Posts Tagged Destroy Small Farms

This family says – “No more fairs”

They say a government program violates their private-property rights.

Cassidy Younggreen, 13, won awards for her goats at the Boulder County Fair last year, but this year she and her brother Ryan wont be there. They raise 30 goats, two llamas and 15 chickens.

Cassidy Younggreen, 13, won awards for her goats at the Boulder County Fair last year, but this year she and her brother Ryan won't be there. They raise 30 goats, two llamas and 15 chickens.

BROOMFIELD — Cassidy and Ryan Young-green won a passel of ribbons in the Boulder County Fair last year, carrying on a family tradition of putting their livestock up against any comers in annual county-fair competitions.

But this year, Cassidy, 13, and Ryan, 11, aren’t showing anything at the Boulder County Fair — not even their award-winning goats — because they would be forced to participate in an intrusive new government program, said their mom, Kellyjo Younggreen.

“They tell us you have to register, you have to register,” Younggreen said. “But I think this just goes too far.”

Some other farm families in Colorado feel the same way about a national animal-identification program that they say is a violation of private-property rights.

They are refusing to let their children enter their livestock in fair competitions — including those in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Larimer and Weld counties and the Colorado State Fair — where entries must comply with the National Animal Identification System. NAIS is a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative designed to help regulators track animal diseases.

“There are several instances of families across the state who are simply saying no,” said John Reid, a cattle operator in Ordway and member of the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association. “There is overwhelming opposition to this initiative everywhere.”

But proponents say the ID program will help prevent a national outbreak of livestock disease. Fair organizers also point out protesting families are few and far between.

In fact, they say, the number of fair participants is actually up this year.

“It seems pretty isolated to maybe two families and a (4-H) club or two,” said Richard Biella, president of the Boulder County Fair board.

Biella, too, was skeptical of the ID plan. But as an owner of Angus cattle, he became a fan because he says it could prevent health problems afflicting entire operations.

Cassidy Younggreen, 13, won awards for her goats at the Boulder County Fair last year, but this year she and her brother Ryan wont be there. They raise 30 goats, two llamas and 15 chickens.

Cassidy Younggreen, 13, won awards for her goats at the Boulder County Fair last year, but this year she and her brother Ryan won't be there. They raise 30 goats, two llamas and 15 chickens.

“I understand some people don’t feel comfortable with the program,” Biella said. “But truly, if the government wanted to find out about us, they only have to look at our license plates, punch in a couple of numbers, and they’d get all they wanted.”

At the center of the NAIS are premises identification numbers, or PINs. When livestock owners register for a PIN, they must give basic contact information as well as what species of animals are on their property and the type of operation.

So far, the system is voluntary. But a handful of county fairs in Colorado this year are requiring PIN registration for 4-H livestock that might go to market.

The state fair also requires PIN registration, but that hasn’t stopped 4-H families from entering competitions, said Gwen Bosley, animal ID coordinator at the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

“There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what this is all about,” Bosley said. “But once you explain that it is simply a way to protect animals from an animal health emergency, people understand. There might be a handful of families in the state who have dropped out of fairs because of this, but that’s about it.”

Kellyjo Younggreen, however, said a national ID program will only favor corporate farms because only one animal will be registered out of a whole section of the same breed of animals. Small operators like her — with a 5-acre operation of mostly chickens, rabbits and goats — will have to tag each animal.

The possible expense of such a program — and the notion her family’s operation will be part of a massive government database — makes her nervous.

“I just don’t like the scare tactics the government is using,” Younggreen said. “It feels like we are being forced into something we don’t need.”

Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com

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Save the Farmer

This is a great country for stepping in and rescuing those who need it. We as Americans do our job so well at home that we’re the first called upon when need arises in other countries with their crisis. We never say no.

But now we’re failing to listen to the calls for help. Even as the calls grow louder, they are being ignored. And we are going to pay a painful price for doing so.

Farmers in this country’ are in a free-fall of despair unlike ever seen. The prices they receive for milk – as set by the US government – don’t cover the cost of producing that milk. One by one, the work force that allowed this country to become independent and self-sustaining is becoming extinct.

We all know that a farming life isn’t easy. Subject to the weather, farmers learn to live with bad years occasionally bro­ken up with a good year. Get upset when a planned event doesn’t go as expected due to the weather? Imaginee if your livelihood depended on the weather.

Then there are the never-ending, must be done on time chores. Not only do the cows need to be milked on a pre­dictable cycle, but they hate going away from the pasture, so let’s rule out taking a vacation for the most part. –

And unlike most jobs where the adults go off to each day and leave the family behind, farming is a family package deal. . Can’t get your teenager to clean his room? What if you had to get him to clean the barn?

So it’s not easy under the best of circumstances, and the year 2009 is hardly that. In addition to losing money as milk prices have declined, costs have gone up for farming, as farm businesses struggle to keep going in a tough economy.

What can the non-farming community do to help our neighbors survive?

Stop by farm stands and farmers markets and buy your vegetables and fruit directly from the grower. Reach for the milk in the grocery store instead of soda. Round up the kids in the neighborhood, take -them to a local farm and say, ‘here, they’re yours for the day. Give them some work.’ Ask what you can do for them.

Also, help get the attention of those in Washington, D.C. that this is a problem that needs to be addressed now. Milk prices need to be set at a level that allows for farmers to make a profit to live on. Ask town and county officials to lend their voices to the appeals for help.

When gas prices go up, out come the arguments on how this country is dependent on oil from other countries.

Imagine if our milk supply and prices were set by another country. What if our vegetables came from elsewhere, with different growing regulations and safety requirements?

Save the farmers. It’s how we’ll save ourselves.


