The USDA and state departments of agriculture, both deeply corrupted by the corporate ties to Monsanto and other Big Ag corporations, are promoting NAIS - the National Animal Identification System - in the name of food safety.

THAT IS A FARCE. And it is a farce on so many levels, it is hard to adequately cover them all here.

1.  Mad Cow and Bird Flu - and corporate agriculture.

It was corporations which ground diseased animals into feed and sold it back to farmers to use for their animals. It is corporations which house millions of chickens in a single building, putting their contaminated waste out on fields in Asia for wild birds to feed off of, and those practices are now implicated as a potential source of Bird Flu.   

BUT though Mad Cow came from the corporate side, it is family farmers in the UK whose livestock were slaughtered, in some cases driving into extinction ancient and rare heritage breeds of animals, and destroying farmers there who have never recovered. And it is small family farmers in Asia, whose livelihood depended on the few chickens they raised for eggs and food, whose stocks were eliminated. And it is corporations which are  attempting to promote substituting cloned ones, which would trap the Asian family farmers into the whole patent/intellectual property nightmare (that affects GMO-seeds) in which they would only be "renting" animals, never owning the patented ones, never owning the issue of those animals or the eggs.

2.  Filthy and vile treatment of animals, disgusting processing plants, steroids, hormones, antibiotics - and the corporate sector

a.  The immense feedlots where cattle, at times well over 800,000 together, are housed in such miserable, filthy conditions, standing deep in their own feces, so vast amounts of antibiotics are given to try to counter the illnesses that fester there, and where animals are filled with grains (grass is a normal diet, grain is not) and steroids to fatten them for profit, to the point that their organs can fall out and then have to be pushed back in and the animal stitched shut to hold their organs inside.

b. The poultry factories housing millions of birds, squeezed sometimes two to a small cage, filled with steroids and antibiotics, their waste building up and "disposal" a major issue, often polluting streams and rivers (in Asia, the contaminated waste out of fields in Asia, ripe for diseases to be passed to wild birds), and as they grow, their legs grow out through the cage wires so to remove the birds finally, their legs have to be cut off.

c.  The confinement of pigs leading to great fetid "lagoons" of pig feces, reeking and contaminating communities where the corporate pig factories exist, and in the high speed slaughter houses, pigs are processed in North Caroling at 32,000 in a day (and aiming for 39,000), so there is no way that "food safety" standards can apply as contents of intestines and fecal matter can't help but spew about.  

d.  The corporate corruption in the FDA and USDA that has led to allowing - legally - KNOWN Mad Cow disease material to still be included in feed for chickens, pigs, fish and pet food, the only bar to it being a label saying "not for cows and ruminants."

e.  The Monsanto promotion of a genetically engineered substance - bovine growth hormone - which has meant:

 1.) mastitis for cows and a great increased use of antibiotics, 

 2.) greatly shortened life for the cow who is burned through in making it produce milk in unnaturally large amounts, 

 3.) the risk, since the cows are destroyed and ground up in to food or feed, that they harbored Mad Cow which has not yet expressed itself since the cow was killed so young, 

 4.) the "milk contains abnormally high levels of a natural growth factor known as IGF-1. As documented in over 30 scientific publications, detailed in [a] May 2007 Citizen Petition to the FDA, increased levels of IGF-1 in milk increase risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold,  besides risks of colon and prostate cancers."  http://www.sustdev.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2127&Itemid=35  

 5.) U.S. rBGH dairy products are banned by Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South  Africa, 

 6.) in 1999, the United Nations Food Safety Agency, representing 101 nations worldwide, voted unanimously to reject a safety standard for  rBGH milk, 

 7.) there are no FDA restrictions on its continued sale in the U.S., nor any requirement for warning labels, and 

 8.) due to corporate corruption of the FDA and USDA, bovine growth hormone is still strongly promoted in the US, 

 9.) and family farmers who put honest labels indicating when it is NOT present are being sued and 

 10.) Monsanto is promoting laws state to state to ban all labels on milk.

NOTE:  The only party acting to report honestly to the public what is in or not in the milk, is the family farmer. The government, acting on behalf of Monsanto, has hidden information and exposed the public to disease risks they have a right to avoid but are being denied that right.

3.  The same parties which created the problems - the USDA and Monsanto and Big Ag - 

which promoted bovine growth hormone despite illnesses in cows, despite medical warnings and then without labeling, the same ones allowing conditions that are disgustingly filthy, cruel, insane even, for animals, the same ones promoting using steroids/hormones/antibiotics in vast quantities - which get into our food, the same ones responsible for Mad Cow and Bird Flu conditions and which are not fixing those - 

are now the ones promoting NAIS for "food safety"?  And which comes down only on small farmers?

The media needs to put two and two together - which, no matter how one jiggles the numbers, don't add up to family farmers causing any of this.

NAIS - chipping animals for "food safety"?

Let us look at the absurdity of it.

1.  Animals are already tagged when they arrive at slaughter houses.
2.  The chipped tags are cut off immediately and are of no use to track back to anyone.
3.  The global tracking aspect of the tags has no relation to tracking diseases back to anywhere.
4.  The global tracking tags are a multi-million dollar boondoggle for the companies selling them.
5.  The tracking data will be fed into a huge "corporate" data base allowing corporations to keep track of the movements of their competition's (family farmers) movements. Who ever heard of government system built specifically to let one business (and the much bigger one) have information on the activities of its competition? Will the system allow family farmers to track the movements of its competition, or see their private information on what they own and what they are doing with it? Do the words MASSIVE DISCRIMINATION not come to mind?  RESTRAINT OF TRADE?  

