USDA to Dump National Animal Identification System.. Sort of Posted on March 5th, 2010
A flurry of news surrounded the announcement by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack that the controversial National Animal Identification System (NAIS) would be scrapped. The measure met stiff resistance from homesteaders, small farmers, organic growers, and raw milk and whole foods advocates. The problem is, the news is wrong. The NAIS isn’t being scrapped, it’s just being shelved “pending more review.”
There is a mixture of good and bad news in the USDA’s decision. The decision was likely not made to benefit the small producer or the homesteader. Rather, it was probably made in order to take them out of the debate so that the tracking system could go through.
The original NAIS plan would have required onerous costs on small agricultural producers – whether they were selling product or not – and distinctly favored the large agricultural conglomerates, who could easily afford the new rules. Rules which applied differently to them.
In the NAIS, each animal on a farm would require a tracking number and 48-hour reporting of its whereabouts and condition. This applied to everything from backyard poultry to cattle herds in the hundreds of thousands. The big difference was that large (industrial) livestock herds could be tracked as a single unit, whereas small homestead or farm herds had to be tracked as individual animals.
Besides the economic reasoning, however, whole foods advocates like Judith McGeary of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance say that the system itself is a waste of taxpayer’s money. Tracking the animals does nothing but allow for finding the source after the fact, but nothing to prevent anything up front. The whole excuse for the NAIS was to be able to prevent diseases like mad cow from spreading.
“USDA’s claim that we need 48-hour traceback of all animal movements is not supported by scientific studies or logic. The agency should focus on high risk situations, namely the factory farms. The agency should also look at the specific diseases of concern and how they are spread. A one-size-fits-all approach will not work.”5
Now, any animal that does not cross state lines upon its sale is not required to be tracked. This eliminates most small farms, local sellers, and homesteaders out of the equation, which would, in turn, give them no reason to combat the USDA’s plans for a future NAIS.
However, it will still effect many of us in the whole foods and organic lifestyle movements. Anyone who has homesteaded realizes that you cannot produce everything you need all on your own. You need neighbors with whom you can barter and do business. A small farmer on the eastern edge of Wyoming, for instance, may need chicks to replenish his hen house after an unfortunate fox attack. He is as likely to go into Nebraska, next door, as anywhere else. Except now he`s crossed state lines, so those chicks must be registered with NAIS.
That is only one example and assumes that the USDA will not expand the reach of its program once it’s in place. Further, it’s obvious that the USDA’s plan to track animals will do nothing to prevent disease and only allow them to point the finger to lay blame when an outbreak occurs.
The real problem here are the huge, commercial meat producers who handle their cattle as if they were merely cogs in the wheel at a factory. This industrial agriculture means huge stockyards with thousands of pens holding hundreds upon hundreds of animals packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, wallowing in their own filth. This is a disease bomb just waiting to explode onto the market.
The USDA’s plan for NAIS is not to scuttle the project, but only to change it and re-introduce the same idea in a couple of years. This does nothing to prevent disease and everything to cater to the huge agricultural conglomerates and industrial meat producers.
All while making life more difficult, even impossible, for the small farmer and homesteader.
Resources:
1 – USDA Plans to Drop Program to Trace Livestock, William Neuman, New York Times, Feb. 5, 2010
2 – USDA Announces New Framework for Animal Disease Traceability, USDA, Feb. 5, 2010
3 – Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance Weighs in on NAIAS, Hartke Is Online, June8, 2009
4 – Q&A: New Animal Disease Traceability Framework, USDA APHIS, February 2010
5 – Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance Weighs in on NAIAS, Hartke Is Online, June 8, 2009
Join the Non-GMO Uprising (Opinion) Posted on February 12th, 2010
by Hesh Goldstein, NaturalNews
For several years, The Institute for Responsible Technology has predicted that the US would soon experience a tipping point of consumer rejection against genetically modified foods. Now, in a December article in “Supermarket News”, that prediction is supported and the non-GMO consciousness uprising is gaining momentum.
Besides the Institute`s new non-GMO website and non-GMO shopping guide, which was disclosed in a previous article, another Non-GMO project is being launched. The project would offer the country`s first consensus-based guidelines to include third-party certification and a uniform seal for approved products. The organization would also require documented traceability and segregation to ensure the tested ingredients are what go into the final product.
The “Supermarket News” article alerts supermarket executives to the fact that the growth of organic, local, and green product categories reflects a generation of consumers that could be less tolerant of genetic modification.
In the past, health culprits like fats, refined carbs, salt and sugar were addressed, in that food companies offered options with, without, or with low levels of them. Now, the GMOs are coming to light. These executives are becoming aware that GMOs do not offer a single consumer benefit. They are finally learning that the five major GMOs, soy, corn, cottonseed, canola, and sugar beets, which are gene spliced to tolerate or produce poisonous insecticides, offer the consumer nothing. They are also learning that companies can eliminate GMOs without having to change recipes.
