Dumb Struck
Small farmers are truly a silent minority. With just a little over 2% of Americans classified as “farmers”, we are a very small minority, as well, with just 57% of us earning well under $250,000 per year. This has me worried. Although small farms are on the increase, and inroads are being made into sustainable, local agriculture–an agriculture which may be our only hope in the future–that still leaves 43% of agriculture earning the lion’s share, holding the power, swaying the vote. In truth, it makes me feel very small and powerless.
But if I am so small, so powerless, then why is the industrial-agricultural complex working so hard to squash me and others like me? 2009 is shaping up to be a very troubled year. Not only are we having all sorts of financial “crises”1 , but there are water worries for Californian Farmers. In the first two months, alone, there has been trouble in our food systems and questions of whether our food supply is safe. All of these things seem to build the case for a stronger chain of local, sustainable, diversified, systems of small farmers. And yet, Government actions seem to indicate the opposite. Indeed, many people are suggesting that 2009 is going to be a year of¬† food collapse. That a power grab at international and corporate levels is going to force small farmers out of business and make it impossible for the average citizen to grow their own food.
I want to scream, “THIS IS NONSENSE!!!”. But I have seen some of the documents. I have read behind the scenes reports and interdepartmental USDA emails. At least some portion of this scenario is grimly true–at least for those trying to create the situation. But when I email colleges and talk with local farmers, they deny ever hearing of such schemes. They treat me like I’m off my rocker. When I raise the specter of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) they all claim they heard somewhere that it is completely voluntary, that “some one told me it went away.” But the trouble is, it hasn’t. The trouble is it has only gotten worse. The trouble is that an 100% voluntary scheme means that total voluntary compliance is really MANDATORY! I am left speechless.
No one will wake up to the fact that even if this program is remotely helpful to the little guy, even if this program will add to the marketability of livestock, even if this program will be better, act quicker, cost less to operate than any of the current, effective, proven animal health monitoring programs2, even if. . .the NAIS has already cost millions to get to where it is now–a shadowy dream of a few control freaks–and is going to cost $100′s of millions more to get and keep running, and will cost taxpayers–including farmers who will have to pay twice–a packet in higher food costs, lack of accessibility to local meats, and higher taxes to help fund the system. How is this responsible government? How, at a time of deep recession–so deep it is verging on a Not-So-Great Depression–how can this be a practical, efficacious thing to promote? The system largely works now. It doesn’t need a costly fix. It doesn’t need a solution which skirts the issues of BSE, and food security while creating more problems than it solves.
What farmer’s do need is better access to local slaughter facilities. They need more support and scale appropriate regulations–not the one size fits all, costly systems meant to benefit the mainstream, large scale agri-business corporations. Farmers need more money spent on education, not subsidy. They need programs to help diversify, supply local markets, provide safe foods at a reasonable cost that can earn them a comfortable living. They don’t need threatening regulations, fees, fines and raids. Not unless the likes of Cargill, Tyson, Smithfield, and Monsanto are subject to the same scrutiny. Currently on the slate for Congress in March is an appropriations bill which will fund NAIS with at least another $154 million. This is money we, as taxpayers, will have to pay–and the interest on the loan which funds it–in order, not to have any safer a food system, but to assure foreign governments that our food is as safe as we say it is. Something which should already be a given, if it weren’ t for the total failure of the USDA and the FDA to do their jobs and police the corporations who consistently fail to produce safe, edible, nutritious food. So we pay for it once as taxpayers. Twice, in higher costs, as farmers, forced to implement the system, pass on the fees and fines to consumers. Thrice, in less access to quality, local foods. And even a fourth¬† time, because as corporations–who do not have to play by the same rules as the rest of us–gain market shares by regulating small farmers into the ground, ¬† us to their suspect food procedures and poor, low nutrition foods.
NAIS fails on so many levels, only incompetent government and simpletons support it. It has more holes–and the arguments which defend it–than high quality Swiss Cheese. But don’t take my word for it–read about it. Learn about the canker which rots the system from within. And then protest. Take to the streets and cry foul! Boycott producers who support NAIS. Boycott agencies and markets which think the loss of freedom and choice are part of being “safe”. Safe from what? The imaginary, some-day-may-happen, disasters these agencies are fond of conjuring up to keep fear stirred up? Stand up and be counted as one who values quality, healthy, truly safe food. Safe because you know where it comes from, who produced it, and can follow the path it took to your counter yourself–not some government propaganda “farm to fork” bullshit: as if they could really tell you which farms the 100 cows came from in any lump of bargain basement ground chuck. Hell, they had trouble tracing salmonella to peanuts, e coli to lettuce, and their nose to their bosses ass.
The only way to assure yourself of safe, healthy, quality food is to rely on yourself, and individuals you can trust. The government’s pie in the sky promises won’t help one bit. In fact, the harder the government seems to try the worse it gets. That’s what happens when investigating agencies are in the pockets of the worst offenders. The time to act is now before it gets any later. The time to secure the food system is now, without the aide of the enemy. The time has come for individuals and communities to support the farmers among them who have the same values and are willing to stand up for them. If you think food is expensive now–and I’m talking about the cheap, supermarket crap–then just wait until it has been monopolized. Wait until even more than 60% of it is imported because there are no farmers left in the US to supply our needs. We either foment the change now at the grassroots level or suffer the soup lines and hunger which will follow. Don’t be speechless, dumb stuck, silent. Shout, scream, and be heard.
Technorati Tags: NAIS, national animal identification, hr 1105, farming, livestock tagging, NONAIS, USDA, FDA, agriculture, boycott, protest, starvation
- Bank collapses, a teetering stock market, spiraling credit card troubles, but to name a few.
- Bangs, Scrapie, TB–all of which have worked well for decades and are proven and established schemes without the need for databases and technology. Not to mention the USDA’s refusal to implement a Mad Cow–BSE–monitoring, testing, eradicating scheme. . .
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