Get out your virtual pens!!!
OK, I hope it’s not too late, but I need ALL of your help (all 3 of you). We haven’t really talked about NAIS on the blog yet, but believe me, it is BAD for you and BAD for your food. I want to get this out, so I’ll just briefly explain what it is, and we can cover it more later.
Basically, it’s a registry for livestock, where a RFID (radio frequency identification) device is placed on each animal, which can theoretically track diseases back to herds or even individual animals. Sounds good, right? **Wrong**. Here’s why:
First of all, the system won’t even work the way it’s ostensibly supposed to. The idea is that if there’s an *E Coli* outbreak or something, the lot numbers on the meat could trace back to the herd and those animals could be tested and either segregated or destroyed. That, of course, is assuming that that meat can be linked to living animals, which is very unlikely since **so much** of the meat in this country is frozen and processed into so much “food” whose shelf life rivals chia pets.
But let’s take a step back and see what this is **really** about. It’s about the USDA’s specialty: **the genocide of the family farm**. By developing standards for huge factory farms and then shoving them down the throats of respectable small farmers, huge agribusiness, er, um, I mean the USDA managed to kill about half of what was left through the 80s and 90s. This is one more tool in the executioner’s bag.
The next big, red flag is that the government is trying to collect information on a massive scale, not just about feedlots, not just about working farms, but all those hobby farmers out there with two horses, a pig, a cow or three or four chickens. People have even been registered without their knowledge under the false pretenses of a survey. It looks like Michael Johanns (former secretary of agriculture under our most recent moronic president) spent some time around the water cooler with Donald Rumsfeld.
Do I sound mad? I am.
Am I using hyperbolic language? I am.
You know why? **These effers are worsening our already dire food crisis**. We are walking on a wafer of ice that already has beef, tomato, spinach and peanut shaped cracks in it.
NAIS has been around since 2005, and I know it’s hard to believe, but no one in the senate called to tell me about the NAIS provision in the new ominbus spending bill (Barbara, where’s my love??). While we narrowly avoided having NAIS meat mandatory in school lunches (guaranteeing that school lunches would be made out of factory-farmed shit), there is still 14.5 million festering in the budget to fund this nonsense. The budget has passed, but it’s not too late to amend the NAIS funding OUT. I need you to write your congressmen and women to take that funding away. When we’re trying to balance a budget, why are we funding a program most of its industry is totally against?
I’m sending [Babs]( http://boxer.senate.gov/) and [Di]( http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/) an email looking something like this:
>Dear Senator,
>Thank you for all your hard work on the new omnibus spending budget. As your constituent and supporter, I appreciate that this was not easy. However, it’s not too late for you to make it even better.
>As you may not be aware, the budget still contains $14.5 million for funding the unnecessary and controversial National Animal Identification System, or NAIS. Large numbers of people within and without the cattle industry are against NAIS, as are the most of the congresspeople from the top cattle-producing states.
>An amendment is being introduced that would strip this funding, and I ask you to support it.
>Respectfully yours,
>Joe Fish, Long Beach CA
You can find YOUR senators and reps at [senate.gov]( http://senate.gov/) and [house.gov]( http://house.gov/), respectively. LET THEM KNOW.
If you’re still not sold, or would like further reading, check this stuff out. Strange bedfellows, I know, the Rural Heritage Journal and a liberal queer from the Republic of California, but it’s crazy times.
[NoNAIS.org]( http://nonais.org/)
[General Information from a small farm perspective](http://www.ruralheritage.com/stop_nais/index.htm)
[Creepy story about Big Brother sniffing around your stuff]( http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53913)
[The Liberty Ark Coalition]( http://libertyark.org/), anti-NAIS advocacy group
[Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance](http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content/), small farm advocate
Last but not least, is the wonderfully unapologetic though controversial [Weston Price Foundation]( http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm).
Oh, and lest I forget, the organization that reminded me to do this, the [Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund]( http://www.ftcldf.org/), a hero of an organization who helped the raw milk movement in CA, among many, many other things. Get your [“The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized”]( https://www.farmtoconsumer.net/AdultRevolutionNew.asp) T Shirt today!
And no, I’m not including the USDA’s NAIS page, which you can find yourself easily enough. The last time I read it I had the heebeegeebees for a week. Just like in the Grinch when CindyLou Hoo asks “Santa” where he’s going with the tree. **Shudder**.
What I want to be listening to: “Jones’s Ale” sung by Alan Lomax on the Smithsonian Folkways American Folk boxed set. Grrr!
