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What/who is Stop Animal ID.org??????
- Thread starter mrj
- Start date
MRJ said:Have any of these "liars" prosecuted for or been convictedof any of your charges, or are you going on the 'assumption of guilt until proven innocent' basis?
MRJ
You really should read the OIG report.
MRJ said:Have any of these "liars" prosecuted for or been convictedof any of your charges, or are you going on the 'assumption of guilt until proven innocent' basis?
MRJ
MRJ, I didn't ask for your stamp nor need it. If you want to remain dumb about what is going on in the USDA that the reports bring out, that is your problem. That is probably why you don't need to be in any leadership position in the beef industry. You seem to live in packer reality. Times are changing with or without your analysis.
PORKER
Well-known member
So TALK IS CHEAPO SH,January 2006
Over the past several months the USDA Inspector General has delivered scathing reports on USDA implementation of bio-tech security protocols, BSE testing regimens, Canadian beef import oversight and plant inspection, mandatory price reporting and Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) Act enforcement. Those of us outside the Washington Beltway know USDA shortcomings without an official review, but the USDA only feints listening to public feedback, hearing what it wants to hear with its ear tuned into corporate agriculture.
In fact, the USDA is staffed by corporate agriculture, which doesn't have a public service orientation. They believe what's good for corporate agriculture is the mission of the USDA. This is a change in USDA character that has been developing for some time but has accelerated it's consumption of the agency's body and soul under the current administration. Do you believe it's in the best interest of the country for the military industrial complex to run the Pentagon, setting military doctrine, protocol, and policy? Of course not.
But that's what has happened at the USDA. The corporate ag industrial complex that the USDA supposedly regulates: bio-tech companies, meat packers and processors, multi-national commercial grain companies, own the USDA. Ag Sec Mike Johanns is a mere figurehead, a mouthpiece. Corporate agriculture runs the USDA with White House authority. The only independent entity of USDA not compromised by corporate agriculture's control is the Inspector General (IG). Without independent oversight, corporate ag industry's hold on the USDA has been spliced into its DNA. Call me a pessimist but I believe there is more chance of corporate ag ultimately compromising the USDA Inspector General's office than there is of the people's agency being returned to the people.
The corporate ag industrial complex has acquired many key centers of power and key players, including congressional committee chairmanships, so that legislation passed in the public interest such as COOL, Mandatory Price Reporting or Packer & Stockyards statutes cannot be implemented as intended. Corporate ag industry has with sophistication, effectively destroyed legislation by control gained over the rules making process so that laws are not enforced or implemented as intended. Special interests have gone so far as to provide the USDA with assistance with legal council to circumvent implementation. They effectively neutered mandatory price reporting so that little real market transparency is being revealed. Packers successfully defined "markets" as proprietary information so where there is the least competition regionally, there is virtually no transparency as the result of rules allowing price reporting omissions. Sweetheart deals are still secrets. Their ability to manipulate data is part of the formula in formula-priced livestock purchases.
Packers fought Mandatory Price Reporting from becoming law. Unsuccessful in stopping Congress, they formed a second line of defense using their influence in the USDA rules making process to cloak the most sensitive valuable market information behind a procedural bureaucratic wall. So successful were they in doing that, now when the mandatory price reporting law came up for reauthorization, the corporate ag industry, packers and processors now support the law how they have fashioned it, pushing for immediate reauthorization to stop congressional changes that would threaten the system they have so painstakingly crafted into place. IA Senator's Grassley and Harkin, knowing what packers have done at the USDA relative to mandatory price reporting, both worked to delay 5-year reauthorization pending a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of the law as reauthorization would make it much more difficult to change.
One might think that producer groups like the NCBA - NPPC would favor reform but these groups have been compromised in the same manner as the USDA, having become captured, described by Senator Grassley as 'packer lackeys.' Rarely do these groups or USDA policy ever conflict with corporate ag industry dictates nor do they represent producer interests. NCBA and NPPC describe themselves as industry representatives, not producer groups. The corporate ag industrial complex made the decision not to allow privatization of testing so beef from BSE tested animals could be sold for export to Japan. The USDA executed their order helping major beef packers protect the consolidation and concentration of their industry from competition from smaller technologically adept packers who requested USDA testing authorization to fill orders for Japanese customers.
