The Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, has been holding “listening sessions” in rural communities throughout the country. He has visited with industry representatives in Missouri, Colorado, and Pennsylvania to name a few. But, curiously enough, the good Secretary didn’t come anywhere near Wisconsin. You would think he’d want to visit the first state to make compliance with the NAIS mandatory; wouldn’t you? It seems Secretary Vilsack is afraid to get in the ring in Wisconsin. Not surprising. I’m pretty sure that any “listening session” here would quickly turn into a cage match, with Vislsack and crew soundly outnumbered and defenseless against the public pummeling they’d receive.

Wisconsin’s family farmers and small-scale producers have not gone quietly into the abyss of bureaucracy; they drug us by the hair, kicking and screaming. Organizations like Family Farm Defenders and the Weston A. Price Foundation, have made tremendous efforts to keep the pressure on Madison while keeping family farmers across the nation informed.

So what did Tom Vilsack “hear” on his “listening” tour? Pretty much the same old kissing up from government-funded agencies, all of whom are more concerned with keeping their cushy offices jobs than helping farmers. Of course, corporate agriculture is well-represented at these “listening sessions.” Afterall, theses so-called listening sessions are really nothing more than a public relations tour where big industry and big government get to parade around as champions of the people.

One group representing citizen-based agriculture tried to get in the ring. R-CALF USA, a group that advocates for American cattle producers offered a comprehensive, yet simple plan for controlling the threat of livestock diseases. The basics of the plan call for common sense measure that would prove effective in both cost and outcome:

1. Adopt the surveillance and identification components of the preexisting brucellosis program, including the metal eartag and tattoo that identifies the state-of-origin and the local veterinarian who applied the identification devices, and require breeding stock not otherwise identified through breed registries to be identified at the first point of ownership transfer.
2. State and Tribal animal health officials should be solely responsible for maintaining a statewide database for all metal tags applied within their respective jurisdictions and should continue to use the mailing address and/or the production unit identifier determined appropriate by the attending veterinarian to achieve traceback to the herd of origin should a disease event occur. Under no circumstances should the Federal government maintain a national registry of U.S. livestock or require the national registration of producers’ real property.
3. The federal government should enter into agreements with State and Tribal animal health officials to pay for the States’ and Tribal governments’ costs of identifying breeding stock and maintaining the State and Tribal databases, as well as bolstering disease surveillance at livestock collection points such as livestock auction yards and slaughtering plants, including increased surveillance for BSE.
4. The federal government should coordinate with the States and Tribes to establish electronic interface standards and to establish improved communication protocols so it can more effectively coordinate with the States and Tribes in the event of a disease outbreak.
5. The federal government should coordinate with the States and Tribes to establish improved protocols for the retention and searchability of State and Tribal health certificates, brand inspection documents and other documents used to facilitate interstate movement of livestock.
6. Establish specific disease programs and focus increased resources toward the eradication of diseased wildlife in States where wildlife populations are known to harbor communicable diseases. R-CALF USA’s plan also includes measures to bolster the U.S.’s resistance to the introduction of foreign animal diseases and to improve food safety.
7. Prevent the importation of serious cattle diseases and pests from foreign sources by:
   1. Prohibiting the importation of livestock from any country that experiences outbreaks of serious diseases.
   2. Requiring all imported livestock to be permanently identified.
   3. Requiring all livestock imported into the United States to meet health and safety standards identical to those
      established for the United States.
   4. Requiring TB testing and quarantine of all imported Mexican cattle.
   5. Reversing USDA’s efforts to carve out regions within disease-affected foreign countries in order to facilitate imports from the affected country before the disease of concern is fully controlled or eradicated.
   6. Increasing the testing of all imported meat and bone meal to prohibit contaminated feed from entering the United States.
8. To address the challenge of increased incidences of tainted meat products, Congress and USDA must substantially reform the current hands-off inspection system known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). HACCP has fundamentally failed to ensure adequate sanitary practices at major slaughterhouse establishments.Read the whole proposal here>>>

While the Secretary and industry hacks visit, and family farm advocates struggle to stay in the ring, there is another, inexpensive, time-tested solution that the USDA team is overlooking. I’ll discuss it in depth in the next post. For now, suffice it to say that there is a way to force the NAIS crowd into a cage match with no way out.

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It’s 2:25 on Tuesday, February 17th. I just finished listening to the President talk about how Smart Grid was going to help America with our energy needs and combat climate change. The crowd went wild. I sat silently, staring in disbelief. You see, I was hoping that what I found on page 72 of the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” was one of those things that got in because no one had time to read the thing. Apparently not. Smart Grid is on its way. So what is Smart Grid? It’s part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), the last piece of the puzzle.

Smart Grid

Smart Grid is part of a global initiative to manage information, all information. This is not some dire fictional prediction; it exists right now, right here in the United States, and thanks to President Obama, the Secretary of the Treasury has been ordered to lend the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), a division of the Department of Energy, $3.25 billion to implement Smart Grid:

(B) the Secretary shall, without further
appropriation and ‘without fiscal year limitation, loan to the Western Area Power Administration, on such terms as may be fixed by the Administrator and the Secretary, such sums (not to exceed, in the aggregate (including deferred interest),$3,250,000,000-in outstanding repayable balances at anyone time) as, in the judgment of the Administrator, are from time to time required for the purpose of [...] In carrying out the initiative, the Secretary shall provide financial support to smart grid demonstration projects in urban, suburban, tribal, and rural areas, including areas where electric system assets are controlled by nonprofit entities and areas where
electric system assets are controlled by investor- owned utilities.

