photo credit: woodleywonderworks
Government Seems to Have a Deaf Ear to Farmers, Citizens
The USDA listening sessions on their animal ID system, NAIS, have been overwhelmingly filled with people making comments AGAINST any form of mandatory NAIS.
Mike Murphy, a grass based farmer in Michigan asks that farmers and other citizens continue contacting everyone you can about this, we are at a tipping point. Ask the USDA if they are really listening.
Here is an unbelievable account of the first listening session in Pennsylvania, where despite overwhelming opposition, the government officials ask protestors to put aside their concerns and work toward implementing their onerous regulations. Helloooo is anyone upstairs in those bureaucratic brains??
If you haven’t already signed the online petition against NAIS, please do so here. And, please tell everyone you know about this, the mainstream media has yet to even cover this issue to any degree. Apparently, farmers just don’t count. Unless consumers start whooping and hollering, they may never consider this a “story”. Libertarians, Republicans, Liberals, all should have concerns about this incredible invasion of privacy and creeping Big Brotherism.
Here is the only news story on Business Wire about the NAIS Listening Sessions . I found this in a search with AOL’s browser.
- Only Consumers Can Stop NAIS
This post is part of the Fight Back Fridays blog carnival , visit foodrenegade.com for more ways to fight for a more democratic food system.
Love your blog, by the way. What a great, centralized resource for all real food and local farm info.
4 Comments
I love that photo you chose. Sad how little coverage this is getting. Thank you for posting this — people need to know about NAIS!
CHEESESLAVE’s last blog post..Movie Review – FRESH: The Movie by Ana Sofia Joanes
Thanks for posting this! Here is my contribution from earlier this month on Agriculture Society’s Health Tip of the Day for this subject…
http://astotd.blogspot.com/2009/05/protect-rights-of-consumers-and-farmers_05.html
Raine Saunders’s last blog post..Embrace and Perfect Your Home-Keeping Skills
It seems to me that most of the bureaucratic brains don’t care what we think and care more about what corporations like Monsanto think (they are the only ones who will benefit).
The idea that NAIS is intended for our safety is comical. It sounds like a page taken directly from the book of allopathic medicine and the strangle hold that the drug industry has on it.
The thought of the government ordering organic farmers to spray their fields or treat their livestock because of a nearby outbreak is infuriating to me. And of course, that only applies to the organic farmers who would be able to get past the overhead and technology costs of implementing NAIS. It deprives us of a fundamental choice to choose healthy food!
Vin | NaturalBias.com’s last blog post..The Hypocrisy of Mandatory Chemotherapy
What bothers me is how long this has been dragged out. I remember when I first heard about NAIS. It was ten years ago! These companies must be really lobbying hard for this for so long for a reason, and that says more than any of their rhetoric.
Thanks for contributing this to today’s Fight Back Fridays carnival. I stumbled it in the hopes of spreading the word.
Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade)
FoodRenegade’s last blog post..The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved By Sandor Ellix Katz