Another agency watchdog, the GAO, as yet uncompromised by the corporate ag industry or political capture, issued the following report: "GAO observed lengthy lag times by USDA in correcting problems when packers failed to report or provided incorrect information. GAO evaluated 844 audits and found that packer incorrectly reported or failed to report required information 64% of the time. It took 85 days to ensure that a packer made needed corrections. Coordination between AMS and the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, (GIPSA) has been limited, hindering GIPSA's ability to monitor and correct trends of anti-competitive behavior that could negative affect price reports. Since the enactment of the reporting program in1999, the USDA has yet to collect any penalties from packers for violations of program requirements, even for longstanding violations. Packers are not consistently and reliably reporting data to USDA within deadlines specified by the mandatory price reporting act. When USDA audits reveal violations of the price reporting act, the USDA has not been providing this information to the public, which undermines the overall transparency of the program."
"Randy Stevenson, OCM Vice-President, said one of the most problematic findings in the GAO report, beyond the USDA's obvious failures in enforcing the law, is the lack of information exchange between GIPSA and AMS. 'This situation is a bit like putting Matt Dillon on Festus Hagin's mule and sending him out to patrol Interstate 40 through Kansas for speeders. It is unacceptable for the information gathering arm of the program not to communicate violations of the law with the enforcing agency. Similar findings were published in a GAO report on GIPSA about six years, and have remained unattended. 'Price information must be complete, accurate and timely to be of any value to buyers and sellers,' noted Stevenson." Senators Grassley and Harkin plan to make changes to the law that corporate ag industry can not circumvent via the rules making process. That's why corporate interests want the law reauthorized as is.
Both Mandatory Price Reporting and Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) laws were passed as concessions in order to appease groups and lawmakers who were pushing to enact a ban on packer ownership of livestock. In fact, COOL was traded as part of the Farm Bill so that Senators would drop a packer livestock ownership ban passed by the U.S. Senate as part of the bill in conference committee. Corporate ag interests could not stop COOL from being legislated but they have been successful in seeing to it that it was never implemented. The corporate ag industrial complex used its influence in USDA to write COOL rules in the most intrusive, convoluted ugly way possible with the objective of undermining support for implementation.
As ardor to implement COOL under such rules faded, they effectively sabotaged COOL. It was brilliant strategy brilliantly executed only because they had control of USDA so had control of the process. Next they used their political Congressional henchmen to finish COOL off. Texas congressman Bonilla is to corporate ag industry what Tom Delay was to Abramoff, their political sugar daddy. You can follow large sums of campaign contributions from the corporate ag industrial complex right into Bonilla's campaign fund. Bonilla's payback is to kill COOL.
Let's review: Congress writes laws, Mandatory Price Reporting/COOL, then USDA rules making, controlled by corporate ag industry sabotages implementation to weaken public support so that key congressmen paid in campaign contributions can exploit that weakness to kill the legislation via sophisticated maneuvers and manipulation. It's developed into a system whereby government of, for and by the people has been circumvented/replaced with government captured by special interests. The GAO report raised suspicions about GIPSA failing to follow through on mandatory price reporting, therein, prompting a much more extensive review by the USDA's Inspector General of GIPSA Packer's and Stockyards Act enforcement.
We all know out here in the hinterlands of agriculture that GIPSA ceased to function some time ago. Its pulseless, cold, dead body has been lifeless for a long time. It's sort of like that New York subway rider discovered recently who spent hours on the train after having expired. When someone finally checked, they declared he was dead. GIPSA had been dead for a long time before the USDA Inspector General checked its pulse. It certainly didn't surprise us that they found none. The corporate ag industrial complex went to a lot of trouble to make GIPSA look alive so no one would suspect. GIPSA is owned lock, stock and pork barrel by the industry, packers and stockyards, it was intended to regulate. Carefully selected individuals were appointed to positions within and above GIPSA with a clear and express mandate to smother anything resembling a breath coming from the agency. The IG's reports exposed complete agency capture.
