Like a CSA Only More So

On Facebook today I was asked what makes our farm Share Program "more so" as in "Like a CSA Only More So", good question.

I have noticed as the locavore and organic foods movements gain strength more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon. This is good as long as the people are local producers. But producing all the food you sell is a lot of hard work. So when something is hot there are people who are not exactly honest about what they do. I have seen a lot of this with the USDA certified organics program. Check out the Organic Consumers Association's as well as La Vida Locavore for some eye openers as to how companies thwart the regulations.

Well, I see the same thing is happening with the locavore movement. My first inkling of this was when I was interviewed by Ben Sutherly of the Dayton Daily News last year about Fulton's Farm Market getting into the CSA biz. At the time I was not exactly pro-CSA and was less so when I had described to me how they would do their CSA. It would go something like 10 months of the year and most of the year members would get about 40% of their share from produce grown on Fulton farms and the rest would come from elsewhere. And I was told Fulton's had invested in a fleet of delivery vans to deliver the shares to the member's doors.

This rankled me because one of the reason's one should use the CSA model as a marketing tool is so the members get reconnected with the farm. This cannot happen if everything is delivered off farm. If the farmer is not growing most of the food, well, how can that farmer hope to be able to start the reconnection of eater to their food process. I say it would be getting close to impossible.

This winter via the Cincinnati locavore email list I was made aware of Door to Door Organics which advertises itself as a CSA as well (but at least they don't claim to be a farm). I was also made aware of another such company setting up shop in SW Ohio/Cincinnati area but I cannot recall the name. Anyhoo, I have a real problem with such companies saying they are CSA when they have no connection to a farm. Yes, they may buy from some local farms but this is not Community Supported Agriculture in any way shape or form.

So here we have various example of the CSA marketing model being stretched all out of shape so pinhookers (a term I like for farmers who resell) and non farmers can participate. A model so warped that there is virtually no agriculture left for a community to support. A model so bent out of shape that it is a parody of itself.

And this is why I say our Farm Share Program Is Like a CSA Only More SO. Because, like fewer and fewer such programs, ours is farmed based, does not have any delivery and has activities such as farm tours that, hopefully, will engage our members with the farm they have joined.
When people join our FSP they will be getting food grown on our farm and they will be able to experience a real deeply sustainable working small diversified farm that is there to serve our fellow locavores.

Pictures from the Equinox

A redwinged Blackbird sitting in an apple tree

A pair of Canada geese that flew onto the pond for a morning swim


Onions and leek seedlings in a cold frame

Eugene in the wood pile that is in the process of being shredded so it can be used as mulch


The perennial herb patch. The green things are chives

Freshly harvested heirloom lettuce from one of the hoop houses

The Myth of HR 875 and SB 425

There has been a lot written and posted all over the world wide web and Internet about 2 bills in congress, HR 875 and SB 425.

Paranoid people with an agenda to kill all government regulation have interpreted this bill as one that will kill organic farming, criminalize the back yard garden, fine housewives for cooking food that they have grown in their own kitchens and make what I do for a living virtually illegal as small farmers will be forced to comply with the draconian regulations that may be imposed on the interstate/international corporate farms and food processors. I have even seen people claim that the NAIS is a part of these bills (it is not).

Amazing what a few writers good at arousing emotions can do on the interwebs.

The trouble stems from two emails that I guess started out life on a couple of anti government/pro farming blogs.

Here is one of them

http://shepardpolitics.blogspot.com/...aw-family.html

HR 875 Would Essentially Outlaw Family Farms In The United States

I get a lot of e-mails each day and one today (hi Cheryl!) pointed my attention to HR 875, a bill introduced into the 111th Congress for consideration. SO, I went and did something that members of Congress rarely do and actually went and read the bill, or more accurately, at least glanced through it which is still more than they ever do. It was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT 3rd) and has around 36 co-sponsors including Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN 7th) as of this writing. It immediately strikes me as being terribly bad legislation.

Under a heading described as protecting the public health and ensuring the safety of food it creates a "Food Safety Administration" within Health and Human Services. Oddly, not just adding regulations to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) which is also under HHS. And don't we have the USDA as well? The bill applies to all manner of "Food Establishments" and "Food Production Facilities" (note the following excerpt).


(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.


The bill would appear to even cover fishing boats and your downtown hot dog street vendors. In fact, the bill probably would also apply to your family garden since no exemption is apparent.

