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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Ranchers, Farmers Criticize Efforts To Tie School Lunch Program To NAIS

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  • From: "McBride & Putnam" <dragonhill2@netzero.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Ranchers, Farmers Criticize Efforts To Tie School Lunch Program To NAIS
  • Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:58:38 -0500

Everyone concerned with continuing to have the freedom to farm should constantly nagging their State and Federal representatives to oppose NAIS. Paying off our land was a joyful day for us and no one is going to call me a "stakeholder". I may hold this land in trust for future generations but a "stakeholder" merely holds the stakes in a card game. This is no game to me. The future depends on small farmers holding their land well and we can't do that with big business and over-regulation by the government smashing us between them.

Claudia



----- Original Message ----- From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 10:57 AM
Subject: [Livingontheland] Ranchers, Farmers Criticize Efforts To Tie School Lunch Program To NAIS


http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=232275

R-CALF: Ranchers, Farmers Criticize Efforts To Tie School Lunch Program To NAIS



Washington, D.C. - A wide coalition of family farmers, independent ranchers, organic and local food system advocates from across the country today criticized a provision to be included in the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee's markup bill that would force the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to purchase meat for the National School Lunch Program only from sources that are registered in the controversial National Animal Identification System (NAIS).



The Appropriations bill also increases funding for NAIS $4.8 million above 2008, for a total of $14.5 million for FY2009. The NAIS provisions will harm the growing local food movement and consumer demand for sustainable meat, while giving unfair advantages to industrial factory farms who are responsible for the overwhelming majority of hazardous food safety practices.



Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., proposed the idea, and on Monday, R-CALF USA sent her a letter to ask that she withdraw the language from the bill, as R-CALF USA believes keeping the measure "would facilitate the ongoing trend toward the industrial integration and concentration of our nation's cattle production industry.we share your keen desire to improve the safety of our food supply (but).your current proposal would cause harm to the financial viability of our nation's family farmers and ranchers without addressing the source of food safety problems."



"The safety of the U.S. beef supply has not been compromised by U.S. farmers and ranchers, but instead, the safety of the U.S. beef supply has been compromised due to USDA's failure to provide adequate oversight and enforcement of existing health and safety standards," said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. "The Westland/Hallmark fiasco was the direct result of USDA's failure to enforce the prohibition against the slaughter of downer cattle for human consumption, and the NAIS could not have mitigated this failure.



"Additionally, any traceback capability contemplated by the current NAIS program effectively ends upon the death or slaughter of live cattle - there is no mechanism in place to trace forward the resulting beef from an NAIS-participating animal," he continued. "USDA also has refused to do proper testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE - or mad cow) and E. coli and has allowed meat processing plants to escape inspections, where much of the food safety contaminations occur. NAIS misdirects the burden for food safety from corporate processors onto family farmers and ranchers."



"Once the public outcry made it clear that a mandatory NAIS was unacceptable, USDA and state agencies started calling the program 'voluntary,' while simultaneously using a variety of coercive tactics to register people - from data mining to denying disaster relief, to requiring it of children at state fairs," said Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance President Judith McGeary, a Texas livestock farmer and R-CALF USA member, who has tracked state opposition against the NAIS program. "With over a dozen state bills introduced to reject a mandatory NAIS, and four states having adopted such bills, Congress still has not gotten the message that farmers are rejecting their heavy handed tactics under the false pretense of food safety."



Given recent food safety scandals, from salmonella-infected tomatoes to the downer cow situation at the Hallmark/Westland plant in Chino, Calif., consumer anxiety is now at an all-time high. The explosive growth in farmers markets and interest in local foods has arisen from deep concerns about our industrial agriculture system and the environmental, public health and animal welfare impacts of industrial livestock factories.



NAIS will not do anything to provide for our children's safety and health due to targeting family farmers as the source of the problem instead of industrial livestock operations. Factory farms that house thousands of animals in confined conditions are permitted to have one NAIS group number, while a farmer with 10 chickens or cattle ranchers raising grass-fed beef must individually tag every animal, often with expensive electronic tags.



"As a grandparent, parent and producer, I am extremely concerned about food safety," said Dena Hoff, vice-president of the National Family Farm Coalition and a Montana farmer. "But this is not the right way to assure food safety and only burdens those of us who care about how we raise our animals and our food, while letting the factory farms off the hook. To ensure our children's safety, we need local sources of meat where parents can see the conditions the animals are raised and slaughtered in."



The current proposal also would harm sustainable, independent producers' ability to supply schools with local food. In the wake of the downer cow controversy, many school districts began looking at the sources of their meat and exploring healthier options for students. By linking NAIS to the school lunch program, many organic, grass-fed and other specialty producers, unable to bear the costs of the program, will lose valuable market access, despite complying currently with traceback requirements.



Jack Kittredge, a certified organic hog and poultry farmer and public policy coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts explained why the NAIS linkage to school lunch purchases would put additional burdens on organic producers: "Meat or poultry, to be certified organic, has to be fully traceable from its origins at birth or hatching through to slaughter. This makes perfect sense since the consumer is purchasing a premium product and needs to know it was always raised on organic feed, had access to the out-of-doors, did not receive antibiotics or hormones, and was treated humanely. Such traceability is perfectly appropriate, and organic animal raisers are proud to maintain it. NAIS does not trace any of these important aspects of raising animals, however. It only traces the premise(s) where the animal was raised. It does nothing to prevent disease, stop inhumane treatment, or avoid contamination."



America's children deserve to have access to the highest quality meat. Forcing school districts to purchase meat from sources enrolled in the NAIS will ultimately mean fewer options for our schools and more reliance on industrial meat produced under lax environmental and health standards by those who value profits over our children's safety. The House Appropriations Committee and Congress should examine seriously the implications of such a far-reaching proposal in light of the growing demand for sustainable, local food sources.



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