The Associated Press abbreviated the IG reports finding saying, "The Agriculture Department has pretended to investigate anticompetitive behavior among stockyard and meat companies since 1999 but in hundreds of cases didn't actually file complaints, a department audit found. Employees created the appearance of a high rate of enforcement by logging routine letter and reviews of public data as investigations, according to a report Wednesday by the agency's inspector general. Competition and complex investigations were not being performed and timely action was not being taken, the inspector general found. In fact, one regional office was reprimanded last year because it didn't count routine correspondence as an investigation. The reprimand came from deputy administrator JoAnn Waterfield, who quit abruptly last month without giving a reason. The report shows that USDA officials were 'blocking employees from pursuing investigations and then cooking the books to cover up the agency's lack of enforcement action.'"
Was GIPSA working? Absolutely. It was being run exactly how corporate ag industry wanted it run. They put key people in place fully intending that they sit on investigations, squelching enforcement of P & S statutes. There was a plan with intent coming together. There is a revolving door between USDA and corporate ag industry no different than what went on between defense contractors, generals, and the Pentagon before scandal separated the military defense industry from government. No similar housecleaning has been done yet at the USDA. NCBA and Swift and company lobbyist Chandler Keys, a card carrying corporate ag industrial complex member, was just recently appointed to a high level USDA post. He and a score of others like him have been put there as part of the corporate ag industry USDA capture.
The beginnings of agency capture by the corporate ag industrial complex was evident before the Clinton administration, but really came into it's own with control of the power centers of government at the USDA and Congress under George W. and Republican majority. It's not entirely partisan however, Bonilla is a Democrat. Corporate agriculture in buying control, will ignore political affiliation. The general environment to allow them access, broadened under this administration, removing constraints, facilitating their control. "According to the report, top officials at GIPSA had failed for the past five years or more to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act and had created an environment that stymied investigations and even punished employees who pursued cases without proper authority from the highest officials within GIPSA. The agency also inflated its investigation numbers in reports to Congress. Mike Stumo, the General Counsel for the Organization for Competitive Markets, said good employees at GIPSA either retired or transferred to other agencies within the USDA because of their frustrations with leadership in the Packer's and Stockyards programs. The home office obstructed them from doing investigations. They obstructed everyone who was trying to do any sort of semblance of their jobs."
The IG's audit "singled out deputy administrator JoAnn Waterfield, saying she was holding up 50 investigations as of last August. The report also said she reprimanded staff for not classifying letters asking companies for information as investigations. Waterfield quit abruptly last month after spending about 14 years at the Agriculture Department."
"But she has left and that gives us the opportunity to declare a new day and fix the problems," Mike Johanns said.
I don't believe that's what is going to happen. The corporate ag industry running the USDA will not allow anything new under the sun at the USDA as long as they can stop it. It's gone to a great deal of expense and trouble to position the sun right where it wants it to maintain control.
The embarrassing GAO and IG investigations are what have to be stopped and they will use every bit of political influence they have to accomplish it. The corporate ag industry that runs the USDA will circumvent any real change and do everything it can to retain control of government by shooting the watchdogs. They've got Congress and the USDA in their control. The only threat to them is the IG who also exposed incompetent USDA handling of BSE, trade and bio-tech protocols. Viewed individually each instance of USDA capture might escape notice. To someone, however, whose been positioned, like myself, to be able to gain the perspective overview over a lengthy period of time, the individual events are all interconnected pieces of a now fully assembled puzzle that puts together a clear picture of corporate ag industry's capture of the USDA and ag policy.
"GIPSA is corupt Period............Plus the people that work there>>>>>"
Over the past several months the USDA Inspector General has delivered scathing reports on USDA implementation of bio-tech security protocols, BSE testing regimens, Canadian beef import oversight and plant inspection, mandatory price reporting and Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) Act enforcement. Those of us outside the Washington Beltway know USDA shortcomings without an official review, but the USDA only feints listening to public feedback, hearing what it wants to hear with its ear tuned into corporate agriculture.
