Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Here come Big Brother and the Chicken Police
by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom
http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/gershom_big_brother.htm

According to an article by Dr. Mary Zanoni, PH.D., in the Feb/Mar 2006 issue 
of "Backyard Poultry", Big Brother is about to invade the backyards of every 
American who owns even one single animal that could conceivably be used as 
food. Even if you are a vegan and never use any animal products yourself, you 
should be concerned about this issue, because, if passed, the new U.S. 
Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations could spell the end of the 
animal welfare movement and the triumph of factory-farm agribusiness.

  For several years now, the USDA has been asking the big producers in the 
meat, egg, and dairy industries to voluntarily register their herds and 
flocks under the proposed "National Animal Identification System" (NAIS). The 
goal, if the USDA has its way, is to make this registration MANDATORY by 
January 1, 2008 -- and not just for commercial producers. Even if you have 
only one chicken, turkey, goat, goose, duck, sheep, pig, cow, horse (yes, 
some people do eat horse meat), ostrich, emu or whatever -- and even if they 
are beloved pets that you never plan to sell or eat, you will still be 
required to:

   1. Register your farm or backyard flock with the USDA, including your 
name, address, telephone number, and Global Positioning System coordinates 
for satellite-assisted location of your home and farm. You will then receive 
a 7-digit "premises ID number" to use in all reports to the USDA. (By doing 
this, you are essentially consenting to be spied upon.)
   2. Register each animal individually and receive a separate 15-digit 
number for each animal. This will then be programmed into a microchip and 
implanted the animal at YOUR expense.
   3. Report within 24 hours the birth, death, sale, or any movement of each 
animal to or from your property (even to take it to the county fair or the 
vet!) -- again at YOUR expense.

If this sounds like some kind of weird conspiracy theory to you, check it out 
for yourself at the official NAIS website (http://www.usda.gov/nais). There 
you will find an overview of the plan and the stages for implimenting it, 
plus updates and statistics on your own state, including how many animal 
owners have voluntarily complied with the request to register their premises. 
(The microchips will come later.) The USDA, in turn, is using this "voluntary 
compliance" data as "proof" that people don't object to this program -- even 
though most people with backyard flocks don't even know about it. At least 
one state, Wisconsin, has already made registration mandatory, with over 
100,000 homes and farms registered. Other states are soon to follow, unless 
people wake up to what is happening and understand the REAL implications of 
this for the humane and organic movements.

Although this is being touted by the USDA as a way to track animals in case 
of an outbreak of a disease or pandemic such as Asian bird flu, the reality 
is, that it will hit hardest on small organic and niche farmers, people who 
want to raise their own eggs or meat, hobbyists who enjoy the animals as 
pets, and anyone who prefers free-run poultry or eggs to those from factory 
farms. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to NAIS, not even for people like the Amish, 
who, for religious reasons, do not use electronic devices. In short, this 
could spell the end of the family farm as we know it. Mary Zanoni writes in 
her article:

"The NAIS will drive small producers out of the market, will make people 
abandon raising animals for their own food, will invade Americans' personal 
privacy, and will violate the religious freedom of Americans whose beliefs 
make it impossible for them to comply. The NAIS will also encourage increased 
industrial-scale animal farming, and discourage the humane, small-scale 
production of animal foods." (Source: "The USDA's proposed 'National Animal 
Identification System': A plan for Government Monitoring and your Flock," 
Backyard Poultry, Feb/Mar 2006, p. 44)

And get this: The big companies, like National Pork Producers and Cargill 
Meats, get special breaks and considerations. Rather than mark each animal 
individually, they can register a whole flock of poultry under a single ID 
number as the birds move through the system from chick to market. But 
backyard poultry owners, small-scale farmers, or even classroom incubator 
projects will have to individually register EACH CHICK as it is hatched, as 
well as keep up with all the paperwork that will entail. The extra costs of 
all this red tape in time, labor, and equipment (including the microchips and 
the computer with internet access needed for the "within 24 hours" reports) 
will NOT be funded by the government. Even the USDA admits this on their 
site. For small-scale family farms already on the edge economically, this 
additional bureaucratic burden will be the death knell.

So I ask myself: Are the USDA and the meat industry using the "mad cow" and 
"bird flu" scares to get this plan implimented without public protest? Quite 
possibly. It is no accident that recent news stories about bird flu show 
free-run birds being hauled off by workers in anti-contamination suits, 
while, at the same time, touting the "safety" of poultry raised under roofs 
or in cages in the commercial [read "factory farm"] industry. Even though 
Asian bird flu is difficult to catch unless you are actually slaughtering 
birds, people are now panicking over it. To the general public, the NAIS plan 
probably sounds like a nice, modern, efficient way to protect the food 
supply. But people in the organic, vegetarian, and animal welfare movements 
know that meat produced in factory farms and feedlots is MORE likely to pose 
a threat to public health. "Mad cow" disease, for example, is not caused by 
free-run cattle grazing in a field. It is caused by feeding cows commercial 
feeds contaminated with the virus from ground-up animal parts -- something a 
cow would never choose to eat in its natural diet. As Zanoni explains:

"The NAIS is touted by the USDA and agricorporations as a way to make our 
food supply 'secure' against diseases or terrorism. However, most people 
instinctively understand that real food security comes from raising food 
yourself or buying it from a local farmer you actually know... Ultimately, if 
NAIS goes into effect, more consumers will have to buy food produced by the 
large-scale industrial methods which multiply the effects of any food safety 
and disease problems. (Ibid, p. 45)

What can you do? Zanoni recommends that small-scale farmers and backyard 
animal owners should NOT participate in any so-called "voluntary" NAIS 
registration programs. I agree. Instead, we should get organized and create 
an effective movement against this unholy marriage between the USDA and the 
argricorps. Here are some activist suggestions:

(continued at http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/gershom_big_brother.htm )