This is interesting, because I heard a segment on NPR this afternoon which told me that all critter-ID plans were voluntary and thus virtually useless for tracking coos and other livestock.  And that FDA and Dept of Ag had no intention of making the program mandatory.

Who’s right, I wonder?

It’s currently a voluntary registration. It’s part of the transition from voluntary to mandatory. The registration and tracking of animals becomes mandatory in January 2009. At least according to the Strategic Plan (pdf)(pg 10) posted on the USDA web site.

I’ve heard interviews with a couple of USDA people, too, and they’ve been pretty cagey about it, apparently not wanting to admit that this is going to be a mandatory thing. One was nailed down and had to finally answer the question and he conceded that yes, it was going to be mandatory after the voluntary phase has been in place for a couple of years. Creeps.

If they wanted to battle terrorism, maybe they should have the owners implant self-destructive devices in their animals and pets. If that ain’t ridiculous, I don’t know what is.

In times of bird flu it should be quite obvious that mandatory registration (and then tracking) is pointless.

But then again, many things the US government has been doing lately is pointless*. There is a pattern here.

Unfortunately, apathy, as you have described above, is the biggest ally of governments trying to infringe on rights. I’m an avid Internet “surfer” and this was the first time I really took note of this topic, meaning that your “call to arms” is one that should be spread faster and more widely.

*Just to avoid a flame war: my government isn’t doing things any better ....

I’ve been aware of Monsanto for quite a while now. They have what amounts to a near monopoly on genetically modified (GM) corn produced and sold in this country, which is also foisted off on other countries through the WTO and trade pacts/treaties. And in this country, non-GM corn is increasingly difficult for farmers to plant. Goodbye biodiversity and seed saving.

Monsanto has absurd and obscene rules to protect their patents on the corn. Most of us who have grown a garden of any kind know that cross-pollinating occurs naturally and there’s nothin’ you can do about it. The wind blows, pollen travels. Despite that, Monsanto has won numerous court awards (and a number of out of court settlements) from farmers who had some of the GM corn genes show up in other corn crops.

Monsanto goes to enormous lengths to test farmers’ fields. Aggressively. Cross pollination is a violation of Monsanto’s patent and they win. It’s devastating for farmers.

Monsanto doesn’t sell their seed, they “lease” it. Farmers get the right to plant that seed once. They are not permitted to save seed from one crop to plant the following year. And if cross-pollinating occurs, it’s too bad for the farmer. They are responsible for the consequences of cross-pollination.

The conclusion to draw is that if the farmer wasn’t planting non-GM corn, then cross-pollination wouldn’t be a problem, now would it? It’s a wicked racket and has hurt/bankrupted many farmers.

Why? Striving for a monopoly? Kill competition? Trying to put smaller producers out of business so that the land can be subsumed into corporate owned mega-farms? That’s what seems to happen, anyway.

When I was growing up in New York state, it was one of the dairy capitals of the northeast. Small family farms who produced a lot of milk that people drank under a couple of different labels from regionally owned and operated creameries. They had the Dairyman’s League to help negotiate fair prices. Then pressure was applied and the creameries were bought out by huge corporations which ended up lowering profits to farmers. Local management personnel were let go and replaced with corporate employees.

Further, two *huge* corporate dairy farms set up shop in my area (with imported cows, fer crying out loud!) and within a few years they managed to put many of the smaller family farms out of business. Small producers just can’t compete with the corporate money or price wars that huge corporate owned farms wage. And it was a war. That was the single largest change in my community and a generations-old community cohesiveness in over a hundred years. It was an agrarian society that was turned on its head in a few short years with no time for an evolution or transition to anything else.

As the family farms went out of business, the corporate farm businesses snapped up the smaller farms and property and added them to their conglomerates. Those they didn’t deem profitable were let go to ruin. The corporate farms added no value to the community and their profits were funneled out. Same with the creameries. The smaller ones were closed and only one massively large one served the area. The area was badly hurt economically. It was awful. I’ve hated these huge farm conglomerates with a white hot passion ever since.

Now anyone who owns animals designated “farm animals” is under the gun. This program won’t help a lick with bird flu or terrorism. It’s pretty questionable whether it would even help much with BSE. There are already procedures in place for tracking animals and, so far, the cows diagnosed with BSE have been tracked without a problem.

This new program is a boon for someone. The mega-corporate Beef and Pork industries, Monsanto and Cargill, to name four. They’re all behind this National ID program. Benefits certainly don’t fall to the small farmer, homesteader, or pet owner.

Point of interest—I spent considerable time reading through Cargill‘s website last night. Their tentacles reach deeply into Crops and Livestock, Food Processing and distribution, Pharmaceuticals, Industrial applications for Agricultural products, and Financial and Risk Management. They control a lot of stuff and what they’re putting into our food is shocking. To me, anyway. I didn’t have half an idea what they’re up to. But they, too, are real cozy with the USDA.

These are not the people I want controlling my food. Just about everything we eat has been genetically tampered with in some way (including corporate livestock), thanks to these kinds of corporations and their products and processes and financial power.

It’s all about money, in the end. As always, follow the money.

I’m sorry....was that a rant? Yes, I believe it was.

Good evening, Kate.

This is news to me, and I try to keep track of as much as I possibly can. This matter concerns me on several levels. In one respect, this constitutes another example of the government having no compelling interest in private property but nonetheless insisting upon a means of interfering with that property.