In fact, the USDA is staffed by corporate agriculture, which doesn't have a public service orientation. They believe what's good for corporate agriculture is the mission of the USDA. This is a change in USDA character that has been developing for some time but has accelerated it's consumption of the agency's body and soul under the current administration. Do you believe it's in the best interest of the country for the military industrial complex to run the Pentagon, setting military doctrine, protocol, and policy? Of course not.
But that's what has happened at the USDA. The corporate ag industrial complex that the USDA supposedly regulates: bio-tech companies, meat packers and processors, multi-national commercial grain companies, own the USDA. Ag Sec Mike Johanns is a mere figurehead, a mouthpiece. Corporate agriculture runs the USDA with White House authority. The only independent entity of USDA not compromised by corporate agriculture's control is the Inspector General (IG). Without independent oversight, corporate ag industry's hold on the USDA has been spliced into its DNA. Call me a pessimist but I believe there is more chance of corporate ag ultimately compromising the USDA Inspector General's office than there is of the people's agency being returned to the people.
The corporate ag industrial complex has acquired many key centers of power and key players, including congressional committee chairmanships, so that legislation passed in the public interest such as COOL, Mandatory Price Reporting or Packer & Stockyards statutes cannot be implemented as intended. Corporate ag industry has with sophistication, effectively destroyed legislation by control gained over the rules making process so that laws are not enforced or implemented as intended. Special interests have gone so far as to provide the USDA with assistance with legal council to circumvent implementation. They effectively neutered mandatory price reporting so that little real market transparency is being revealed. Packers successfully defined "markets" as proprietary information so where there is the least competition regionally, there is virtually no transparency as the result of rules allowing price reporting omissions. Sweetheart deals are still secrets. Their ability to manipulate data is part of the formula in formula-priced livestock purchases.
Packers fought Mandatory Price Reporting from becoming law. Unsuccessful in stopping Congress, they formed a second line of defense using their influence in the USDA rules making process to cloak the most sensitive valuable market information behind a procedural bureaucratic wall. So successful were they in doing that, now when the mandatory price reporting law came up for reauthorization, the corporate ag industry, packers and processors now support the law how they have fashioned it, pushing for immediate reauthorization to stop congressional changes that would threaten the system they have so painstakingly crafted into place. IA Senator's Grassley and Harkin, knowing what packers have done at the USDA relative to mandatory price reporting, both worked to delay 5-year reauthorization pending a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of the law as reauthorization would make it much more difficult to change.
One might think that producer groups like the NCBA - NPPC would favor reform but these groups have been compromised in the same manner as the USDA, having become captured, described by Senator Grassley as 'packer lackeys.' Rarely do these groups or USDA policy ever conflict with corporate ag industry dictates nor do they represent producer interests. NCBA and NPPC describe themselves as industry representatives, not producer groups. The corporate ag industrial complex made the decision not to allow privatization of testing so beef from BSE tested animals could be sold for export to Japan. The USDA executed their order helping major beef packers protect the consolidation and concentration of their industry from competition from smaller technologically adept packers who requested USDA testing authorization to fill orders for Japanese customers.
Another agency watchdog, the GAO, as yet uncompromised by the corporate ag industry or political capture, issued the following report: "GAO observed lengthy lag times by USDA in correcting problems when packers failed to report or provided incorrect information. GAO evaluated 844 audits and found that packer incorrectly reported or failed to report required information 64% of the time. It took 85 days to ensure that a packer made needed corrections. Coordination between AMS and the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, (GIPSA) has been limited, hindering GIPSA's ability to monitor and correct trends of anti-competitive behavior that could negative affect price reports. Since the enactment of the reporting program in1999, the USDA has yet to collect any penalties from packers for violations of program requirements, even for longstanding violations. Packers are not consistently and reliably reporting data to USDA within deadlines specified by the mandatory price reporting act. When USDA audits reveal violations of the price reporting act, the USDA has not been providing this information to the public, which undermines the overall transparency of the program."