What it essentially does is place a tremendous regulatory burden on all of these organizations and individuals by requiring them to have "food safety plans", consider all relevant hazards [note: I wish Congress would consider all "relevant hazards" or unintended consequences of everything THEY did], testing, sample keeping and to maintain all kinds of records. The bill also allows the government to dictate all manner of standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, packaging, temperature controls and other items.

This massive bloat in government regulation (and taxpayer expense to support it) would add additional cost and headache to every farm, fishing boat, restaurant, slaughterhouse, processing plant, CO-OP and anyone else associated with growing, storing or processing food. The bill authorizes fines of up to $1,000,000 (one million) dollars for "each act" and for "each day" of a violation.

We'll skip over the concern over how important food production and distribution, largely recession proof, could be if our economy continues to decline and inflation takes hold and just address this on the apparent lunacy that it is. As those familiar with history know, large dominant corporations often will use government to demand industry regulations that force the small competitor out of business or introduce barriers to entry that prevent new companies from starting up to compete. In the early part of the 20th century a tremendous amount of regulation was written by the industries themselves to be enacted into law.

In this case, I think this bill could do tremendous harm to family farms or independent food operators. Only massive companies have the ability to meet these regulations and imagine the legal expenses that could be incurred to defend oneself? Never forget, the government has near unlimited resources where you might have to cough up $200 to $500 an hour for a good attorney to defend yourself, your farm, boat, truck, restaurant, orchard, vineyard or hot dog stand. And what about the increased cost of food associated with the cost of compliance, it's not unreasonable to think that many places would have to hire staff or outside assistance just to comply with the law.

We have an excellent history in the United States of safe food, but as Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel suggested recently, "You should never want a serious crisis to go to waste." He spoke those words relative to looking for opportunities to do things that people would not otherwise accept without some crisis. We should be very careful not to let the very rare instance of something like the recent peanut problem be used as such a "crisis". There is no impetus to point the bureaucrats of government and the guns they control, their ability to not only deprive someone of life or freedom but to destroy whole families, careers and reputations, at everyone in the country who might be involved in ensuring we have stuff to eat.

We're doing just fine without this legislation.

Here are a couple of diatribes by Lin Cohen-Cole who writes for OpEdNews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-s-dream-bill-HR-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090309-337.html

These articles talk about things that these congressional bills do not touch such as seed saving and NAIS (both under the jurisdiction of the USDA and not the FDA). She writes to scare people and get them all in a tizzy about a brand new bill that will not make it in to committee for many months, if ever.

Now here is what Tom Barlow has to say about these bills
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/03/12/will-proposed-national-legislation-kill-the-farmers-market/ he does not see these bills as doing anything close to shutting down farmers markets, criminalizing organic farming etc., etc..

Nor does the Organic Consumers Association which calls this fear mongering "the Internet Myth of the week"

This week, we received numerous calls and emails from OCA supporters who came across alarming YouTube videos and emails circulating on the Internet that claimed a new food safety bill (HR 875) introduced in Congress would make "organic farming illegal." Although the Bill certainly has its shortcomings, it is an exaggeration to say that is a secret plot by Monsanto and the USDA to destroy the nation's alternative food and farming system. In actuality, HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, is a limited-vision attempt by moderate Democrats and Republicans to craft food safety legislation to address the out-of-control filth and contamination that are inherent in our industrialized, now globalized, "profit-at-any-cost" food system.
This being said, OCA does not support HR 875 in its present form, given the fact that, if the Bill's regulations were applied in a one-size-fits-all manner to certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations, it could have a devastating impact on small farmers, especially raw milk producers who are already unfairly targeted by state food-safety regulators. Although the OCA deems this Bill as somewhat well-intentioned, we are calling on Congress to focus its attention on the real threats to food safety: globalized food sourcing from nations such as China where food safety is a joke and domestic industrial-scale and factory farms whose collateral damage includes pesticide and antibiotic-tainted food, mad cow disease, E.coli contamination and salmonella poisoning. And, of course, Congress and the Obama Administration need to support a massive transition to organic farming practices.

Food and water watch has this to say about these bills:

Food & Water Watch’ s Statement on H.R. 875 and the Food Safety Bills



The dilemma of how to regulate food safety in a way that prevents problems caused by industrialized agriculture but doesn’t wipe out small diversified farms is not new and is not easily solved. And as almost constant food safety problems reveal the dirty truth about the way much of our food is produced, processed and distributed, it’s a dilemma we need to have serious discussion about.

