USDA to Dump National Animal Identification System.. Sort of Posted on March 5th, 2010
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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
The Monstanto – Extinction – GMO Primer Posted on February 17th, 2010
Hat Tip: Shelly Roche
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!
‘GMO-free’ is fastest-growing retailer brand claim Posted on February 12th, 2010
The fastest growing health and wellness claim among store brands in 2009 was “GMO free,” with sales of these items up 67% to $60.2 million, says Tom Pirovan of Nielsen Co.
The great thing about this new report is that it shows how quickly the market responds when it sees a shift in consumer demand. And even better, that there are starting to be enough of us out there who care about where our food comes from and what’s in it that we’re actually starting to reshape the food system!
I know we still have a big fight ahead of us, but it’s important to take a step back every now and then and celebrate the small victories along the way.
So… Way to go, guys!! Keep spreading the word and supporting brands that use good practices!
Since Sustainable Food News doesn’t allow re-posting of their articles, you can read the whole Nielson article here.
Learn about GMOs here:
Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Corn Linked to Organ Failure
Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
SOURCES & MORE RESOURCES:
How to Avoid GMOs in Restaurants
Aaron’s Environmental: Organic Certifications, Labels, and What They Mean
Top 5 Ways to Avoid GMOs in Your Food
Fox News Kills Monsanto Milk Story
The World According to Monsanto
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TAKE ACTION:
Take the “Replace Roundup” Challenge and help divert millions in revenue from Monsanto!
From starrjaded on YouTube:
Please send the USDA your thoughts about releasing Genetically Engineered Alfalfa! We have until February 16th 2010. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this analysis for any GE crop, so the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops. The failure of the agency to address the impacts of GE alfalfa will have far-reaching consequences for farmers and organic consumers. Let’s not be Monsanto’s guinea pigs! Also in my state of Oregon a similar GE sugar beet case is pending the results of the Alfalfa court case. THIS IS OUR WINDOW! If we allow GE alfalfa to be planted then it will open the flood gates for all GE CROPS to be introduced into our food supplies! TAKE ACTION TODAY PLS! Be on the right side of history, take 15 sec’s and send the USDA your thoughts with a pre written letter (you can change at will :)
http://ga3.org/campaign/alfalfaEIS/g8gbsni2ojebbw7t?
http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2027
Genetically Modified Forest Planned for U.S. Southeast Posted on February 3rd, 2010
International Paper and MeadWestvaco are planning to transform plantation forests of the southeastern U.S. by replacing native pine with genetically engineered eucalyptus
Genetic engineering is coming to the forests.
While the practice of splicing foreign DNA into food crops has become common in corn and soy, few companies or researchers have dared to apply genetic engineering to plants that provide an essential strut of the U.S. economy, trees.
But that will soon change. Two industry giants, International Paper Co. andMeadWestvaco Corp., are planning to transform plantation forests of the southeastern United States by replacing native pine with genetically engineered eucalyptus, a rapidly growing Australian tree that in its conventional strains now dominates the tropical timber industry.
The companies’ push into genetically modified trees, led by their joint biotech venture,ArborGen LLC, looks to overcome several hurdles for the first time. Most prominently, they are banking on a controversial gene splice that restricts trees’ ability to reproduce, meant to allay fears of bioengineered eucalyptus turning invasive and overtaking native forests.
If such a fertility control technology — which has come under fire in farming for fear seed firms will exploit it — is proven effective, it could open the door to many varieties of wild plants, including weedy grasses, to be genetically engineered for use in energy applications like biomass and next-generation biofuels without fear of invasiveness.
The use of such perennial plants — so named because, unlike annual farm crops, they live and grow for many years — has long interested business and government, including the Energy Department, which has collaborated with ArborGen. The plants, which include many grasses targeted for cellulosic ethanol, can be harvested when needed and, given their hardiness, grow on marginal land.
Yet many questions remain about the effectiveness of the fertility system used by ArborGen, which, according to leading scientists, has never been rigorously studied in multiyear trials to prove that it can effectively control plants’ spread. More research must be conducted before such systems are relied upon to restrict pollen and seed spread, they say.