Letter to the Editor Waterville Times August 5, 2009

To the editor:

Anyone who hasn’t been under a rock for the past eight months knows that dairy farmers are experiencing their lowest their lowest incomes since 1978, but their expenses are three times what they were in 1978. The experts told us to hang on until June and milk prices would increase. Guess what folks, milk prices have actually gone down.

Our milk is marketed by DMS (Dairy Marketing Services). We just received the July newsletter. It says, “Everyone in the industry is waiting for the much antici­pated change in the market­place to occur. While much of the information in this Milk Price Update sounds like what we’ve been telling you for some time now, factors are occuring pretty much the way we expected them to occur, The only exception is that dairy cow attrition DUE TO LENDER ACTION has not happened, although it is only a matter of time before it does.”

WHAT??? The in-the-gutter price that we have been receiving is because not enough-lenders have fore­closed on farmers? I suppose that it has nothing to do with the” fact that the processors are paying us hardly anything for our milk, robbing the pub­lic by keeping the price of dairy products artificially high, and filling their back pockets with record profits-AND-the government lets them get away with it with its out-of-date pricing system.

Dairy farmers have been crying for months to our elected officials, but so far it’s been all talk and no action. Farmers and consumers need to call their Congressmen and INSIST that they support the biIlS-889. It’s the only bill out there that deals with the cheap imports that the gov­ernment lets the processors bring into displace our domestic supply. It also deals with supply-manage­ment and cost of production. There are several ideas out there, but the only actual bill is S-889. No other plan deals with imports, and if imports aren’t controlled, then the minute that the price of milk goes up even a little bit the processors will just import more MPC’s (Milk Protein Concentrates) to drive the price right back down.

Pro Ag is sponsoring a sec­ond Farmer’s Rally on Aug. 14 at one o’clock at the West Winfield Middle School. We are asking all producers, agri-business people, and consumers to attend and voice your concerns to our elected officials. It will prob­ably be the one day of the week that it doesn’t rain and farmers will want to hay it, but if milk prices don’t turn around soon, they won’t need any hay.


I scanned the Editoral and a letter to the editor from today’s Waterville Times – a very small weekly newspaper in central NY – that I thought you all might be interested in. They’ve been good about printing our letters and at long last, the Editor is taking up the plight of our dairy farmers, who are 2nd in the US for the worst economic situation. (Only CA beats us for losing the most money in dairy farming.) Two of my closest friends own dairy farms. They are long past hanging on by their fingernails – both have had to take bank loans just to meet their monthly expenses while they try to hang on for the increase in price they were promised in June and which never came.

I will be attending the Pro-Ag Farmer’s Rally and will be printing off some no-NAIS info to hand out – especially since some of our elected officials will be there. Maybe at long last our elected officials will wake up to what NAIS will do to ALL of us with farms in this area.

Karen

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Controlling E. coli in hamburger requires “meat ID” not animal ID

Daryll E. Ray and the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

July 24, 2009

Food safety has been getting a lot of attention lately. In response to the peanut butter, pistachio, and toll house cookie recalls, the House Energy and Safety Committee has approved the Food Safety Enforcement Act of 2009 to strengthen and expand the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) role in food safety and inspection. To gauge the response of the agricultural community, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing on this legislation.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a White House Food Safety Group was formed by the Obama administration. In July 2009, the Working Group recommended “a new, public health-focused approach to food safety based on three core principles: (1) prioritizing prevention; (2) strengthening surveillance and enforcement; and (3) improving response and recovery”

(http://www.foodsafetyworkinggroup.gov/FSWG_Fact_Sheet.pdf).

In all this, major-crop and livestock farmers are worried that the move toward increased emphasis on food safety will lead to the FDA inspection of farms as part of its role in protecting the integrity of the food ingredients that are produced by farmers. Many involved in beef production are resistant to an animal identification system that would allow traceback to the farm-level.

At the same time, the meat industry, having freed itself from a government-directed inspection through the use of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point program (HACCP), wants to prevent a move back to a greater government involvement in the inspection of meat and meat products.

When considering issues of major importance to a sector—which this one definitely is in the case of agriculture—the rhetoric sometimes out-distances the the reality of the arguments made and fears generated.

In the case of E. coli in beef, there is nothing that cattlemen can or cannot do that will materially affect the probability of E. coli showing up in your hamburger. There is some evidence that taking cattle off the feedlot for a period of time and putting them on pasture prior to slaughter reduces the level but does not eliminate the presence of E. coli and therefore its potential for contamination. So there is no reason for the FDA to use valuable resources to visit cattle ranches or feeding operations as part of “beefing-up” prevention of E. coli contamination from beef.

Since what happens on ranches and feedlots has no effect on whether beef ultimately becomes contaminated with E. coli, traceback to production agriculture—that is, an animal identification system—is not needed to protect consumers from E. coli.

That is not to say that an animal ID program is, or is not, appropriate for other reasons. Recent arguments for animal traceback are primarily concerned with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease). While that may be an important issue, it is unrelated to the E. coli discussion.

Traceback is required, of course, but it is MEAT traceback that is needed, not animal traceback.

Meat traceback is needed because E. coli O157:H7 grows in the gut of beef animals, the food safety issue concerns the prevention of the contamination of slaughtered meat from sources like intestines and hides.

When E. coli O157:H7 is found in ground beef or on beef muscle meat surfaces, the problem is one that originates at the packing plant. Since the institution of the HACCP system in meat inspection, the USDA has focused its enforcement at downline facilities that process boxed beef into hamburger and resisted tracing the contamination back to the packing plant that produced the boxed beef.

The USDA has done this despite the knowledge that a processing facility that does no slaughtering lacks a source of E. coli O157:H7. The most likely source of the E. coli is on the surface of meat that came in from the slaughterhouse, thus the need for meat traceback.