Most consumers never thought they had to worry about peanut butter and this latest food safety scandal has captured public attention for good reason – a CEO who knowingly shipped contaminated food, a plant with holes in the roof and serious pest problems, and years of state and federal regulators failing to intervene.

It’s no surprise that Congress is under pressure to act and multiple food safety bills have been introduced.

Two of the bills are about traceability for food (S.425 and H.R. 814). These present real issues for small producers who could be forced to bear the cost of expensive tracking technology and record keeping.

The other bills address what FDA can do to regulate food.



A lot of attention has been focused on a bill introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (H.R. 875), the Food Safety Modernization Act. And a lot of what is being said about the bill is misleading.

Here are a few things that H.R. 875 DOES do:

-It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of FDA by splitting it into 2 new agencies –one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.

-It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of inspection on the risk of the product being produced – but it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees.

-It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.

-It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.

And just as importantly, here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:

-It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish.)

-It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.

-It does not regulate backyard gardens.

-It does not regulate seed.

-It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.

-It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food that is sold across state lines).

-It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve traceability of foods, but specifically says that record keeping can be done electronically or on paper.)



Several of the things not found in the DeLauro can be found in other bills – like H.R. 814, the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system, or H.R. 759, the Food And Drug Administration Globalization Act, which overhauls the entire structure of FDA. H.R. 759 is more likely to move through Congress than H.R. 875. And H.R. 759 contains several provisions that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:

-It extends traceability record keeping requirements that currently apply only to food processors to farms and restaurants – and requires that record keeping be done electronically.

-It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.

-It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to fund the agency’s inspection efforts.

-It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish Good Agricultural Practices for produce.

There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for one size of agriculture – the largest industrialized operations. That’s why it is important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers different from agribusiness. And the work doesn’t stop there – if Congress passes any of these bills, the FDA will have to develop rules and regulations to implement the law, a process that we can’t afford to ignore.

But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food safety system is not an approach that works for consumers, who are faced with a food supply that is putting them at risk and regulators who lack the authority to do much about it.

You can read the full text of any of these bills at http://thomas.loc.gov

___________________________
Sarah Alexander
Senior Food Organizer
Food & Water Watch

1616 P St. NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
salexander@fwwatch.org
www.foodandwaterwatch.org

So you can see these bills while they need the wording tweaked a bit are not the death knell to small organic farms selling their products direct to the public.

All that said, NAIS Is a real threat to small farms that raise animals and NAIS is in committee and can be commented upon right now here is where you do that http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=APHIS-2007-0096

Raccoon in the Pond

Early this morning I got up and let Nate out as I do most mornings. Usually Nate runs around for about an hour than wants back in. This morning I heard him barking furiously at something in the distance. I went to the back door to see what he was barking at but is was still dark. All I could do was hear him off in the distance very excited about something. When it got light about an hour later he was still barking at that something. I looked out the window and saw what Nate was all excited about.

It was not a fish and it was too big to be a muskrat (which we do not have at this pond, though we may in the future). So I grab a pair of binoculars and see that Nate has cornered a rather large raccoon in the pond and it is not at all happy.



I grabbed the camera and walked out in 40 degree windy conditions in my robe and got some pictures of the poor thing.

My presence distracted Nate, who very wet and tired. This allowed the coon to try and get out of the situation by hiding in some cattail reeds. I took some pictures and went back in the house and let Danny out to help Nate bark at the raccoon. Than I got thinking that if the raccoon cannot get out of the pond soon it will die in the pond and than someone has to extract a bloated, fetid coon carcass from the pond at some point in the future and decided to call the dogs back in the house for a few minutes. this allowed the poor animal to get out of the pond and the last I saw it it was sitting in a half dead tree on the west edge of the property drying itself .



I have mixed feelings about letting the raccoon live. When we have chickens coons are a real pest. they will damage a coop to get at hens of young chicks and kill more than they eat. But I felt the raccoon had been harassed enough and likely will not come back onto this property if it thinks there is any chance a dog might be out (and there is an excellent chance at any time of day this will be the case).