Supposedly, Smart Grid is about energy efficiency and climate change. The Nation’s energy grid needs to be updated, and using the latest technology will make the new grid more efficient, and smart. The intelligent power grid gathers information about individual energy use via sensors embedded in the Smart Grid transmission lines that will be installed in homes and businesses. The government, via WAPA, will know what temperature you keep your home or business at. If you keep your domicile warmer or cooler than the temperature approved by the federal government, you pay more. To some, this is an acceptable arrangement, until they discover what else Smart Grid can do.

Can you see me now?

According to IBM, one of the two corporations which will receive most of the money (the other is GE),

The world is becoming instrumented. By 2010, there will be a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent.

The world is becoming interconnected. With a trillion networked things—cars, roadways, pipelines, appliances, pharmaceuticals and even livestock—the amount of information created by those interactions grows exponentially.

All things are becoming intelligent. Algorithms and powerful systems can analyze and turn those mountains of data into actual decisions and actions that make the world work better. Smarter.

Did you catch that? Smart Grid will allow the government to collect information about you, your habits, and possessions. How you drive; where you go; how many people are in the vehicle, as well as what medicines you are taking will be stored in a database. All they need are a few sensors to know what is in your refrigerator; how long you spend in the bathroom; if you smoke in your home; if you drink alcohol in your home; and how many people are in your home or business at any one time.

Smart Grid will also make implementation of the NAIS much simpler. Once the RFID device has been implanted in the animal, the Smart Grid that runs into your property will be able to read the device and store that information in the Government’s database. But wait; just like a bad infomercial, there’s more.

IBM claims Smart Grid is intelligent. Once it has determined how many animals are on your farm, the system will be able to scan the database to see if the proper amount of feed (established by the USDA) has been purchased. If you grow your own feed, this information will be recorded by the system’s barcode reader when you purchase your seed. Plan on saving your own seed? Don’t bet on it. It’s already becoming harder to do, and in some countries is completely illegal. In the very near future, thanks to Smart Grid, if you own animals but don’t purchase feed or seed, the USDA will know, and they’re not the only ones. No doubt this intelligent grid will also be programmed to be compassionate. How long do you think it would take the electronic babysitter to notify the Humane Society, PETA, and a myriad of other actvist non-profits that you aren’t “properly” caring for your animals? Sounds very Orwellian doesn’t it? But make no mistake about it; this is happening; it’s one of the major goals of the stimulus bill.

Now what?

Well, believe it or not, all is not lost. While we may not be able to stop the stimulus bill, we can put a few obstacles in front of the NAIS crowd. One of them is money. The geniuses have already botched the process so bad that they want to start over, but they’re out of money. They are asking for more. Many of you have seen the e-mail alerts asking you to comment on the NAIS. While this is an admirable effort, it misses the mark. You see, the comments are being accepted about the funding, not the implementation. Comments that simply protest the program on other grounds are completely irrelevant. However, comments that chip away at the fiscal concerns, will be given weight. This is where opponents can make a major dent. While many urban and suburban people don’t understand all the principled resistance to NAIS, they’ll sure understand that the fools at the USDA squandered millions of taxpayer dollars. We need to stress this part to them.

Call your elected officials. Tell them that the USDA has already wasted enough of taxpayer money on a system that is poorly designed and managed. Tell everyone who will listen about the blundering USDA and how they wasted millions of dollars and now want more. Demand an end to Smart Grid. We can update the power grid without intruding on privacy.

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The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) has stirred up a hornet’s nest of problems for the USDA. Opposition to the program has been widespread. Citing the abject failure of a similar program in Australiaas well as the cost to small farmers, and voicing concerns about individual property rights, opponents have demanded the program be abolished.

On the other hand, the USDA claims it needs to be able to move fast in case of an outbreak of disease. It sure sounds fine and good, until you consider that we are in the middle of an epidemic on American dairy farms, and the USDA hasn’t moved at all to stop it.

Sixty-eight percent of all dairy cows in America are infected with an always fatal disease called Johne’s (pronounced yo knees). In 2004 the USDA estimated the infection rate to be at 20%. Today, 68% of the nation’s milk is infected with Johne’s, a three-fold increase in only four years, but the USDA doesn’t feel the need to mandate an eradication program. Why? Because the majority of infections are on factory farms, nearly every confined dairy animal is infected; it would be expensive for confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to replace every infected animal. But that’s okay, because they don’t have to. The USDA is fine with this epidemic, and refuses any serious at dialogue about the subject.

So, if the USDA is aware of the Johne’s epidemic, why aren’t they focusing their efforts in that direction? If you think it’s because Johne’s doesn’t affect humans, think again. Crohn’s Disease, virtually unheard of in 1940, was on the rise by 1950, about the same time as the concept of factory farming showed up on the scene. Today, a generation later, up to two million Americans and even more Canadians are infected. Most cases of Crohn’s Disease are diagnosed in children, who will suffer a life of physical misery because of the debilitating symptoms for which there are treatments, but no cures. (more…)