The rhetoric of those speaking for meat packers and processors tend to steer attention away from the central issue. James Hodges of the American Meat Institute Foundation makes statements like “No outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 have been linked to whole muscle cuts like steaks and roasts.” Similarly, the North American Meat Processors Association (NAMP) sent out a 2008 NewsFax release saying “NAMP knows of no illness that has resulted from the consumption of intact beef product.”

The issue is not the consumption of steaks, roasts, and intact beef product. Everyone acknowledges that heating the outside of those products to 160 degrees kills E. coli 0157:H7. Rather the problem comes from the fact that the presence of E. coli O157:H7 on the surface of primals is not considered an adulterant. That presence raises the opportunity for cross contamination with other foods or the incorporation of E. coli present on the surface of intact cuts into ground beef.

Cutting through the rhetoric, it seems clear that the USDA can significantly reduce the number of E. coli illnesses by declaring E. coli O157:H7 on the surface of primals to be a contaminant that must be eliminated as part of the slaughtering process and by instituting a meat traceback system that will trace contaminated ground beef back to the packing plant that provided it.

Daryll E. Ray holds the Blasingame Chair of Excellence in Agricultural Policy, Institute of Agriculture, University of Tennessee, and is the Director of UT’s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center (APAC). Daryll Ray’s column is written with the research and assistance of Harwood D. Schaffer, Research Associate with APAC.

agpolicy.org

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Small Farmer Warns “HR2749 Will Put Me Out of Business”

Artisan Cheese from Pugs Leap Farm May Disappear if Food Safety Bill Passes

Pugs Leap Does

Pugs Leap Does

by Pascal Destandau of Pugs Leap Farm

Eric Smith and I own and operate a small diversified farm in Sonoma County, at Pugs Leap Farm we milk twenty seven goats by hand and make cheeses we sell at local farmers markets in Sonoma, Marin, Alameda and San Francisco. We have a few chickens and sell the eggs at the markets. In the next few years we hope to take to the markets the fruits and nuts from the orchards we planted. We also grow onions, garlics, chards, salad greens, tomatoes, corn, squash, strawberry and culinary herbs. We intend to add a few beehives next year.

HR2749 (The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009) which is currently making its way rapidly through the House of Representative will put us out of business.

HR2749 calls for:

a yearly registration with the FDA with a $500 fee

full HACCP plan for every type of produce sold or processed, for us that mean one plan for the dairy, one one for cheese making, one for transporting and retailing at the market, one for the fruits and vegetables, and another one for the nuts

FDA approved methods by which crops are raised and harvested. The most likely outcome will be along the lines of the leafy green ordinance, scorched earth and exclusion of any wildlife.

I have twenty two years experience in research and development and in technical operations, at a managerial level, in the pharmaceutical and personal care products industry. I therefore know very well the resources

Dry Creek Valley

Dry Creek Valley

needed to create and maintain a full HACCP plan. Creating one plan would take me about 100 hours and maintaining it would take 2 hours per day of production. Based on quotes I obtained in 2006 for laboratory testing, I estimate that I would need to budget $15,000/year just for the microbiological testing of the cheeses. The International Dairy Food Association (IDFA) has published some guidelines for HACCP which were used by the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) when it developed a voluntary dairy HACCP program in parallel with the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO). To follow those guidelines I will have to start testing every batch of milk for drug residues, I will also have to tests for pesticide residues and mycotoxins. I am still in the process of researching what amount of testing will be needed for compliance and it is still unclear if I will be allowed to do my own testing or if I’ll need to send samples to a certified laboratory. This will be decided when the regulations are written.

Stopping feeding cattle a high grain diet would be much more efficient than an HACCP plan to eliminate E. Coli O157:H7 from our meat supply. The same for silage and Listeria. The practice of feeding antibiotics for faster weight gain has been linked to the presence of antibiotic resistant strains of salmonella in chicken, turkey, beef and pork. Recently MRSA has been found in pork meat.

The enforcement of HACCP plan for all food producers will do nothing to address those problems. Furthermore HACCP plans are very industry friendly and rely on self regulation and self regulation does not work. For example in 2006 from January to June, Cadbury knowingly shipped products tainted with salmonella; Cadbury’s defense is that the levels in the chocolate were too low to cause illness.

On July seven the White House appointed Michael R. Taylor Advisor to FDA Commissioner. The press release mention that it is his third appointment at the FDA and that Taylor will work to:

Assess current food program challenges and opportunities

Identify capacity needs and regulatory priorities

Develop plans for allocating fiscal year 2010 resources

Develop the FDA’s budget request for fiscal year 2011

Plan implementation of new food safety legislation.

The press release failed to mention Mr. Taylor connections with Monsanto.

Mr. Taylor began at the FDA in 1976 as a litigating attorney, he left to join King & Spalding where Monsanto was his personal client regarding food labeling and regulatory issues.. He returned to the FDA as Deputy Commissioner for Policy from 1991 to 1994, overseeing FDA’s policy development and rulemaking, including the implementation of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act and issuance of new seafood safety rules. This was a new position created for him and he instantly became the FDA official with the greatest influence on GM food regulation, overseeing the development of government policy. He was part of the team that issued the very industry-friendly policy on food biotechnology and that approved the use of Monsanto’s genetically engineered growth hormone in dairy cows. He introduced the the concept of substantial equivalence as an appropriate method for determining safety. This is the basis for the lack of safety testing and the non labeling of GMO containing food. The same concept was used to prevent dairy products to be labeled as rBGH free.

Cutting the Goat Cheese

Cutting the Goat Cheese

Mr. Taylor left the FDA in 1994 for the USDA. In 1996 he went back to King & Spalding and in 1998 he was appointed vice president of Public Policy by Monsanto.

I am very concerned that Mr. Taylor will use his position to issue very tech heavy, industry friendly regulations that will place an unbearable burden on small producers and family farms.