Years ago Arlo almost killed a large raccoon trying to get some free chicken babies for lunch. We called Arlo off before he did too much damage and that coon crawled across the street and cried like a human infant for about an hour than disappeared. We saw it a couple of days later crossing the field across the street from us. It paused and took a long whiff of chicken. Than it started walking towards the chicken coop (it was about 1/4 mile away). It took about 3 steps than stopped and you could see it was thinking about Arlo and the fact Arlo will kill a raccoon. The coon decided it was not worth trying to get some chicken and ambled on and never stepped foot on that farm again, though we did see him many times but always at a very safe distance from the dog.

This is why I suspect this animal will not come by this farm ever again-just too risky. Raccoons are not stupid

Farm Tours

Eugene and a group of students from IU east

We have now given three private farm tours this month after not having had a farm tour out here in well over a year. Seems what we do has become interesting to the public so we are getting more and more requests for private farm tours. For years we have done these tours free of charge even though they are a bit of work and we have freely given out knowledge that we had to work a lot of years to amass. No more, we now charge $25 a head for a 2+ hour private tour where we show and explain to folks how we farm and allow them to ask as many questions as they want. For years we have felt a bit strange about charging for this service and as long as we did not have to do this more than a couple of times a year it seemed no biggie to give away what we know for free. But after getting many requests already for winter farm tours (and I am suspecting as the weather gets warmer, the farm greener and us much much busier we will have many many more requests for private tours) we realized it is insane to give away this valuable knowledge (not to mention the time involved), that we have worked very hard to obtain, when we should be making income from it. If a PhD makes income from teaching, so should we (after all, the learning curve for this occupation is that of getting a doctorate, only without having to defend a dissertation or dealing with university politics). And thus Boulder Belt has entered the realm of Agro-Tourism (I think this really should be considered Agro-Education but I guess tourism is often educational)

The IU East Students in the strawberry hoop house (which regular readers will note is back up after the big snow) Eugene is explaining to them how we grow spring mix over winter

This particular farm tour was for 4 students from IU East in Richmond, IN. They needed to visit a sustainable business for an anthropology class about food and they choose us. They came out in the early afternoon and we walked around the market garden in a cold biting NE wind and talked about what we do. Eventually we took the tour group into the strawberry hoop house where there was no wind and it was rather pleasant and talked about season extension and how that effects our bottom line. We than toured the store where we talked about the business side of things as well as small vs industrial agriculture and what the future holds for us. We finished up in the barn where we start our seedlings and showed them that part of the operation. It was a good tour and I believe the students got quite a bit out of it.

Correct me if I am wrong guys

Feburary Farmers Market

A line of folks waiting to buy organic meat from the Filbrun's

We did the February edition of the Oxford Winter Market Series last weekend. We missed the January edition because it was way to cold to have produce out doors without it freezing and being ruined. The weather profits predicted a not too bad day. The reality was a cold, windy day with snow/ice pelting us until about noon when it cleared up a bit. The temperature was warm enough to not worry about the spud or spring mix freezing but cold and nasty enough to keep the crowds down a bit. We were still able to sell out of all leafy greens and around 98% of the red onions, 90% of the leeks and about 1/2 the parsnips along with a lot of garlic. I was also able to buy lots of pastured eggs and organic meat the few minutes we were not busy.
All in all a good if windy and damp market

From left to right Artistry farm with goat cheese, art and goat's milk soap, Tahapsia'a farm (sorry for bad spelling) selling fine hand made soaps and other body care and Greenbrier farm selling hand crafted pastas

Eugene selling produce to our Buddy Scott

Happy but chilly OFMU regulars

We are a Great Locavore Blog!

This blog got a mention in the post "10 Great Locavore Blogs to Chew On over at Best Green Blogs Diary. We are in rare company with blogs like Local Harvest, Eat local Challenge, Ethicurian, La Vida Locavore and Cincinnati Locavore (which I contribute to on occasion and has been a super supporter of Boulder Belt), among others.

Woo Hoo.

So go and check out these wonderful blogs and get your locavore blog on

And for more wonderful blogs about food and farming check out my list in the right sidebar. There are some really well written ones on that list go visit.

St Alphonso's on Face Book

I see I am getting more and more hits for St Alphonzo's/St Alphonso's/ St Alfonzo's/St Alfonso's Pancake Breakfast (and to the people who wonder if this party really exists, yes it does and it happens every spring).