On another, more historic level, it strikes me as a vague reversion to the Medieval European configuration between the nobility and those who lived on “their” manors: all that the villeins ("serfs") presumed to own was at the disposition of the incumbent lord, who would generally assess the inventory of those under him with great precision so that he would know exactly what of theirs was his cut. This system of high-accuracy accounting was carried on clear up to the level of the monarch: the several censuses in England—notably the Domesday Book—were principally a means by which the crown could determine what, by the sovereign nature of his claim, in the lands of England he could rightfully claim from everyone beneath him.

This NAIS has its foundations in the same ancient idea: the sovereign has a claim over the property of his (or its) citizens, and any means may be carried out to ensure that the exact nature and amount of that claim is forthcoming.

Technology of the modern world might make the assessment easier for the current sovereign, but it makes it no less repugnant.

The Dark Wraith thanks you for highlighting this encroachment upon an ever-shrinking sphere of privacy in this country.

Good morning, Dark Wraith.

Yes, the words serf and feudal have circulated within the farming community lately.

Noted, also, that the term national herd is being promoted by the government, which gives people the uncomfortable sense that their animals don’t really belong to them anymore. They are merely the caretakers with ultimate control belonging to someone else.

It’s a rather schizophrenic policy for a government that gives so much lip service to the ideals of a “private ownership society.”

It’s not a good sign of things to come.

HELLO,I notice theres not been much said here as of late but I think I’ll comment anyhow. About 232 years ago a group of great people came together to form a new kind of nation,one that believed in the value of people and partitcularly the individual.They built a gov’t founded on the permission of the common people,and formed an aggreement between the several states which became the Federal gov’t these states did NOT sede their sovereign right s away to the fed.they explicitly retained them in a constitution and a bill of rights. About 145 years ago the Confederacy was formed in the south by states who had had enough of the federal gov’t meddling in their affairs(and no, slavery was not the main issue)these states were then subjected to war and all the hell that goes with it,then when they were broken the UNION./federal gov’t said that the constitution was void in the area of states rights, this was untrue for as soon as the feds broke the agreement ( The Constitution ) the states/people were free to rearrange the union BUT the feds saw to it through a hellish program called Reconsruction , that states would never again try to call on their sovereignty and defy the federals,Look at us now ,states are little more than district offices of the federal gov’t and its cronie departments We the people are servents in our own house, the gov’t has moved over the last 100 years to eliminate the rights enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,freedom of speech,freedom of expression,freedom of the press freedom to carry a gun,to own property to keep what you earn, to associate with whom you choose ECT,ECT,ECT!!! We have lost our Liberty to be free and soon we may not have anything left,to defend;We are a representative republic that has degenerated into a democracy and is becoming a facist police state,and no,I am not a conspiracy minded person I am a student of the Constitution and of history and one must only open their eyes to what is going on around us to see this is where we are, I have been fighting the NAIS for about 7 months and I am appalled at how apethetic and lazy some of our citizens have become,BUT I see another group who have hearts of steel who have looked around and said “NO MORE”! we will not take anymore out of a gov’t that has broken trust with its people,we will resist you! The federals in their arrogance have decided that the common people have no say,but I think they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction,and another group of rebels in the spirit of ‘76 an ‘61 are going to shake this nation to the core and this time the federals are going to be the subjects of “Reconstuction” and this nation will experience a rebirth of liberty that will carry us forward to a bright and glorious future where “We the people” are once again in charge of our lives and our nation,but this won’t happen by us sitting back and waiting for something/someone to rescue us We must stand up as individuals and be counted,speak out,vote for new blood in our gov’t(ie Constitution Party) and folks who have shown their loyalty to The People in the past,we must do all we can using the means we have and then if things don’t change we must rise up and revamp our gov’t as the Constitition says we have a right to!

Some of you will remember the rash of small litters, abortions and still borns in the canine group, some years ago,it was investigated by the American Kennel Club (AKC).
They found the culprit to be rubber stabilizer( for animals ?????) called Ethoxyquine used as a preservative in Purina Feeds, it was also present in horse feeds; I had become a distributor for a chemical and preservative free company for multi species, and had an occassion to read labels on sacks of feed that a woman had , because she could not get her mares settled.
I went into an uproar and started calling different labs and UC Davis, I was assured that adequate testing had been done to allow the addition of the Ethoxyquine, that was not good enough for me and I went round and round thru different agencies, to my surprise and horror the end of the road was right back to Montsano, they had done all of their own testing on this extremey toxic material, and allowed it to be used.
It is also known that many of Montsanos technicians are in the Government labs, does that tell you anything!
Read on, it is absolutely amazing!

Ethoxyquine (code e 324), is the most terrible of all. It is a rubber stabilizer, a pesticide that is used for the fight against vermin and weeds (therefore a pesticide and no antioxidant), which can be used at the production of cattle -, dogs - and cat fodder. Research has determined that Ethoxyquine has toxic side effects. Liver - and kidney functions can be disturbed.
Ethoxyquine has been absolutely prohibited for human use.

It is also indicated, that the intestinal microbes are seriously damaged and strongly reduced. Because of this the balance in the bowel flora is disturbed, resulting in a fur dry and fragile. Moreover the fur looks dry, loses its sheen and its possible that your pet loses its hair. The skin becomes scaly and looks like scabies. The fur doesn’t come back and the skin can develop as a so-called elephant skin.
There is information concerning liver cancer, thyroid gland cancer and kidney function trouble related with Ethoxyquine.

At the same time it seems that most of the fodders contain the chemical antioxidants BHA and BHT:
I find also that the end results of any feed, human or animal does not have to list anything they themselves do not put into the end result....so does that mean that someone before it gets to Purina can hide it for Purina.....that is our government wanting to protect us FROM WHAT?????

which can be used in the production