- Darol Dickinson
Opposition to the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) at the USDA's recent "listening sessions" around the U.S. revealed more than 95% of America's livestock owners were against it.
Still mad even though the NAIS "listening sessions" are about over, U.S. livestock owners want to know: What's next? Will those who testified against NAIS have any further voice to ensure its demise? If NAIS
is rejected by the feds, will USDA dump its trainload of egg-on-the-face back onto congress, and will congress listen? Or will NAIS now become a USDA ". . . I'll show you. . ." ego thing?
The USDA spent over $150 million on NAIS doling out generous 'free' grants to agricultural organizations they thought could help them, but the pig still didn't fly.
When the NAIS was first rolled out, expressions like "loss of freedom" and "inconceivable" and "outrage" at the bureaucratizing of farming and ranching--vents from America's agricultural community about a huge government overreach describing the potential loss of personal, democratic, or Constitutional rights that would occur if NAIS became "law"--were heard.
Then, ranchers and farmers began reading through the flood of "food safety" bills now in Congress--currently being introduced by our electeds for their corporate handlers--that are all focused on regulating American ranchers, farmers, and livestock owners, and not on dangerous un- or lightly-inspected food from Third World and other countries, or on food processing systems.
People in the agricultural community now are asking: "Are these bills about agriculture? Or are they a form of regulatory slavery? Has NAIS been declared "dead" and so-called "food safety" bills that were waiting in the wings suddenly been trotted out, ready to replace NAIS with even more stringent and binding enforcement?"
The conclusion for most in agriculture that are paying attention to what's happening in Washington is that an obvious form of regulatory 'enslavement' is on the horizon.
It was always assumed by Americans that slavery of any type was an historic event that was rightfully rejected; that Americans were committed to stopping it in every form wherever it still existed; hundreds of thousands having died for the right to determine the outcome of the question in America's Civil War.
Thus, it was not easy to recognize that the so-called "food safety" and "Clean Water Restoration Act" being introduced in Congress are, in fact, nothing more than a form of regulatory enslavement.
For example, the Clean Water Restoration Act (S.787) now before congress would give the feds control of all water (including rainwater) in the United States; its purpose being to skirt two solid Supreme Court rulings that told the feds they had regulatory jurisdictional
only over the navigable waters of the U.S.--the way congress intended the initial Clean Water Act to work, and through which the U.S. agriculture and environmental communities have worked comfortably over the last 30 years.
What other words besides regulatory enslavement describe NAIS-imposed controls on ranchers, farmers, and livestock owners that define work they must perform and computer entries they must record daily under threat of penalties as high as $500,000 and ten years in prison for mere infractions?
USDA lists 33 NAIS 'species' for possible disease communication like TB (of which people are major carriers) that must be tracked under a WTO NAIS system. If the original NAIS program is killed by congress, then the tracking of these livestock can easily be folded into the "food safety" bills now working their way through congress.
American ranchers and farmers have heard the 'white-shirted' USDA posturings on ". . .safe food,
traceability, world trade, and pandemic fears. . ."--flawed issues all in desperate need of factual debate, promised transparency, and rejection; that reek of regulatory enslavement for every independent family farm, ranch, and livestock operation in America.
Along with these current "food safety" bills comes "best farming practices" that would force people on their own land to feed their own animals what the government determines, treat their animals medically as the government decrees, plant government-approved seeds, and chemically spray their crops--as, when, and with what the government orders--based on the WTO's Codex Alimentarius rules, regulations, and standards. (The U.S. signed onto the global WTO treaty along with 180 other nations, making U.S. agriculture and trade law subservient to the WTO's Codex rules, regulations and standards if the U.S. wants to participate in the WTO.)
Call it a form of tyranny imposed on agriculture.
What is being introduced in Congress to be placed on ranchers, farmers, and livestock owners under the guise of "food safety" will redefine them where they live and work and go far deeper than mere tyranny.
It will steal their true meaning and force them to operate against their (1) will, (2) knowledge about what they know is best for their land and animals, and (3) their beliefs, heritage, and history.
It appears the "listening sessions" and "end" of NAIS was only about letting the "land-workers" vent while Congressional pawns were introducing "food safety" bills like
H.R. 2749.
Under the facade of fake "food safety,"--even more incomprehensible than NAIS, and by using phrases like "[to]trace foods" which is written into the bills--one finds the hidden, polished-over, nasty head of a NAIS alive and well; reeking with accompanying "emergency declarations" available to the USDA to ". . .insure enforceable food traceability. . ."
Congress, it appears, will neither stop nor slow programs like mandatory NAIS implementation.
Any red herring they toss the media will be a Faustian impulse, and any budget cut will be accidental or fungible.
NAIS wording and other stringent regulatory proposals are also camouflaged in
H.R. 875--Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009,
H.R.759 --Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009,
H.R.. 814 --Tracing and Recalling Contamination Act of 2009,
H.R. 1332-- Safe FEAST Act of 2009
, S.425-- Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, and
S. 510--Food Safety and Modernization Act.
Of these bills, H.R. 814 with broad government code words like "non-specific" "all foods" "transport of all foods" holds the most potential for a like-it-or-not revival of NAIS.
If passed, these bills will straight-jacket America's farmers, ranchers, and livestock owners; threatening their lives and all they hold dear with fines and imprisonment if they do not obey; forcing them to become 21
st century sharecroppers on their own land.
How slick these masters of "campaign donations" have presented themselves in their boardrooms, controlled media, to our financially thirsty politicians who eagerly introduce corporate-written bills destined to become "law" that favors only them, to easily manipulated bureaucratic minions running government agencies like the FDA and USDA, to our courts, and with grants for science and research laboratories, both university and private.
How did we miss the initial, immoral reality of an all-out move to impose regulatory enslavement on our agriculture community?
It was because we once had faith in the reputations of our government agencies, the people who ran them, and the people we sent to congress to oversee them.
Those behind the curtain who perpetrated this onto America's independent agricultural industry and the American people counted on--and used-- this.
It is time we stripped away past and familiar templates applied to our government and elected officials and recognize fake "food safety" bills and "Clean Water Restoration
Acts" for what they are--d
eliberate pestiferous deceptions.
We are looking at the start of multinational corporations actively beginning the take over America's agriculture land, seed, and water with the help of WTO regulations and 'standards,' and through bills pending before our own congress.
Congresswoman DeLauro, who has never profitably bought, sold, or owned a single head of the 33 livestock species targeted for NAIS, recently described the more than 3,000,000 US livestock owners who refuse to surrender to NAIS as "fool-hearted" and "misinformed."
Take action now to replace your elected employees involved in this travesty when you next vote.
All of them.
And know that people like Congresswoman DeLauro, acting for those who would regulate and rule U.S. livestock producers for their own profit and benefit, are as real as a snake bite.