I invite you check out the St Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast group on Face Book.

It's Pruning Time

Things are heating up here at the farm. The snow is gone and, at least today, the weather is warm and that means we are getting busy pruning trees and raspberries. Pruning is amazingly important, without proper pruning trees and brambles cannot produce as well as they do when pruned. Pruning gets rid of dead and diseased material as well as branches that cross each other and opens up the plants to sunlight and air. After we are done pruning than we will spray dormant oil on everything to kill scale, aphids, mealybugs and other pests. Than lime sulfur is sprayed on the trees to control various fungi. After that we quit spraying and wait for the trees to flower and the bees to come and pollinate the flowers. Than we hang sticky traps which we make from orange plastic sleeves our in which daily newspaper is delivered covered with this waterproof sticky stuff called Tangle Foot. These sticky traps catch coddling moths, curculios and other fruit pests (we also use them for keeping arugula and eggplant free of flea beetles). they also will catch beneficial insects such as bees which is why we wait until after the flowers are gone to hang them. We even will bag some of the fruit (Martha Stewart had a segment on bagging fruit). It is the most effective organic way to keep everything off of the apples but it is also amazingly labor intensive so we never do more than about 5%. We simply do not have the time to bag several thousand pommes and pears and plant 3 acres in produce in the spring. And since apples are not our main crop, by any means, we get a bit slack with the bagging.

Eugene does most of the tree pruning. I have a fear of heights so will not climb way up into the trees (and we have 2 old apples that are 30'+ tall) and because i am not a man and do not have the upper body strength of one I cannot use the saw and cutters on the long extension for more than 10 minutes at a time. Nor can I control the extension well so it takes me several minutes to make a single cut. in that same time Eugene will make about 10 cuts.

So I get bramble duty. I started in on the red raspberries today and got about 30% done before my hand got too sore and stiff to use the pruners. I have applied arnica and heat and by Friday I should be able to continue my task. I would continue tomorrow except we have a big vet appointment in the morning that should take a few hours (3 dogs and a cat all going to the vet) and it is supposed to rain all day on top of that. I think I will need the time to heal my hand.

We grow two kinds of red raspberries, Latham, a summer bearing plant and Heritage, an everbearing type that we make into a fall bearing crop by cutting down all the canes in late winter. The Latham are a bit more complex to prune but by no means rocket science. What I am doing with the Latham berries is first going in and taking out all the dead canes and any live canes that have crept too far out of their bed. If I leave these in they will by summer grow into the aisle way making raspberry harvest difficult as well as making it difficult to deal with the crop in the beds immediately to the east of the raspberries (4 of them). I cut the canes as close to flush with the ground as I can with a pair of anvil pruners (I do not like the offset kind as much). After I get the dead stuff out, I look at the canes and remove any that are not straight and any that are crossing other canes. The goal is to leave 5 to 7 canes per foot. The cut canes are removed from the area and either will be composted or burned. We are leaning towards burning now that we have found mealy bugs and some sort of white scale on some of the canes.

Once the raspberry canes have been cleaned out we will go back and take out any small, misshapened or crossing canes we missed before and also cut about 10% off of the top of the canes (between 4" and 7" depending on the size of the cane) as this allows the plants to make larger fruit. After that they will be sprayed with dormant oil and mulched with cedar chips (these are acidic and raspberries like an acid soil) and either straw (expensive) or grass clippings (free). than we wait for the canes to leaf out, bloom and than make berries. Last year we had an incredible bumper crop and were when the season was over for the Latham we had harvested over 26 gallons, one 1/2 pint at a time. I really doubt we will have such a great crop this year, but you never know.

So for the next couple of weeks we will be pruning trees and brambles. Than it will be about time to start transplanting onions and leeks which is pretty much like planting several thousand blades of grass one blade at a time. It's a pretty Zen job if you have your head in the right place.

Getting Ready for a Winter Market

We have a farmers market this coming Saturday so we have spent the week getting ready for it. Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning we harvested greens. During the main growing season we would not think of harvesting so far away from a market but in winter cold gets in the way and if you can get a day of two of above freezing weather a week or less before the farmers market you harvest on those days. We can get away with this because we have found in winter, greens (and everything else) last a lot longer than thing harvested the rest of the year. My theory is that the bacteria that is on all fresh produce and will eventually cause it to rot is dormant in the winter. This means that lettuce that might last a week after harvest in summer will last about 3 weeks after harvest in winter. The other thing we have noted is in winter it is best to harvest greens late in the day. During the other seasons these are best harvested early in the morning. Winter is a backwards time to grow and harvest things.

