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Dear Readers:
The night of November
3, 2005 was somewhat down casting. With two of my sons and a friend
we drove an hour to a Savannah meeting sponsored by the Tennessee
Cattlemen’s Association, the
Tennessee Department of Agriculture, and Tennessee Farmers
about the National
Animal Identification System. As Justin later commented, we watched
freedom die over a plate of free barbecue.
We missed whatever was
said about the “Agriculture Revitalization Program,” the bait
the state is holding out to convince people to register for the
National Animal Identification System (NAIS). So it wasn’t a meeting
to discuss the pros and cons of the NAIS, just a meeting to
urge everybody to register and explain how to fill out the forms.
The State Commissar for Registering Premises made a PowerPoint
presentation. When he reached the end, he asked for questions.
My hand alone shot up.
By this time I was cranked up to about 4,500 rpm inside, but somehow
managed to control my voice. “Could you explain to me how
registering your premises is different from a federal license to
farm?” Several heads turned around to peer through the dark room,
trying to make out who was throwing this question from the back.
“I don’t understand
your question. Registering is voluntary, but if you don’t register
you don’t get the money.”
“Well, this is supposed
to be mandatory in 2007, like it’s “mandatory” to have a driver’s
license. So registering will be just like applying for a driver’s
license. You won’t be able to farm without it. We will lose our
freedom to farm, right? Won’t it be illegal to farm without it?”
“No, you’d still be
free to farm. You just can’t sell anything into commerce”
“Are there any
exemptions, like if you have only one chicken?”
“No.”
“How will I be free to
farm then?”
“Oh, this doesn’t have
anything to do with row crops.”
“We’re going around in
circles. Aren’t you saying that I’m not going to be free to farm
any more?”
“That’s one way of
looking at it, but I don’t see it that way.”
“But what was my
right to do before, now I must first register with you to do.
So if it’s mandatory, aren’t I losing my right to farm?”
There were no other
answers, questions, or questioners. The meeting broke up for the
free barbecue dinner. One fellow sitting nearby caught my eye and
came nearer. He saw us putting our anti-NAIS flyers on the tables
and said, “You’ve got a point. I want to read what y’all have to
say.” I tried to start a conversation with him but somebody broke
in and I turned away.
A little while later a
man came over to me. “I reckon I ought to join your club,” he said
with a smile. I introduced myself and he continued, ticking off
objections to the NAIS.
“This is not about
disease, it’s about control. Most of the people here have 30 cows
or less. The people behind NAIS want to control the market. Right
now they can’t because there are so many small producers. Once they
get them lined up, they have control of the market. This will put
more small farmers out of business.
“Of course there’s no
way your information will be kept confidential. Once your animals
are numbered, the IRS will know exactly how many cows you sold and
what you got for them.
“This meeting is to put
the bait out there, to set the trap. How much will people sell out
for? A 35% discount on a cattle head catch, I guess. Every time
you get government money, it comes with a punch in the jaw. And
once they get you in the trap and know your price, then they’ll
reduce it.
“My Daddy died last
spring and I told him, ‘I never thought I’d see you working for a
chemical company,’ but he was. Who’d have thought the day would
ever come when you couldn’t keep a sack of your own soybeans for
seed? With these genetically modified ‘Roundup Ready’ soybeans, if
you plant one bean they’ll throw you in jail. We don’t buy
corn by the bushel anymore; we buy it by the seed.”
“This NAIS isn’t a done
deal yet. If everybody were rushing to register their premises,
they wouldn’t be having these meetings all over the state trying to
convince people to register.”
The rest of the 125
people or so weren’t interested enough to talk to us. But the room
was a testimony that the old agriculture – farming with high cost
chemical and mechanical inputs – is dying. More than half the
people in the room were over 60, and some a lot older. There were
very few heads without grey hair. Their children refuse to go into
farming because they can’t make a living doing it. Ironic, isn’t
it, that with all the government subsidies small farmers still
can’t make a living? And the NAIS, without any question, will put
many more of them out of business.
What grieves me so
badly is that small farmers could make plenty of money farming if
they would just concentrate on local markets instead of
Kroger, McDonald’s, and export, and if they would follow low
input techniques to reduce costs, like feeding only grass instead of
grain. Like not using growth hormones, and herbicides and
pesticides, even less chemical fertiliser.
On the way home in the
car Justin observed that those folks weren’t farmers, they were
“producers.” They had ceased to think of themselves as farmers, and
been taught to think of themselves as a link in the chain of
distribution. Maybe you don’t immediately see the difference
between “farmer” and “producer,” but there is all the difference in
the world. A farmer is a steward of the land. A producer is a link
in an industrial chain of production.
My daughter Liberty
asked me later if they were all for the NAIS. Nope, I replied,
they’re all for the money.