"Randy Stevenson, OCM Vice-President, said one of the most problematic findings in the GAO report, beyond the USDA's obvious failures in enforcing the law, is the lack of information exchange between GIPSA and AMS. 'This situation is a bit like putting Matt Dillon on Festus Hagin's mule and sending him out to patrol Interstate 40 through Kansas for speeders. It is unacceptable for the information gathering arm of the program not to communicate violations of the law with the enforcing agency. Similar findings were published in a GAO report on GIPSA about six years, and have remained unattended. 'Price information must be complete, accurate and timely to be of any value to buyers and sellers,' noted Stevenson." Senators Grassley and Harkin plan to make changes to the law that corporate ag industry can not circumvent via the rules making process. That's why corporate interests want the law reauthorized as is.
Both Mandatory Price Reporting and Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) laws were passed as concessions in order to appease groups and lawmakers who were pushing to enact a ban on packer ownership of livestock. In fact, COOL was traded as part of the Farm Bill so that Senators would drop a packer livestock ownership ban passed by the U.S. Senate as part of the bill in conference committee. Corporate ag interests could not stop COOL from being legislated but they have been successful in seeing to it that it was never implemented. The corporate ag industrial complex used its influence in USDA to write COOL rules in the most intrusive, convoluted ugly way possible with the objective of undermining support for implementation.
As ardor to implement COOL under such rules faded, they effectively sabotaged COOL. It was brilliant strategy brilliantly executed only because they had control of USDA so had control of the process. Next they used their political Congressional henchmen to finish COOL off. Texas congressman Bonilla is to corporate ag industry what Tom Delay was to Abramoff, their political sugar daddy. You can follow large sums of campaign contributions from the corporate ag industrial complex right into Bonilla's campaign fund. Bonilla's payback is to kill COOL.
Let's review: Congress writes laws, Mandatory Price Reporting/COOL, then USDA rules making, controlled by corporate ag industry sabotages implementation to weaken public support so that key congressmen paid in campaign contributions can exploit that weakness to kill the legislation via sophisticated maneuvers and manipulation. It's developed into a system whereby government of, for and by the people has been circumvented/replaced with government captured by special interests. The GAO report raised suspicions about GIPSA failing to follow through on mandatory price reporting, therein, prompting a much more extensive review by the USDA's Inspector General of GIPSA Packer's and Stockyards Act enforcement.
We all know out here in the hinterlands of agriculture that GIPSA ceased to function some time ago. Its pulseless, cold, dead body has been lifeless for a long time. It's sort of like that New York subway rider discovered recently who spent hours on the train after having expired. When someone finally checked, they declared he was dead. GIPSA had been dead for a long time before the USDA Inspector General checked its pulse. It certainly didn't surprise us that they found none. The corporate ag industrial complex went to a lot of trouble to make GIPSA look alive so no one would suspect. GIPSA is owned lock, stock and pork barrel by the industry, packers and stockyards, it was intended to regulate. Carefully selected individuals were appointed to positions within and above GIPSA with a clear and express mandate to smother anything resembling a breath coming from the agency. The IG's reports exposed complete agency capture.
The Associated Press abbreviated the IG reports finding saying, "The Agriculture Department has pretended to investigate anticompetitive behavior among stockyard and meat companies since 1999 but in hundreds of cases didn't actually file complaints, a department audit found. Employees created the appearance of a high rate of enforcement by logging routine letter and reviews of public data as investigations, according to a report Wednesday by the agency's inspector general. Competition and complex investigations were not being performed and timely action was not being taken, the inspector general found. In fact, one regional office was reprimanded last year because it didn't count routine correspondence as an investigation. The reprimand came from deputy administrator JoAnn Waterfield, who quit abruptly last month without giving a reason. The report shows that USDA officials were 'blocking employees from pursuing investigations and then cooking the books to cover up the agency's lack of enforcement action.'"