On Monday I was making sure we have enough dried herbs and garlic powder ready to go. In doing that I discovered to forgotten products in the freezer-dried apples and dried cherry tomatoes. So I made up about 10 bags of each. Now we have two new products to offer at the farmers market and to the farm Share folks in April. Along with the tomatoes and apples I found we were short on dried basil and catnip so I made up more of those.

Wednesday I spent time going through all our table signs and tossing out what we no longer needed and making new signs for products that did not have a sign or things with a new price (we lowered a couple of prices) or new products. That took more time Than I though because the printer decided it did not want to print card stock paper (I have had this argument before with the printer and thought I had resolved it). Eventually I won the argument and got around to printing the pages I needed.

Today I went and bought a ream of paper so I can print out some more brochures and Farm Share Program fliers (which are about half way done). I also wrote and sent out an email to my 300+ subscribers alerting them to this market.

Tomorrow we will put spring mix, mizuna, baby lettuce into 6oz and 1/2 pound bags and about 100 pounds of parsnips into 1 and 5 pound bags. We also need to grade the leeks and put the small ones into bunches of 2 and 3. Than turnips and potatoes will need to be boxed up. That should take the two of us about 1/2 the day. But when it is all done we should be ready for a cold winter market.

The rest of the year we would easily do all of this work in about a day (actually about 3 or 4 times this much work) but cold weather really slows down the harvest

NAIS Threatens Access to Local Food

http://www.naturalnews.com/025569.html

NAIS Threatens Access to Organic, Local and Sustainable Food
by Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor
See all articles by this author
Email this author

(NaturalNews) At first glance, many readers of Natural News will think the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is nothing that concerns them because they eat only plant based foods. However, NAIS is only one part of a much bigger issue. The implementation of NAIS directly threatens the ability of everyone to eat locally grown, organic, and sustainable foods, including fruits and vegetables. NAIS is the first step in the final round of the takeover and regulation of all agricultural products, including plant based foods and supplements. Once NAIS is implemented it will be easy for growers of all agricultural products to be pushed around, intimidated and finally taken over by big agribusiness and its best friend, the government. NAIS is the next step in the destruction of the freedom to eat as we choose and enhance our health with supplements.

If you are opposed to the loss of liberty and the expansion of government tyranny that NAIS represents, your help is urgently needed to block the next step in its implementation. Comments must be received at the USDA by March 16, 2009. Specific information and a link to sample comments appear at the end of this article.

NAIS hands over production of food to factory farms

NAIS is a system of regulation that poses a serious threat to consumers of organic animal products. As a consequence of the implementation of NAIS, the small scale farmers and ranchers who produce high quality products meeting the certifying standards to be labeled as organic will be put out of business. NAIS stacks all the cards against small organic farmers in favor of the huge factory farms owned by big agribusiness that produce products that in many cases are not fit to eat.

A recently proposed rule mandates the NAIS Premises Identification Number (PIN) as the sole means of identifying properties for official USDA purposes. This rule also mandates the use of the NAIS numbering system for ear tags. All animal tagging is required to be linked to the NAIS PIN.

NAIS will drive small and medium-sized farmers and ranchers out of business, increasing the consolidation of the food supply into the hands of a few large, multinational corporations. These are the corporations who have shown again and again that they have nothing but contempt for their customers. The NAIS wastes taxpayer dollars on a program that will lead to increased food prices and decreased food quality.

What is NAIS?

NAIS has no specific legislative authorization. No input from farmers, ranchers or homesteaders has been sought in its creation. NAIS is a result of the same international trade negotiations in Uruguay that produced the World Trade Organization and gave rise to CODEX alimentarius. The National Institute for Animal Agriculture, the organization that represents major meat producers such as Cargill, major manufacturers of tag and tag reader equipment, and major trade associations such as the National Pork Producers Council asked the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to begin implementing NAIS in 2002.

As a result, the USDA has been working for over five years to force NAIS onto American animal owners, although several coalitions of farmers and ranchers have been formed to block it.