OUR NEXT TRY
On November 7 we made
another try. The county extension service was sponsoring a meeting
about cattle nutrition. (In parts of Tennessee our soils are
deficient in copper and selenium, a problem worsened by burning
coal. The sulphur in coal smoke binds up available copper in the
soil.)
They offered another
free barbecue dinner.
We listened to an
extension agent make a very interesting and professional
presentation about these nutrition problems. Then a salesman for
cattle supplement blocks entertained us with the highest pressure
presentation I have ever undergone outside an Amway meeting.
Afterwards, another extension agent got to the point. The state of
Tennessee actually passed a law, the Tennessee Agricultural
Enhancement Program, also called the Tennessee Cattle Improvement
Initiative, to bribe farmers into registering their premises for
NAIS. You see, you’re not eligible for “cost-share funds” under the
program unless you register your premises for the NAIS. If
you register, you qualify for up to $1,725.00 per year in pay offs –
whoops, “cost-share reimbursements.”
The county extension
agent admitted there were things he didn’t like about the NAIS,
without specifying, but said it was necessary and “it’s coming.”
When I couldn’t keep
quiet any longer I said, “Won’t we be giving up our freedom to farm
if we register? Won’t it be like a federal license to farm?”
“No,” the agent
countered, “it’s voluntary.”
“But won’t it be
mandatory later?”
“Yes, in January 2008.”
‘Well, will they put me
in farm jail if I don’t register?” Everybody laughed.
Then the other agent
jumped in to explain that the NAIS would enable “us” (making me
wonder if he had a mouse in his pocket) to trace back a sick animal
within 48 hours [fist slams into open palm] of notification.
Then somebody from the
audience raised a hand and asked, “How is BSE transmitted?”
The agent said, “Oh,
it’s very hard to transmit. It might be transmitted from mother to
calf, we’re not sure, or, if you feed ruminant by-products [meat
scraps recycled as cattle feed] it can pass that way. But we’ve
examined tens of thousands of cattle brains and other than that one
doubtful case, BSE doesn’t exist in the United States.”
Sounded like to me
there was no threat whatsoever of BSE spreading in the US, so why do
we need NAIS?
He had earlier
mentioned Foot & Mouth Disease, so I asked about that. “Why do we
need to be protected from Foot and Mouth Disease when the last
reported case in the United States occurred in 1929?”
At this point he
abandoned all pretence that NAIS was about these two diseases and
shifted gears. “You wanna know what’s driving this? Homeland
Security. None of you here look like terrorists [giggle from
the audience], but if they put Foot and Mouth into our herds it
would be devastating. Half the cows in Tennessee might have to be
destroyed.”
I said, “But won’t we
be giving up our freedom to farm? Aren’t we supposed to pass that
on to our children?”
“Well, it’s irritating,
I’ll admit that. But it’s coming. Besides, I’m willing to give up
a little bit of freedom [holds up thumb & forefinger squeezed
together] for safety.”
Seemed to me that
everybody else in the room (other than Justin, James, and I) agreed
with this proposition. I shut up. What was left to say? Shortly
after I got outside, I remembered that
Benjamin Franklin once
said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a
little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The terrorists have
won. They are in charge in Washington, DC.
TWELVE DAYS OF
CHRISTMAS
Yet in the middle of
all these gloomy events, Christmas returns in its orderly
progression to remind us that God’s grace is destroying the tyranny
of evil, and with it, the tyranny of man. For the fourth year we
will celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas, from Christmas to
Epiphany (January 6). Oh, we’ll still work, but not much --
necessary jobs around the farm, feeding animals, maybe cutting
firewood, but nothing too ambitious. Evenings I will fight to keep
movie-free so that we will actually get to talk to each other.
We’ve done this before, it’s not as hard as it sounds. There might
even be a little home-made music and singing from time to time. We
try, too, to read one book aloud. (Before you scoff, try
it.) And the guests will come, usually lots of them. One
year it snowed everybody in and we wound up with 27 guests at the
Shoe (our log house). We were stepping over sleepers like land
mines.
Before I forget it, if
you are looking for a very special Christmas gift, try Harper’s Hams
in Clinton, Kentucky, (800) HARPERS (427-7377),
www.hamtastic.com. Gary
Harper’s fine hams and bacon are the closest to home-made you’ll
ever find. You’ll probably want to splurge and buy some for your
own family.
Enjoy your Advent
season, waiting for Christmas!
Franklin Sanders
© 2005, Reprinted from
the October, 2005
The Moneychanger
P.O. Box 178
Westpoint, Tenn. 38486
(888) 218-9226
www.the-moneychanger.com
Permission to reprint
granted
provided no changes
or additions made
and full source credit given.
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