Food safety is compromised by industrial farming practices not by sustainable farming. The cost of cheap food has been food safety. My personal check list for food safety is: no GMO, no trans fat, no high fructose corn syrup, no food colorants, no artificial flavors, no rBGH, no meat, eggs or dairy from CAFO’s. The short version is do not eat anything with a bar code.

Size based regulations are possible. In the new FDA egg safety regulations producers with less than 3,000 laying hen are exempt, producers with more than 3,000 but less than 50,000 have 36 months to comply, producers with more than 50,000 have 12 months to comply.

We do need farmers and consumers to start writing to your House Representative and request that HR 2749 include similar exemptions and provisions.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday’s on Food Renegade blog, see more ideas for food activism here.

This post is also part of Food Roots sustainability blog Carnival on Nourishing Days blog, trace your food roots here!

This post is also part of Real Food Wednesday blog carnival on KellytheKitchenkop.com, check out more foodie stuff here!

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NAIS — It Ain’t Over Until The Fat Lady Sings

Written by: Chuck JolleyCattle Network

She belts one out on Monday. Except ‘she’ will be a couple of he’s — Brooks and Dunn singing ‘That ain’t no way to go.’

The heavily promoted comment period for the U.S.D.A.’s National Animal Identification System (N.A.I.S.) listening tour will end on Monday. According to the U.S.D.A., comments received on or before this date will be considered. Hopefully written comments received after the final Omaha meeting will be taken more seriously than spoken comments were during the ‘live,’ face-to-face meetings.

“While the roundtables and public listening sessions are complete, I encourage those of you who still would like to share your concerns and suggestions about N.A.I.S. to submit your written comments by August 3,” said Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, “We look forward to considering all the feedback before deciding on the future direction of U.S.D.A.’s traceability efforts.”

U.S.D.A. has posted a feedback page on the N.A.I.S. Web site. Whether you’re your for it or against it, go to www.usda.gov/nais/feedback now to provide your suggestions and comments.

If Vilsack is counting noses, N.A.I.S. will be deep-sixed on August 4. He announced the listening tour on May 15 as a way to find common ground for the development of the always controversial program. To be painfully blunt, common ground never existed. Only a pitifully small handful of people stood up for a national program during the 14 city tour. The vast majority of the often overly enthusiastic crowd spoke against N.A.I.S. using very specific and occasionally salty language. Trying to talk those people into accepting an animal identification program will be tougher than talking a card-carrying N.R.A. member out of his gun.

In fact, more than a few N.R.A. card-carrying farmers have promised to show anyone representing NAIS who dares step foot on his or her property a personal collection of fire arms. Barrel end first.

As a voluntary program, N.A.I.S. might have worked but only with the strongest possible assurances from the U.S.D.A. that ‘voluntary’ isn’t code for ‘mandatory’ within a few short years. Even that approach would be a hard sell as most of the speakers were outspoken about their innate distrust of anything that smacked of “Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”

These are people who are used to doing it themselves. If any help is needed, it’s neighbor-to-neighbor, not federales to farmers. The mistake the USDA made was trying to organize this program from the top down. Going after the cooperation of state ag agencies and trade associations, they assumed, would win the day and the big boys did fall in line, lured by the promise of an ever expanding foreign trade opportunity. NAIS, though, is a bottom up program. It can only succeed with the consent and cooperation of the hundreds of thousands of small farmers from Portland, ME to Portland OR.

They said no.

If there is any confusion about the meaning of that word, maybe the U.S.D.A. can understand it a little better by clicking here.

Chuck Jolley is a free lance writer, based in Kansas City, who covers a wide range of ag industry topics for Cattlenetwork.com and Agnetwork.com.

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Wisconsin’s war against agriculture: Fines, imprisonment and property seizure

July 23, 2009

By Marti Oakley (Food Freedom)

Paul Griepentrog inside the greenhouseThe first thing they did when they got the authority to write rules … was to grant themselves the authority to conduct warrantless searches. Wisconsin is in the process of coercing farmers and backyard producers … into NAIS, and the accompanying Premises ID program, by threatening to withhold any of the licenses they control.” Paul Griepentrog

In the course of researching various topics, running down leads on information and ferreting out the plans behind the public propaganda used to infringe on one right after another, I sometimes stumble across someone who has so much verifiable information, I am left astounded.  This was the case when I happened across a gentleman farmer named Paul Griepentrog while researching the laws and bills about Premises ID and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

I already knew the mandatory law had been bought and paid for in Wisconsin through the use of a USDA “cooperative agreement” to the tune of $35 million.

In a recent interview I asked Paul to answer a few questions about what is really happening to Wisconsin residents who are being forced onto these illegal programs:

Q:  Does the Animal Health Protection Act of 2003 actually authorize the Animal Identification System or Premises ID?

A: There is nothing in that bill giving them authority to create or establish the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).  That law has been misquoted saying that it is the authority for NAIS.  We have repeatedly sent letters to USDA and Tom Vilsack asking him to show the section of that law that gives the authority but he refuses to answer or acknowledge the letters.

Q: Has the USDA, in collusion with the Wisconsin AG department, threatened any farms that you know of?

A: Dwayne Brander on behalf of Dr. McGraw, Assistant State Veterinarian, goes out to farms telling them that if they don’t renew or register their premises in the State of Wisconsin they will file suit against them for failing to comply, using the county DA and calling it a civil forfeiture.

Wisconsin is in the process of coercing farmers and backyard producers in an effort to force them onto NAIS and the accompanying Premises ID program by threatening to withhold any of the licenses they control and would refuse to give the license unless you signed up.

Q: Is there a part of the law in Wisconsin that allows for fines and imprisonment based on the sole allegations of these agencies or representative personnel from USDA or DATCP in Wisconsin?