NAIS is designed to identify and track each and every individual livestock and poultry animal owned by family farmers, hobby farmers, homesteaders, and pet owners across the country. If made mandatory, the program will compel every person with even one animal on their premises to register their homes and property into a government database and subject their property and animals to government surveillance, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Under the current plans, each animal would have to be identified and physically tagged, in many cases with radio frequency tags or microchips. Factory farms would be able to identify whole groups of animals with one number, but most regular farmers, ranchers and individuals would have to identify each animal individually. "Events" in the animal's life would required reporting to the database within 24 hours. The information in the database would be kept by state government or private companies, while the federal government would have the right to access this data as it deems necessary.

Although initiated as a voluntary program, the USDA has been pushing and in some cases coercing people to sign up. This new rule and the implementation of the PIN would effectively remove the last vestige of voluntarism from the program, as it would require registration under the PIN into the database for any activity involving disease control.

Premise registration would be automatic any time veterinary services personnel conduct an "activity" related to a federal disease control program, including such activities as certification or surveillance. Moreover, veterinarians are expected to provide information on their clients to government authorities to facilitate registration. The proposed rule clearly mandates that all locations with disease program activity will be identified with a NAIS PIN, and the property address will remain in the NAIS database whether the property owner is in agreement or not.

The USDA claims that NAIS is a disease tracking program, but has refused to provide any support for this claim. In reality, NAIS will replace state run, existing, well functioning disease response and brand inspection programs with an untested, expensive and unreliable system. It will also impose high costs and government surveillance on every farmer, rancher and animal owner for no significant benefit, and will force many small producers out of business.

NAIS will result in a decrease in food safety

Animal diseases are not prevented or controlled by NAIS, and NAIS does nothing to improve food safety for consumers. The initiative is not intended for this purpose. NAIS expands corporate profits, not consumer safety. Contamination of food generally happens after the food leaves the farm or ranch. Contamination is found at the slaughterhouse, food processing and handling facilities, or during food preparation, long after NAIS stops doing anything to collect information that would help in a response. NAIS does nothing to address the risks associated with slaughterhouse practices or the failure of the USDA to enforce current laws.

Because NAIS tracking ends at the time of slaughter, NAIS will not prevent food borne illnesses such as e. coli or salmonella contamination. Food safety is better served by focusing on programs such as increased testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow), improved oversight of slaughterhouses and food processing facilities, and increased inspections of imported foods.

The NAIS will heavily burden small, organic, and sustainable farmers, which will hurt efforts to develop safer, decentralized, local food systems. As evidenced in the recent peanut butter recalls, having a centralized food processing and distribution system means that contamination in even one plant can lead to deaths and illnesses of thousands all over the country, and create problems very difficult to track and isolate. Consumers clearly support a local, sustainable food supply, which means the agencies need to write rules that work for small independent farmers, instead of rules such as NAIS that were designed for the benefit of vertically integrated centralized animal feeding operations.

To the extent that contamination occurs despite efforts at prevention, trace back efforts should focus on tracing the meat, rather than the animals. USDA currently avoids tracing contaminated meat from the processor back to the slaughterhouse, as in the case of the e. coli contaminated ground beef that was found at John Munsell's packing plant. While USDA focused its efforts on shutting down Munsell's family run packing plant, the agency refused to address whether the contamination had actually occurred at the ConAgra slaughterhouse that supplied the meat to Munsell. Within a few months, one woman died and dozens of others were made sick from beef traced to the Con Agra slaughterhouse, resulting in one of the largest recalls of meat in history. Tracing of the meat from the packing plant to the slaughterhouse might have prevented the illnesses and saved millions of dollars. This sort of tracking program would be far more beneficial and far cheaper than NAIS.

Costs are high and benefits are low with NAIS

Costs involved in the implementation and use of NAIS include: (1) the development, maintenance, and update of massive databases; (2) the costs of tags, most of which will contain microchips, and computerized tag reading equipment; (3) the labor burdens for tagging every animal; (4) the paperwork burdens of reporting routine movements that include eating one of your chickens for dinner or taking your horse out for a ride, and; (5) the costs of enforcement on millions of individuals. The databases needed to register the properties, identify each animal, and record billions of "events" will dwarf any system currently in existence.

NAIS diverts resources from more critical needs such as disease testing, disease prevention through improved animal husbandry practices, and disease detection in currently uninspected livestock imports.

