audio interview with Linn Cohen-Cole
Why NAIS Must be Stopped: Video presentation about NAIS by the Environmental Conservation Organization
Monsanto and the Schoolmarm Method of Punishing Farmers An article by Linn Cohen-Cole describing the political connections of Monsanto in regards to this legislation.
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Thanks for the heads up Vin. I feel as tho they have me by my organics balls here…but Ill sign whatever petition to make sure we can get quality food….very discouraging!
Getting the word out about these issues is so essential. I have been reading Acres USA an Eco Agriculture magazine. Why? How else can I stay in touch with our food chain. Major press does not talk about the issues of the farmers…family style. Thanks
say no to nais, and save organic farming with this secret move in congress to end organic farming in 2 weeks.
NAIS is a one-size-fits-all program that will not work to increase the health of our livestock. Its only purpose is to convince export markets that we have an effective animal health program, and to make sure corporate middlemen are not liable when the inevitable outbreaks occur.
The reasons we are told NAIS is needed keeps changing. (Disease protection, bioterrorism, global market, etc) Yet when Creekstone Beef wanted to test every cow they process for BSE, the USDA says they cannot!!! Creekstone had to take the USDA to court to sue for the right to test for BSE! And what does my reporting to the USDA when I take my horse off my property have to do with big ag selling beef to Japan?
Tracking disease is not new. In 1938-Nazi Germany targeted one segment of society they thought responsible for spreading disease, the JEWS. A law was passed that ALL JEWS had to register their property. ierevery piece of property they own into a massive database. IT worked. The Gestapo knew exactly who to raid by the value of their art and jewelry. We know the rest of the story, a minor event called the Holocaust!
In the same time period, the Russian Communist Govt under Stalin starved millions in the most fertile part of the country because the law stated that ALL the grain they grew and their lands belonged to the govt! They were not even allowed to eat what they grew!
Thanks for the comments everyone!
I agree Esbee, NAIS will not improve food safety because it’s not needed for the responsible farmers who are already safely producing food. If anything, it will worsen food safety by interfering with the natural practices that these farmers employ.
Thank you for sharing those thought provoking examples!