When the major food companies notice even tiny losses in market share, their GMO clean out will be widespread. The large food companies will recognize that the same consumer trend that forced them to remove all GM ingredients in Europe and Japan is taking place in the US.
Right now, about 28 million Americans regularly buy organic and about 87 million are opposed to GM foods and believe they are unsafe. And, 159 million say they would avoid GMOs if they were labeled. Imagine what people would say if they all learned that Monsanto paid off our elected officials to not require labeling of GMOs. You see, they knew full well that no one would buy their GMO garbage if it were labeled as such.
In the past, the decade could be defined with regard to the “culprits”. In the 80`s, it was fat; in the 90`s, it was carbs. Hopefully, we won`t need this whole decade to send GMOs packing. And, God willing, by this time next year, Monsanto, the largest GMO producer in the world, will not be a “happy camper”.
Read labels. If soy (including soy lecithin), corn, cotton, canola and sugar do not say organic, do not buy it.
Aloha!
Innovation Bears Fruit for Family Farm Posted on February 10th, 2010
Here’s a great video, well worth watching. Thanks to my friend John for sending me this link.
Coming Soon to a (Toxic) Farm Near You: Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Wheat Posted on January 26th, 2010
Monsanto, the multinational agriculture giant most known for its propagation of genetically-modified (GM) crops, has decided to resurrect its pursuit of GM wheat. Abandoned in 2004 due to opposition from American growers, merchants, and consumers, Monsanto’s GM wheat program is making a comeback.
Apparently many American wheat growers have since changed their mind about the issue. A survey conducted back in February revealed that more than 75 percent of wheat farmers are now interested in growing GM wheat. Citing 
concerns about pestilence and disease, farmers are reevaluating GM wheat based on claims by Monsanto that GM wheat will fare better than conventional in resisting bugs, disease, drought and frost.
Many nations around the world, including industrialized nations in Asia and Europe, have wholly rejected GM cropsand foods that are made with them. Since 45 percent of the U.S. wheat crop is exported to Europe and Japan alone, the decision to allow GM wheat to be grown in the States will have a huge negative impact on the wheat business.
Hinged upon the recent food crisis in 2008 that caused the price of wheat to more than triple, Monsanto’s endeavors to capitalize on wheat by altering it genetically could not have been timed more precisely. Both China and Australia have been researching and running trials on Monsanto’s GM wheat for years and North America looks to be next if the AgriGiant has its way.
Earlier this year, Monsanto purchased Montana-based WestBred, a company that specializes in germplasm wheat breeding. This move indicates that the corporation intends to move forward with its plan to bring GM wheat to North America.
Concerns about the negative effects of GM crops, which include a variety of illnesses and digestive tract problems when consumed, continue to warrant opposition to their use. Conventional crop fields have also been shown to become contaminated with GM seed through pollination and cross-contamination.
If the public hopes to prevent wheat from taking the same GM course that corn and soy have, it is going to have to express loud and clear opposition to its introduction.
Trautman Dairy Farm Shut Down Posted on January 16th, 2010
Wisconsin Dairy Farmer Has Great Vision for “Golden Age of Family Farming”
He was the young boy, standing on the side of his grandfathers’ fields, who would watch the tractor until it stopped to give him a ride. He also loved sitting atop the moving combine, in those days it was open air and dust and dirt flew up all around him. But he loved it.
His grandparents on both sides were farmers. But farming skipped a generation in his family. The 80’s were a tough time for farmers, and his mom and dad found other dreams.
Scott Trautman Horsing Around with His Cow
At age 8, Scott Trautman started his entrepreneurial and agricultural career – selling pumpkins grown in their modest garden, door-to-door to neighbors. He gained a love of the farm from an early age, spending time on his grandparents farm, and any chance to be with farmers and drive farm equipment he took.
Scott throughout childhood would tell family and friends, “I want to be a farmer” – and although they found it cute, they recognized the impossibility of starting a farm. He plugged on, working on a farm throughout high school, also raising his own small livestock and crop operation. Yet, the realities of life and the 80’s were such that school and a career in business/computers took him to the opposite end of the career world.
In 1994, he launched an internet business, which Scott said, “was the exact right time”. Companies that started earlier or later didn’t make it, but for Scott the timing was perfect and his company grew.
From Little Boy’s Dream To Grown Up Reality
Julie Trautman Milking Wanda
In 2001, Scott decided to purchase a farm. His growing business and his client needs held him captive, and he decided as long as he couldn’t get away from it, he would run his business from a “gilded cage,” which to him meant a farm.
He and his wife found 40 beautiful acres and a nice house, in May 2002 he moved his operations there.
The following year, he put the whole farm into pasture, attended a few farming conferences, and implemented an aggressive fertility program with the ideas he gleaned from conference speakers and reading Joel Salatin’s books.
His passion for farming was rekindled, his entrepreneurial instincts kicked in. He sensed in the organic farming movement the same energy and excitement of the early internet days. In 2004, he sold his internet company, so he would not have to take on a lot of debt to begin farming.