Was GIPSA working? Absolutely. It was being run exactly how corporate ag industry wanted it run. They put key people in place fully intending that they sit on investigations, squelching enforcement of P & S statutes. There was a plan with intent coming together. There is a revolving door between USDA and corporate ag industry no different than what went on between defense contractors, generals, and the Pentagon before scandal separated the military defense industry from government. No similar housecleaning has been done yet at the USDA. NCBA and Swift and company lobbyist Chandler Keys, a card carrying corporate ag industrial complex member, was just recently appointed to a high level USDA post. He and a score of others like him have been put there as part of the corporate ag industry USDA capture.
The beginnings of agency capture by the corporate ag industrial complex was evident before the Clinton administration, but really came into it's own with control of the power centers of government at the USDA and Congress under George W. and Republican majority. It's not entirely partisan however, Bonilla is a Democrat. Corporate agriculture in buying control, will ignore political affiliation. The general environment to allow them access, broadened under this administration, removing constraints, facilitating their control. "According to the report, top officials at GIPSA had failed for the past five years or more to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act and had created an environment that stymied investigations and even punished employees who pursued cases without proper authority from the highest officials within GIPSA. The agency also inflated its investigation numbers in reports to Congress. Mike Stumo, the General Counsel for the Organization for Competitive Markets, said good employees at GIPSA either retired or transferred to other agencies within the USDA because of their frustrations with leadership in the Packer's and Stockyards programs. The home office obstructed them from doing investigations. They obstructed everyone who was trying to do any sort of semblance of their jobs."
The IG's audit "singled out deputy administrator JoAnn Waterfield, saying she was holding up 50 investigations as of last August. The report also said she reprimanded staff for not classifying letters asking companies for information as investigations. Waterfield quit abruptly last month after spending about 14 years at the Agriculture Department."
"But she has left and that gives us the opportunity to declare a new day and fix the problems," Mike Johanns said.
I don't believe that's what is going to happen. The corporate ag industry running the USDA will not allow anything new under the sun at the USDA as long as they can stop it. It's gone to a great deal of expense and trouble to position the sun right where it wants it to maintain control.
The embarrassing GAO and IG investigations are what have to be stopped and they will use every bit of political influence they have to accomplish it. The corporate ag industry that runs the USDA will circumvent any real change and do everything it can to retain control of government by shooting the watchdogs. They've got Congress and the USDA in their control. The only threat to them is the IG who also exposed incompetent USDA handling of BSE, trade and bio-tech protocols. Viewed individually each instance of USDA capture might escape notice. To someone, however, whose been positioned, like myself, to be able to gain the perspective overview over a lengthy period of time, the individual events are all interconnected pieces of a now fully assembled puzzle that puts together a clear picture of corporate ag industry's capture of the USDA and ag policy.
"GIPSA is corupt Period............Plus the people that work there>>>>>"
A
Anonymous
Guest
MRJ said:Have any of you checked out the website www.stopanimalid.org?
I did and found some interesting information, lots of ads, links that may prove useful....or not, and even speculation as to whether or not the ID is "the mark of the beast" of biblical reference.
Derry Brownfield is quoted and he has stated on his radio show that animal ID is just a trial run to get the bugs out of the system and get us used to it before it is required on people.
What I did NOT find was more than one name of who IS running Stop Animal ID. Nor did I find any finanacial information as to who is paying for the website.
Were we not warned that such sites are not credible?
Or does that apply only to Steve Dittmer's site speaking up for the cattle/beef industry?
Interesting......the way people make, and defend, such decisions, isn't it?
MRJ
Arthritis was bothering again- couldn't sleep- and I was web surfing...MRJ- I found this and remembered your question and insinuation-- you must not have looked very hard :???: ....These people at least put who they are and what they do- unlike your hero Dittmer- but he's too busy prostituting himself to the AMI and Meat Industry.... :wink: :lol:
---------------------
WHO WE ARE
We are a group of animal lovers who keep a few farm animals for food and pleasure. We were very disturbed about NAIS and were worried that it would force us to lose our beloved animals. We decided to do something about it! StopAnimalID was born when we put our heads together to decide how to fight back.
