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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] In Vermont, farmers buck registration efforts
  • Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 10:28:35 -0600


In Vermont, farmers buck registration efforts
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0815/p04s01-ussc.html

A proposal would require farmers to disclose livestock data, raising
worries about Big Brother.

By Matt Bradley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
8/15/06

BRATTLEBORO, VT.

If authorities in Vermont have their way, farmers will
have to tell them more about their business. Or face a $1,000 fine.
Vermont is the latest state to consider requiring farmers to reveal
data on such things as their farms' livestock and size - laws
veterinarians say could help manage farm animal diseases like mad cow
and foot and mouth in the event of an outbreak.

But in a state where small farms of nursery-rhyme
dimension persist even in the face of burgeoning industrial
agriculture, the proposal sounds to some like government intrusion on
an Orwellian scale: something akin to "Animal Farm" meets "1984."
Even though such livestock accounting systems are voluntary - for now
- throughout most of the country, the emotional issue has small-time
farmers worrying about Big Brother and government intrusion. "I
frankly find this a great imposition on my freedoms," said Sloan
Armstrong last Thursday at a public hearing in Brattleboro, organized
by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. Ms. Armstrong and her husband
have a farm in Glover. She opposes a proposed law on so-called
premises registration, which would require farmers to reveal the
nature of their farm business, their locations, and type of livestock
to state authorities every two years.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture says the law will simplify efforts
to quickly trace diseases to their source, thereby avoiding the
widespread preventive slaughters left behind by scourges like avian
influenza in Asia and foot-and-mouth disease in Britain.

The Vermont proposal is similar to a voluntary federal
effort to compile a nationwide database of animal identification tag
numbers. But even as calls by US meat consumers grow louder for more
stalwart government safety regulations, many small farmers are
railing against what they see as collusion between large agribusiness
and federal farm authorities to crowd out the little guy.

In Vermont, a state known as much for its progressive
politics as for its pastoral provincialism, the number of organic
farmers has more than tripled from 90 in 1994 to 332 in 2004,
according to the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, based in
Montpelier. While the premises-registration program is free, many
here see it as a first step toward the kind of labor-intensive
bureaucratic regulations that could pose huge challenges for small
farms. At public hearings on premises registration, a common refrain
from small farmers is that the program is simply a veiled attempt to
cover up the dangers of industrial farming.

"Mad-cow disease is the result of these cows being fed parts of other
cows. Cows that eat grass don't get mad-cow disease," says Amy
Shollenberger, director of Rural Vermont, a small-farms advocacy
group based in Montpelier. "The whole point of the animal ID system
and the premises registration program is to respond to these
diseases," she says. "And that's where the corporations win.... They
get to make money off running the program, the databases, and making
the tags."

State and federal agriculture officials, on the other
hand, say the program benefits everybody. Disease trace-back programs
like premises registration help reassure consumers and foreign
importers of the safety of American beef, they say. Vermont's
voluntary premises registration program - a precursor to what may
someday become the law of the land - is separate from a larger
federal program managed by the US Department of Agriculture. The
federal plan, called the National Animal Identification System
(NAIS), is also voluntary and covers three separate elements.

The first is premises registration. As of March, some
235,000 farms had registered nationwide, making up about 10 percent
of America's producers. State-run versions of premises registration
are already required by law in Wisconsin and will be on the books in
Indiana by September. A further stage of the NAIS plan is animal
identification. While most farmers already use tags and numbers to
identify livestock, the NAIS's animal identification component would
establish a standardized, national livestock registry. The third
element of the plan, animal tracking, would provide investigators
with a full history of each animal's movements in case of an
emergency. Ultimately, the NAIS's designers hope the program will
allow investigators to trace diseases back to their origins within 48
hours of discovery.

"If my cow is nosing your cow across the fence line, and my cow is
giving your cow a disease, we need to be able to control it, because
then it becomes of public interest." says Allen Bright, an animal
identification coordinator for the National Cattlemen's Beef
Association.

As for resistance from farmers, Mr. Bright blames a lack
of information and misinformed speculation. The state-run
identification programs, as well as the national NAIS program, are
committed to confidentiality. He emphasizes that no other government
agency - the Internal Revenue Service being of particular concern to
farmers - or agriculture corporation will have access to livestock or
premises registration data.

While the federal program remains voluntary, USDA officials
acknowledge that an effective database will require widespread
compliance. "We're implementing the program on a voluntary basis and
in phases to ensure that the program that ultimately evolves will be
cost-effective and practical," says Doré Mobley, a public-affairs
specialist for the USDA. But just in case, Ms. Mobley adds, "We do
include a contingency plan.... If the participation levels aren't
adequate, we will consider developing regulations."

But some small farmers are holding their ground. "Agribusiness wants
to control the food supply," says Jay Bailey, who owns a 40-acre farm
near Brattleboro. "Small independent farmers are a thorn in their
side. We think independently."







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