A: Here is section 95 from the Wisconsin bill implementing the “voluntary” NAIS/Premises ID law:

CHAPTER 95

ANIMAL HEALTH

95.23 Disease investigation and enforcement.

95.23(1)

(1) Authorized inspectors and agents of the department may enter at reasonable times any premises, building or place to investigate the existence of animal diseases or to investigate violations of or otherwise enforce the laws relating to animal health. Any animals or materials suspected of being infected may be examined or tested. No person shall obstruct or interfere with such investigation or enforcement work, or attempt to do so, in any manner, by threat or otherwise.

95.23(2)

(2) Upon request of an authorized inspector or agent of the department, sheriffs and police officers shall assist in the enforcement of the laws relating to animal health.

95.99 Penalties.

95.99(1)

(1) Any person who violates this chapter, or an order issued or a rule adopted under this chapter, for which a specific penalty is not prescribed shall, for the first offense, be fined not more than $1,000; and for any subsequent offense fined not less than $500 nor more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than 6 months or both.

95.99(2)

(2) The department may seek an injunction restraining any person from violating this chapter or any rule promulgated under this chapter.

95.99(3)

(3) A person who violates this chapter or any rule promulgated or order issued under this chapter, for which a specific penalty is not prescribed, may be required to forfeit not less than $200 nor more than $5,000 for the first offense and may be required to forfeit not less than $400 nor more than $5,000 for the 2nd or subsequent offense committed within 5 years of an offense for which a penalty has been assessed under this section. A forfeiture under this subsection is in lieu of a criminal penalty under sub.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q: Do citizens have the right to demand a full disclosure of the exact laws and basis under which USDA and Wisconsin have charged them?  Is there any defense against these attacks?

A: There seems to be none.  In the cooperative agreement it states all applicable federal laws shall apply.  There are certain major State and Federal Constitutional issues that these laws are in conflict with.

Q: Who exactly is asking for this information?

A: The Department of Agriculture, State of Wisconsin administered by Assistant State Veterinarian, Dr. Paul McGraw; both knowing this has nothing to do with livestock or food safety.  This comes from The World Trade Organization and their trade program OIE. http://www.oie.int/eng/en_index.htm World Organization Animal Health.

Q: Where is the information stored? For what purpose?

A: Initially intake is at state level, and then it moves through forms records management plan.  There are different steps on how they process this information.  From everything I read, a disease outbreak would give state, federal and international interest’s access.

Q: Who is storing the information?

A: Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and then to Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium with (WLIC) as final repository in Canada. The WLIC is comprised of various agriculture groups, breed associations and companies selling RFID tags.

Rep. Obey & Sen. Kohl helped to get WLIC started and moved the data base to Canada.  The head of WLIC initially was Gary Tauchen who is now a Wisconsin representative and sitting on the house AG committee.

In my own case, I have been registered twice after the fire number on my property changed.  Once under the original number and my name and again under the newly assigned number and my farm name; I did not register for Premises ID on either occasion and was signed up without my knowledge or consent.

Q: If the WLIC is listed as the last repository of data mined information, how did files on Wisconsin agricultural properties end up being stored in Canada?

A: WLIC with the help of Rep. Obey and Sen. Kohl although I don’t know for sure how this was accomplished. The intention was to avoid any Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request or open information requests until they passed the 2008 Farm Bill and included a provision in that bill saying that these files would not be available to FOIA requests.

Q.  Who had access to these files when they were outside the country?

A:  We don’t know.  Once it was outside US jurisdiction we had no way of knowing.

Q:  Are you able to get copies of your personal file from the Canadian data bank?

A:  I was able to obtain the premises information pursuant to the forms records management plan.  To my knowledge I am only the second person to do so.

Q:  We know these programs have nothing to do with tracking animal disease and are actually meant to end competition for industrialized agricultural interests, and to seize control of agricultural lands and livestock….who are the actual players that will benefit from these programs?

A: The big corporate industrialized agriculture operators….Cargill, Tyson, Monsanto and others, because they would see the end to competition and obtain virtually full control over all agriculture.

Q:  Are Wisconsin politicians either state or federal willing to speak to you about NAIS, Premises ID or the fake food safety bills?

A: On the Federal level, Sen. Kohl and Rep. Obey will not take my calls.

(*Writer’s note: I made my own calls to these offices and when I stated what I was calling in reference to, the staffers got really nasty and then hung up)

In fact Sen. Kohl’s staffer, Kim Cates’ husband is on the Agriculture Consumer Protection Citizen board.  He would not even meet with John Kinsman of Family Farm Defenders to discuss the issue.

On the state level are the continuous lies.  These people will say Premises ID has nothing to do with NAIS.  They say this even though they have been shown the cooperative agreement between USDA and Wisconsin DATCP outlining Premises ID as the first step.  They refuse to look at or acknowledge the legal documents.

DATCP had a document on the Wisconsin Legislative information Bureau site saying that the Amish don’t have any problem with this.  If the Amish don’t have a problem with it why are they suing Emmanuel Miller Jr., an Amish from Clark County?

Steve Kagen would not address our concerns and he’s on the US house Ag sub- committee that held a hearing on NAIS and is also involved in the food safety bills and won’t address our concerns even there.  He is working right now to get funding to move Wisconsin into phase II of NAIS which is the mandatory chipping and tagging of all animals.

I will say that Sen. Feingold has been willing to listen to our concerns both in his Washington office and in the state office.

montages photobucketAlthough there is a bill in Wisconsin which would restore voluntary participation I feel it is nothing more than an attempt at political redemption by the same people who passed the mandatory bill to begin with, in that they are fully aware that this bills will be sent to the House Ag committee and never see the light of day.  This is merely political posturing…. The house, senate and government are all controlled by Democrats.  This may be nothing more than a smoke screen while they make mandatory phase II which is the tagging and chipping, which can’t be done unless you have a Premises ID.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Griepentrog shows that, in the end, what was billed and sold to Wisconsin farmers and herders as a strictly “voluntary” system turns out to be a mandatory system operated much like a police state enforcement policy.  There can be no doubt, especially in light of the hyped up investigation and enforcement policies that this law in Wisconsin is less about disease and more about property seizure and forfeiture.