Because of the costs and government intrusion of NAIS, future farmers will choose not to go into farming, while current producers will decide not to stay in farming. This will result in less competition, greater reliance on foreign imports and poor quality at higher prices.

NAIS creates disincentives for people to seek veterinary care for their animals and participate in existing disease control programs. Animal owners who object to NAIS may avoid participating in programs beneficial to the health of their animals because it would mean automatic registration into the program. This would increase health risks to the public and to other farm operations.

In the end, it is the consumer as well as the small farmer and rancher who will bear the burden for the high costs of NAIS.

You can help put an end to NAIS

It is critical that the USDA and Congress hear from the millions of people who will be adversely affected by the NAIS program. This includes animal owners, consumers who care about locally produced, organic, and sustainable foods, taxpayers who object to wasteful government programs and expanding government bureaucracy, advocates for a safe food system, and anyone who wishes to continue to have access to nourishing food and supplements.

Step 1: Submit comments to the USDA online or by mail. The comments must be received at the USDA by March 16, 2009.

Submit comments online at:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmpubli...
Click on the yellow balloon under "add comments".

Or mail two copies of your comments to USDA:
Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096
Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS
Station 3A-03.8
4700 River Road Unit 118

Clearly state that your comments refer to Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096.

Here is a link to downloadable sample comments:
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/cont... Click on the sample comments link

STEP 2: Send a copy of your comments to your Congressman and Senators.

You can find who represents you, and their contact information, at www.congress.org

Sources:

Farm and Ranch Freedom Allance http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content/

nonais.com

A Farm Share Update

A year ago if you asked me if I was doing a CSA as a marketing strategy I would have sneered and said been there, done that, ain't gonna do it again. What a difference a year makes. As regular readers know, we did a small and short (12 week) winter CSA. We limited the program to 6 members, though we could have done 10 easily. Doled out the shares every other week starting in mid November and went til the 3rd Saturday in January, than we stopped. There were few problems on our end-Christmas week was a bit dicey on scheduling due to the pick up day being 2 days after Christmas and the second to last pick up was rescheduled due to bad weather (ice). the week after the last pick-up we had a combo of snow and ice and a lot of both and 2 hoop houses came down (but they were put back together within 2 days). So I would say we ended the winter farm share program just in time.

We did the winter program to see if we still had affection for the CSA style of marketing produce and I found I still loved it. So the decision was made to drop the Tuesday farmers market that we had help to found and had been doing for the past 13 years and revive the Boulder Belt farm Share Program in earnest. So I put together a Farm Share Page on the Boulder Belt Website in December so people interested in our FSP could go there for more information. Than I did not do much about the 2009 season for a while. I had the winter program to deal with, the holidays, etc.. In January I revived the Boulder Belt CSA page on Local Harvest because they sent me an email saying they had cut the commission 50%. And since some people like to use a credit card for such purchases this site allows us to go that route without getting our own credit card account (which we do not want to do for a variety of reasons). Than last week I decided why not put up an ad on Craig's List. So I did and saw a huge jump in hits to the Boulder Belt website and specifically the Farm Share Program page all coming from that add (I also get a lot of CSA hits from the Cincinnati Locavore blog). But while there seemed to be interest in this farm share idea I was not getting many bites. I did get 2 or 3 people to say they were seriously considering our farm share program and one person who committed early after sending out an email to my list in early January.

So after a few weeks of not doing much marketing on behaft of the FSP and not getting any people signing up I got nervous and started doubting my instincts. Maybe the cost is too high, maybe people are turned off by the on farm pick-up. Maybe I should change everything or maybe I should just drop the idea and figure out something else for the upcoming season to make up for the weekday farmers market we dropped. Maybe it is the economy and everyone is out of money so no one can join (okay that did not last long as I feel that what we do will not be all that effected by the economy crumbling-folks gotta eat, after all).

I mean after all, I had one member and a couple of maybes and only 8 weeks until the season starts. So I decided perhaps before I change everything or simply ditch the whole idea perhaps I should send out another email to my list. You know do some marketing, let people know what we are up to. So yesterday afternoon I composed an email about our FSP and sent it out to several hundred people. This morning I had my first hit and by noon had 6 people firmly commited to joining up. Perhaps by Friday the FSP will be 50% full at least through may. Since we have a monthly option later months will fill later on in the season.

So if you are planning on joining our FSP or another farm's program you need to get on the ball now and sign up as things are filling up quickly