Scott Conklin- Cofounder
I spent my earliest years in the middle of Indiana land my family had owned for decades. At ten we sold a portion of that old land and bought a farm further from town, where I stayed for the next decade, and returned to after my divorce. When I remarried my new bride and I set our sights on building a log home in the woods of some of the remaining old homestead. A decade later we made our dream become real.
Now another four years have passed, I'm 40, been married 13 years with a daughter and step-daughter getting ready to head out into the world and a son not far behind. It bothers me, what that world has become. It bothers me more that they might not have any real heritage to return to before long. It bothers me also that after all this time I may not even manage to fully realize my own dream, at least not without government approval.
So, for everyone who makes any real difference in the world there is one issue that is the final straw.
Cathy- Cofounder
I was raised on the traditional small American farm. The kind many people dream of: chickens, turkeys, a milk cow, a few pigs. And of course a big vegetable garden. Small farming is a way of life for many, and an important resource in preserving heritage breeds. I currently have some rare breed chickens, including the endangered Delaware, an old American favorite.
When NAIS came along I was appalled and angered at the thought that it would give the Government free reign over my own animals, which are more pets to me than "livestock". My birds are isolated from commercial poultry operations, so they can't spread disease. They are loved and cared for, and nobody's business but my own.
So here I am, fighting to preserve not just my chickens, but an endangered way of life- the traditional small family farm.
Justin Sanders
My name is Justin Sanders. I live in Middle Tennessee on 65 acres where we raise cattle, sheep, and pigs which we direct market to customers in Nashville. My desire is to see us give people practical actions they can take to raise awareness and disgust about the NAIS near their homes. To successfully fight the NAIS, it must be done on the local, i.e., no larger than the state, level. I'd also like to encourage people to get legislation passed in their states that would create a beachhead for farmers against this, whether it be exemption, or outright rejection of the plan by the state.
Kathy- Webmaster of StopAnimalID website
I am a wife, and mother, and retired midwife. My oldest is in the army at age 19-he finished homeschool at age 16, two years of college and then off to the army. I have a 13 yr old son, 12 yr old son, 7 yr old daughter, and 5 yr old son, all home schooled, with high hopes of life ahead of them. I mostly work at home, and my husband works part time and at home. I work with Mom Execs, we sell on ebay, and build websites on the side. We love the Lord Jesus and are regular church attendies, and workers. 5 years ago we finally moved to our dream homestead, 26 acres of heaven in North East Texas that we inherited from my dear Dad when he passed on. We raise most of our meat, rabbits, ducks, and chickens for eggs, and produce. I have goats on my list next for milk. NAIS is really putting a kink in my dreams. I dont sell any of my animals, and dont plan to. Just want to raise them for my families meat. So I dont have to feed my children (and hopefully grandchildren some day) food laced with anitibodies, chemicals and all manner of unorganic matter. I know that we can make a difference if we keep together and try.
Karin
I'm 51, and a rather unlikely agriculture activist. Grew up in the burbs with one dog as a pet. Worked as a therapist, went to law school, worked in law firms and major corporations. Started riding at 42, moved out to a semi-rural area to be near the stable, added 4 chickens, 3 ducks and 2 geese, and the rest is history. I raise chickens mostly for the eggs, and sell about enough to support feed for my show Khaki Campbell and Muscovy ducks. I am more at home with livestock and farmers than anyone else. On early summer nights, when I look out my bedroom window and watch my neighbor turning his field, I know this area I live in is good and the contributions my neighbors make are important. It steams me that many people want the government to protect them from everything, at any cost, and so will concoct ideas like NAIS that are financially crippling and will do no real good. I worry a lot about the irrational hysteria about bird flu and BSE. Tagging animals won't prevent disease. It will keep a lot of bureaucrats employed and make people think they're protected. Cooking your chicken will do more than any amount of tagged poultry.
I am also outraged at the USDA implementing NAIS without Congressional legislation, and at their leading people to think it's mandatory when it's not. We need to take back our government and our country.
http://www.stopanimalid.org/aboutus.php