Wisconsin is the blueprint for the remaining states:  what happens there is going to happen to all independent ranchers, farmers and producers across the country if any of these fake food safety bills, or National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is passed into law.

© 2009 Marti Oakley

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Organic farmers plead for help from USDA Secretary Vilsap

Written by: Bill Suydam, Editor, Health Spectator

This posting from the Cornucopia Institute is a video that portrays an emergency meeting of organic dairy farmers in Wisconsin pleading with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to level the playing field against factory farms so that small farmers can survive.

One of the ironies of this piece occurs at the beginning, when an emcee approaches the refreshment stand at the fair and notes that bottled water is selling for $2.00—and milk for $0.50.

“Can farmers really be expected to sell milk for one quarter the price of water?” he asks the camera.

The farmers are protesting the fact that many large “organic” dairy farms flaunt the regulations, while “conventional” dairy farms—ironically the current term used for farms that inject their dairy cows with hormones to force them to produce twice as much milk as normal—may milk as many as 7200 cows a day.

Meanwhile, small farmers are finding it tough to survive, and more go out of business every day. This is not what we want to see if we are going to keep ourselves and our children healthy with wholesome products from small, local organic farms.

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Wisconsin’s war against agriculture: Fines, imprisonment and property seizure

By Marti Oakley (Food Freedom)

Paul  Griepentrog  inside  the  greenhouseThe first thing they did when they got the authority to write rules… was to grant themselves the authority to conduct warrantless searches. Wisconsin is in the process of coercing farmers and backyard producers … into NAIS, and the accompanying Premises ID program, by threatening to withhold any of the licenses they control.” Paul Griepentrog

In the course of researching various topics, running down leads on information and ferreting out the plans behind the public propaganda used to infringe on one right after another, I sometimes stumble across someone who has so much verifiable information, I am left astounded. This was the case when I happened across a gentleman farmer named Paul Griepentrog while researching the laws and bills about Premises ID and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

I already knew the mandatory law had been bought and paid for in Wisconsin through the use of a USDA “cooperative agreement” to the tune of $35 million.

In a recent interview I asked Paul to answer a few questions about what is really happening to Wisconsin residents who are being forced onto these illegal programs:

Q: Does the Animal Health Protection Act of 2003 actually authorize the Animal Identification System or Premises ID?

A:There is nothing in that bill giving them authority to create or establish the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). That law has been misquoted saying that it is the authority for NAIS. We have repeatedly sent letters to USDA and Tom Vilsack asking him to show the section of that law that gives the authority but he refuses to answer or acknowledge the letters.

Q: Has the USDA, in collusion with the Wisconsin AG department, threatened any farms that you know of?

A: Dwayne Brander on behalf of Dr. McGraw, Assistant State Veterinarian, goes out to farms telling them that if they don’t renew or register their premises in the State of Wisconsin they will file suit against them for failing to comply, using the county DA and calling it a civil forfeiture.

Wisconsin is in the process of coercing farmers and backyard producers in an effort to force them onto NAIS and the accompanying Premises ID program by threatening to withhold any of the licenses they control and would refuse to give the license unless you signed up.

Q: Is there a part of the law in Wisconsin that allows for fines and imprisonment based on the sole allegations of these agencies or representative personnel from USDA or DATCP in Wisconsin?

A: Here is section 95 from the Wisconsin bill implementing the “voluntary” NAIS/Premises ID law:

CHAPTER 95

ANIMAL HEALTH

95.23 Disease investigation and enforcement.

95.23(1)

(1) Authorized inspectors and agents of the department may enter at reasonable times any premises, building or place to investigate the existence of animal diseases or to investigate violations of or otherwise enforce the laws relating to animal health. Any animals or materials suspected of being infected may be examined or tested. No person shall obstruct or interfere with such investigation or enforcement work, or attempt to do so, in any manner, by threat or otherwise.

95.23(2)

(2) Upon request of an authorized inspector or agent of the department,sheriffs and police officers shall assist in the enforcement of the laws relating to animal health.

95.99 Penalties.

95.99(1)

(1) Any person who violates this chapter, or an order issued or a rule adopted under this chapter, for which a specific penalty is not prescribed shall, for the first offense, be fined not more than $1,000; and for any subsequent offense fined not less than $500 nor more than $1,000, or imprisoned not more than 6 months or both.

95.99(2)

(2) The department may seek an injunction restraining any person from violating this chapter or any rule promulgated under this chapter.

95.99(3)

(3) A person who violates this chapter or any rule promulgated or order issued under this chapter, for which a specific penalty is not prescribed,may be required to forfeit not less than $200 nor more than $5,000 for the first offense and may be required to forfeit not less than $400 nor more than $5,000 for the 2nd or subsequent offense committed within 5 years of an offense for which a penalty has been assessed under this section. A forfeiture under this subsection is in lieu of a criminal penalty undersub.

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Q: Do citizens have the right to demand a full disclosure of the exact laws and basis under which USDA and Wisconsin have charged them? Is there any defense against these attacks?

A:There seems to be none. In the cooperative agreement it states all applicable federal laws shall apply. There are certain major State and Federal Constitutional issues that these laws are in conflict with.

Q: Who exactly is asking for this information?

A:The Department of Agriculture, State of Wisconsin administered by Assistant State Veterinarian, Dr. Paul McGraw; both knowing this has nothing to do with livestock or food safety. This comes from The World Trade Organization and their trade program OIE.http://www.oie.int/eng/en_index.htm World Organization Animal Health.

Q: Where is the information stored? For what purpose?

A: Initially intake is at state level, and then it moves through forms records management plan. There are different steps on how they process this information. From everything I read, a disease outbreak would give state, federal and international interest’s access.