NONSENSE, ABSURD, RIDICULOUS ....

This does not mean, though, that the government might not declare a food scare and make this system mandatory nationally and the media and public would not be taken in. Which is why it is critical that the media understand the STUPIDITY of NAIS vis-à-vis food safety, combined with UTTER CONTROL and OVERSIGHT this system is really about.

NAIS is connected with a property ID system as well.  And that is where the nonsense gets nasty.

1.  Any person in the US with a farm animal and there are 29 different kinds, would be expected to register their property - even if you have one lone clam. The clam or duck or chick, becomes part of what the USDA (and Monsanto and others behind this) is calling the "national herd."
2.  The person gets a PIN number put on the property which stays with the property even if no animals remain there any longer. (What does this have to do with "food safety"?)
3.  When the person gets a PIN, their status somehow shifts from property "owner" to "stakeholder." A stakeholder is NOT the same thing as an exclusive property owner.
4.  NAIS and property ID appear to be a USDA/Monsanto (and other Big Ag corporations) move to control all of US farmland through the subterfuge of "food safety." NAIS, with the excuse of "food safety," makes NSA-spying, with its excuse of terrorism, almost seem small in comparison, in terms of totalitarian control.

Mussolini:  "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the marriage of government and corporate power."

SANE RESPONSES TO INSANELY-DRIVEN-BY-PROFIT CORPORATE FOOD HORRORS:

The Ride for Farmers asks for the largest investigation in the history of the United States into the immense corporate feedlots and animal factories, and into the giant slaughter houses, and into the cruel transport of animals, as well as into the "corporate contamination" of the USDA and FDA and US agricultural commissions and policies here and abroad. There is no point in going to corporate-controlled DC to ask for this investigation so, instead, the Ride for Farmers is asking the media- from national media to journalism students to free lance journalists to students in school, to begin investigating the filthy, torturous, disease-ridden, drug-filled, dangerous settings. 

The Ride for Farmers proposes a solution to the horrific conditions for animals and to the origination in major diseases (including Mad Cow and Bird Flu and e-coli):  

1.  a return to raising animals only on family farms: 
 
a.  where they will live in smaller numbers, without the crowding and filth of feedlots, poultry factories, hog confinement.
b.  where they will live better and normal lives, able to move freely and be outside.
c.  where cattle and other ruminants will live on a grass-fed diet and other animals on diets provided primarily by nature.
d.  where animals will not need antibiotics, and will not be given hormones and steroids.
e.  where they will have only one bad day in their lives.
f.   in order that the current industrial holocaust of billions of animals will be brought to an end.

2.  small meat-processing plants, cooperatively-run by farmers and consumer groups, in each county: 
 
a.  eliminating the cruel transport of animals
b. guaranteeing food safety since consumer groups will be actively involved and consumers will be welcome.
c.  increasing food security since communities will be able to rely on local farmers.  
d.  greatly reducing the use of fuel. 
e.  assuring the humane operation by asking animal groups to inspect.

Farmers will be doing the unheard of - asking for inspections, but more, building that into a routine part of operations, open to the public.

3.  small, local feed companies selling vegetarian feed (and non-GMO) for animals:

a.  creating many small businesses in each state,
b.  helping to bring back and build local farming communities.

4.  small, local seed stores selling non-GMO seeds as well as materials needed for sustainable farming operations:

a.  rebuilding farming communities - which builds democracy.
b.  creating new businesses for children of farmers to choose to go into - which supports stables communities and family ties.
c.  replacing GMO crops with normal ones - GREATLY reducing the use of fuel.
d.  eliminating the use of chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (dependent on oil) - which spares us all from their deadly effects.
e.  providing methods for helping to get rid of or to isolate poisons left behind from GMO methods - a move back toward a healthy earth. 

5.  a complete return to normal seeds: 

       a.   owned outright by farmers 
       b.  shared once again with neighbors 
       c.   creating community through sharing 
       d.   entailing no fear 
                   1. no Pinkerton agents 
                   2.  no investigations 
                   3.  no trespassing 
                   4.  no lawsuits 
                   5.  no bankruptcies 
       e.   many times cheaper 
       f.   requiring less pesticides (or none) 
       g.  requiring less fertilizer (or no synthetic ones) 
       h.  requiring much less water 
       i.   out of the patenting nightmare for once and all 
       j.   normal seeds, normal plants 
       k.  good for the land and for people 
         

6.  a push across this country to put an end to the take-over of the US government by corporations.

The federal agencies meant to support family farming are so deeply corrupted by Monsanto and other corporations, that the agencies have become part of actively destroying family farming.

Family farming is the core of our country - of our food, of a normal life for farm animals, of protection of our land and resources, of food security, of an on-going education into how nature works. It is a bedrock of a real and functioning community and thus of our democracy. It is under immense threat by Monsanto and Industrial agriculture now.  

Bees colonies in the corporate system are disappearing (in the organic world, they are thriving). That is the full commentary on corporate agriculture.  It does not work.  It threatens death for all of us.  

It must be replaced as soon as possible by organic family farming that sustained us all, and created functioning, valuable communities around the world, for thousands of years.

The Ride for Farmers has gone national and international as word must continue to get out warning all people of the threat: "Corporations are coming, Corporations are coming - and your farmers, your democracy, your food, and life itself, are at stake."  

It is a great misfortune in this country that the media does not look after its people by reporting what matters.