The New Business of Farming, and a New Marketing Model
Little Chicks on Trautman Farm
He started small. One chicken, one pig, a garden. Implementing the most productive ideas a little at a time.
By 2006, Scott had laid the foundation, and took a look at his farm’s capacity. With the limit of 40 acres, he decided to move toward dairy farming. He started with one cow. The farm grew to 4 cows, then 6, currently he has 20. Ultimately, he feels his acreage can support 30-40 dairy cows and affiliated livestock.
Scott believes in mixed use, diversified farms. From his business perspective, the huge monoculture farms leave farmers in poor negotiating position. They are beholden to one master, who buys their product and names the price, which is often not favorable to the farmer. Whereas, a farmer with multiple products and a diversified customer base has more control over his income and his future.
Until earlier this year, Scott’s milk was sold to the National Farmers Organization. But they abruptly canceled his contract, when a relief driver with a bad attitude reported his suspicions that Scott was selling his raw milk.
Shortly after his contract was canceled, an undercover agent from DATCP visited his wife with a pitiful story about a sick child. His wife, in spite of considerable pressure, did not sell the milk to the stranger.
The Brutal Reality of Consumer Protectionism
Farm Life is Fun, and Full of Responsibility
On October 16, 2009, a month after NFO canceled his contract, DATCP was back to his farm, with a summary special order, telling him to cease and desist all milk sales; the Trautman farm now had no market for its milk.
Now, tell this to any husband, and the father of three children, ages 6, 11, 9, “You are forbidden to farm, your only means of providing for your family.” Obviously, that man will protest, and Scott did.
Loudly.
I first learned of Scott from this YouTube Video of him pouring out his milk in what looked to be a town square. He is weeping, and saying, “There is nothing wrong with my milk. Nothing.” It brought tears to my eyes.
Uppity Farmers Can and Will be Punished
Now, the state regulators have taken away his meat license. He can’t sell the milk. Now, he can’t sell the meat. They are trying to ruin him (see this blog post, Scott Trautman We Will Break You by The Complete Patient blog) because he rose his voice in defense of his livelihood, his freedom to farm and his right to private direct sales.
Having a Hay Day
Currently, Scott is removing the cream from his milk and stockpiling butter, “a lifetime supply,” he sighs. With the skim milk, he is feeding his calves. A high end cheese maker is interested in buying his milk, a potential customer. Still, DATCP is throwing up roadblocks, telling him in order to sell his milk, he now must make expensive modifications to his previously state approved milking parlor.
Scott’s Unfailing Vision: From Gilded Cage to Golden Age
Even with all these tribulations, this resilient farmer says, “I believe a Golden Age of Farming is in store for Wisconsin Dairymen, if we can just get the bureaucracy out of our way.” He never wants to give up dairy farming, even under this duress. “It would be a tragedy, well beyond our farm, for us to give up dairy farming,” he explained.
Wisconsin is a proud dairy state, but its once 56,000 dairy farms have dwindled to 13,000. And, Scott is convinced, the current attitude of state regulators will result in the rest of the small dairy farms like his, failing. The regulators have a hit list of cow boarding programs they are determined to shut down. As they do, they may snuff out the only hope that these fine family farms have to survive.
How can Scott remain so hopeful? He believes that we are going through a paradigm shift. He compares the pioneering role of raw milk farmers to how it was for early adapters to the internet. People initially rejected the internet when it was new and expanding.
We Love our Cows!
“Many people said, oh, that is going to be nothing! A few people say that today, but they now seem ignorant. Organic food is another example, initially it was scoffed at, now it is hot. With raw milk, we are now at the peak of resistance, yet, I believe that within 5-10 years people will look back and say, ‘what was the big deal over raw milk?’”
“Every day of my life has been leading to this moment. I am prepared for the role I am playing now, I accept that being on the leading age will have pain associated with it. But I have done it before, and am more than willing to lead the charge again. The tide is really turning this year,” Scott enthused.
How You Can Help Save the Small Family Dairy Farm
A facebook page, the Wisconsin Alliance for Raw Milk (WARM) was launched byblogger David Michael, a concerned raw milk consumer and currently boasts 500 members. No matter where you live, Scott encourages you to Fan the page in solidarity with the family dairy farmers of Wisconsin. You can also follow and comment at Scott’s blog.
The Weston A. Price Foundation is planning an International Raw Milk Symposium this Spring in Wisconsin, to support Scott and other farmers like him. Legislation has also been introduced in the state legislature, to allow legal raw milk sales. Watch this blog for more details when they are available.
Visit Scott’s website: http://www.trautmanfarm.com/
Wisconsin Alliance for Raw Milk: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=229022049416&ref=ts
To donate to the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund who is working on Scott’s behalf, please visit their website:
See press release by WAPF on Wisconsin Raw Dairy “Outbreaks”