Q: Who is storing the information?

A:Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and then to Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium with (WLIC) as final repository in Canada. The WLIC is comprised of various agriculture groups, breed associations and companies selling RFID tags.

Rep. Obey & Sen. Kohl helped to get WLIC started and moved the data base to Canada. The head of WLIC initially was Gary Tauchen who is now a Wisconsin representative and sitting on the house AG committee.

In my own case, I have been registered twice after the fire number on my property changed. Once under the original number and my name and again under the newly assigned number and my farm name; I did not register for Premises ID on either occasion and was signed up without my knowledge or consent.

Q: If the WLIC is listed as the last repository of data mined information, how did files on Wisconsin agricultural properties end up being stored in Canada?

A:WLIC with the help of Rep. Obey and Sen. Kohl although I don’t know for sure how this was accomplished. The intention was to avoid any Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request or open information requests until they passed the 2008 Farm Bill and included a provision in that bill saying that these files would not be available to FOIA requests.

Q. Who had access to these files when they were outside the country?

A: We don’t know. Once it was outside US jurisdiction we had no way of knowing.

Q: Are you able to get copies of your personal file from the Canadian data bank?

A: I was able to obtain the premises information pursuant to the forms records management plan. To my knowledge I am only the second person to do so.

Q: We know these programs have nothing to do with tracking animal disease and are actually meant to end competition for industrialized agricultural interests, and to seize control of agricultural lands and livestock….who are the actual players that will benefit from these programs?

A:The big corporate industrialized agriculture operators….Cargill, Tyson, Monsanto and others, because they would see the end to competition and obtain virtually full control over all agriculture.

Q: Are Wisconsin politicians either state or federal willing to speak to you about NAIS, Premises ID or the fake food safety bills?

A:On the Federal level, Sen. Kohl and Rep. Obey will not take my calls.

(*Writer’s note: I made my own calls to these offices and when I stated what I was calling in reference to, the staffers got really nasty and then hung up)

In fact Sen. Kohl’s staffer, Kim Cates’ husband is on the Agriculture Consumer Protection Citizen board. He would not even meet with John Kinsman of Family Farm Defenders to discuss the issue.

On the state level are the continuous lies. These people will say Premises ID has nothing to do with NAIS. They say this even though they have been shown the cooperative agreement between USDA and Wisconsin DATCP outlining Premises ID as the first step. They refuse to look at or acknowledge the legal documents.

DATCP had a document on the Wisconsin Legislative information Bureau site saying that the Amish don’t have any problem with this. If the Amish don’t have a problem with it why are they suing Emmanuel Miller Jr., an Amish from Clark County?

Steve Kagen would not address our concerns and he’s on the US house Ag sub- committee that held a hearing on NAIS and is also involved in the food safety bills and won’t address our concerns even there. He is working right now to get funding to move Wisconsin into phase II of NAIS which is the mandatory chipping and tagging of all animals.

I will say that Sen. Feingold has been willing to listen to our concerns both in his Washington office and in the state office.

montages  photobucketAlthough there is a bill in Wisconsin which would restore voluntary participation I feel it is nothing more than an attempt at political redemption by the same people who passed the mandatory bill to begin with, in that they are fully aware that this bills will be sent to the House Ag committee and never see the light of day. This is merely political posturing…. The house, senate and government are all controlled by Democrats. This may be nothing more than a smoke screen while they make mandatory phase II which is the tagging and chipping, which can’t be done unless you have a Premises ID.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Griepentrog shows that, in the end, what was billed and sold to Wisconsin farmers and herders as a strictly “voluntary” system turns out to be a mandatory system operated much like a police state enforcement policy. There can be no doubt, especially in light of the hyped up investigation and enforcement policies that this law in Wisconsin is less about disease and more about property seizure and forfeiture.

Wisconsin is the blueprint for the remaining states: what happens there is going to happen to all independent ranchers, farmers and producers across the country if any of these fake food safety bills, or National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is passed into law.

© 2009MartiOakley

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NAIS Is A Threat To Small Sustainable Farms and Ranches

From the Underground Food Movement-
Written by: Maria Minno



Sustainable farms, healthy foods, local foods

NAIS Is A Threat To Small Sustainable Farms and Ranches

NAIS is the National Animal Identification, a government system to track animals by injecting them with a computer chip that is read and reported on by the farmer whenever an animal changes places. It will require small farmers to spend a great deal of money on equipment and inserting the chips and reporting any changes, with terrible fines for computer errors, acts of nature, or non-compliance. Large feedlots are virtually exempted from the process, as they need only one chip number for hundreds of animals.

NAIS is a very important issue to me, as well as to small farmers, who produce our healthiest foods in a sustainable manner. It will not help with food safety, however.

The USDA will be in charge of NAIS, and the government is pushing it, because they are being heavily lobbied by the companies who will make millions off of the tags, reading equipment, and data management. It makes it look like they are doing something to promote food safety, yet NAIS is the antithesis of food safety.

The National Animal Identification System is truly frightening to me. Clearly, the modern American food system is not keeping us safe. Yet NAIS is more dangerous than the status quo. It is Orwellian, it threatens small farms, it runs against my beliefs, and is a threat to my basic needs.

It’s not that we do not need vast improvements in food safety to clear up our health crisis and food contamination dangers. We do! But corporate agribusiness pressure is preventing Congress and the USDA from enacting and enforcing true animal health and food safety measures. NAIS is not an animal health or food safety measure.

The USDA has been hearing overwhelming opposition to this measure, from both consumers and farmers. I will add my voice to the choir. I am a nutritional therapy practitioner, and I represent myself, my family, and my clients who rely upon high quality foods from small farms to regain and maintain their health. We all say that NAIS is not the animal health or food safety solution this country needs.

I am suffering from mercury poisoning caused by having a lot of silver fillings, which were removed with no consideration for the toxicity of mercury, and by consuming a lot of catfish that were contaminated with mercury and DDT. In order to survive and get well, I need to eat a lot of the highest quality milk, meat, eggs, and other animal foods. I am very careful about what I purchase, because I feel the quality of my food immediately in my day-to-day well-being. Most of the foods I buy are from small local farmers.

Because of my personal experience, I have changed the way I feed my family. My family members and my grandchildren all eat high quality animal foods from local farms, and I can really see the difference in their health and well being, especially compared to other families we know. My husband recovered from osteopoenia within a year of changing our diet to locally purchased meat and milk, and my son also became much healthier. Local animal foods have saved my life during my difficult struggles with chronic mercury toxicity.

I serve a number of clients who also have serious chronic health problems. Like me, they have found that proper nutrition is much more effective than drugs and medical procedures in improving their health and well-being. These people also rely upon animal foods from small local farms to keep them alive and healthy. If NAIS is implemented, I believe we will have NO MORE local small farms to purchase high quality products from. This is a huge quality of life issue for many people, and may even be a life-and-death issue for me, personally.

Corporate industrial farms may want to use NAIS to improve their overseas sales, and I have no objection to them tagging their own animals. Let them. However, because the tags are known to cause cancer, I wouldn’t want to eat the meat they produce, and I don’t think people from other countries will, either, once they know the tags cause cancer. And NAIS is clearly not the answer to animal health or food safety for food we want to consume in our own country.

I have a friend who did a lot of health care work at the VA hospital in Gainesville. She said that the identification tags the veterans had embedded in their necks, which are very similar to the NAIS tags, caused terrible cancers. Research shows that these tags used on pets are causing cancer, also. I do not want to eat food that has been injected with cancer causing tags. Do you?

The REAL sources of food safety problems are huge confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that concentrate thousands of animals in one location, as well as unsafe practices at the slaughterhouse and in food processing. NAIS traceability ends at the slaughterhouse, so what’s the point?

NAIS requires small farmers and ranchers to track each animal individually, while allowing CAFOs to track all animals under one blanket Group Identification Number. So it will be infinitely easier for the huge and dangerous CAFO’s to comply with NAIS, and impossible for the small farmers and ranchers. Thus, the USDA is promoting factory farms whose practices encourage disease, while putting small farms out of business and destroying the local food movement with their tag requirements and fees. Whose USDA is this, anyway?

What we actually need is small farms scattered all over, especially around urban areas, where the demand is the greatest and the distance the smallest, for energy efficiency and food security. The huge centralized CAFOs clearly are not good for people, for the environment, for animals, or for food safety. They are not even good for the economy, because, like WalMart, they replace the local small businesses (farms) with low-income low-quality slave labor types of jobs.

We need diversified farms, which are more sustainable, healthy, efficient, productive, and safe. If a local farm grows both animals and plants, their ecology supports one another (fertilizer for the plants, food and bugs for the animals). Small, sustainable farms are a pleasure to live near; CAFO’s are a blight.

We need to improve the viability of our own farming sector by making imports more costly, by increasing inspections of imported animals and agricultural products, and barring the entry of animals from countries with known disease problems.

We need to support our small farms, not try to put them out of business with laws and regulations such as NAIS. Read Joel Salatin’s book, “Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal” if you want to hear a funny but true story of the difficulties of producing really high quality food in this country.

We particularly need to improve enforcement of existing laws and inspections of large slaughterhouses and food processing facilities, including unannounced spot inspections. I heard an interesting story about the USDA slaughterhouse near Gainesville. Apparently they were stealing and switching meat, so that high quality grassfed meat that my friend was selling would be replaced at the slaughterhouse by conventional, low quality meat. My friend tried to talk with the slaughterhouse management, but the unethical practice continued. When my friend asked the USDA to intervene, they said that wasn’t their job!

It appears that the USDA sees its job as protecting the huge industrial farms from competition from small farms that produce exceptionally high quality food that is now in high demand.

Where NAIS has been tried already, it has been found to be a resounding failure for all of its stated goals. NAIS is government control and ineptitude magnified a million-fold. Furthermore, it is reminiscent of the practices of Nazi Germany. NAIS may make a few large corporations wealthy (like the tag and reader manufacturers and database managers), but for all the rest of us, it has no redeeming value, and an unacceptable cost.

Please stop this travesty now.

To sign a petition against HR 2749
http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php

To sign a petition against NAIS
http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm

To submit comments regarding NAIS to the USDA
http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/feedback

For more information on NAIS and HR 2749
http://www.nonais.org/
http://www.ftcldf.org/press/press-08july2009.htm
http://www.ftcldf.org/news/news-02june2009-5.htm

Gainesville Sun editorial on HR 2749
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090714/NEWS/907149927/1008/WEATHER?Title=Maria-Minno-This-bill-is-a-threat-to-small-farms

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National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

An interview with Linda Faillace, author of Mad Sheep


UDSA NAZIThe National Animal Identification System is another of those government ideas that sounds so right on the surface but goes so wrong in the implementation details. Basically, it is a nationwide registration system for animals and the sites where they are kept. It has been causing a major uproar within the farming community, as it is a burden to small farmers, among others.

It will affect you too if you keep any sort of farm animals such as chickens, sheep, goats, horses, etc.–but if you do, you undoubtedly already know this.

We’ve been preparing a piece on this subject, but in the process we came across this video that gives you an excellent summary of what’s involved. So we thought we’d provide a video introduction, then look to converting our investigative reporting to a background article or editorial.

Most of our readers have probably never heard of NAIS. If you fall into that category, the video below will be a real eye-opener. The presenter is Linda Faillace, author of Mad Sheep:The True Story Behind the USDA’s War on a Family Farm, who knows a thing or two about dealing with the USDA as a small farmer.

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