Today is the Anniversary when the American Food Supply Ended: A Farmers Perspective of Agriculture 911

Accessed FAZD October 31, 2011

“If you destroy or damage a country’s food supply, you strike at everyone.”  Newsday

 

Time flies by and the consequences of the original National Animal Identification System) NAIS, now Traceability, are stacking up.  In a forget-me-not moment, Washington State (and maybe yours state also) it was 7 years ago today that NAIS was announced to the public.  If you are unfamiliar with this program it is a monumental moment in agriculture, an agricultural 911.  Since then farmers and ranchers who oppose the programs have had many victories and many defeats.  We have laughed together and cried together.  We made friends and we lost friends.  Some of our families have endured a long and difficult road as we sunk who knows how many hours a day into fighting to keep American farming free of international entanglement.  People just really don’t think about where their food comes from.  Farms have been turned into theme parks and Farmers Markets and CSA’s are under the heavy thumb of government regulation as an awakening populations fleeing from international overly-processed, contaminated food products, finally getting a glimmer of the problem-at-large with our food supply.

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Updates to the Terrestial Animal Health Code 2011 Edition

 

Terrestrial Animal Health Code

The OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code (the Terrestrial Code) sets out standards for the improvement of animal health and welfare and veterinary public health worldwide, including through standards for safe international trade in terrestrial animals (mammals, birds and bees) and their products. The health measures in the Terrestrial Code should be used by the veterinary authorities of importing and exporting countries to provide for early detection, reporting and control agents pathogenic to animals or humans, and to prevent their transfer via international trade in animals and animal products, while avoiding unjustified sanitary barriers to trade.

The health measures in the Terrestrial Code have been formally adopted by the World Assembly of the Delegates of the OIE Members. This 20th edition incorporates the modifications to the Terrestrial Code agreed during the 79th General Session in May 2011.

These include revised chapters on the following subjects: glossary; notification of diseases and epidemiological information; procedures for self declaration and for official recognition by the OIE; Veterinary Services; evaluation of Veterinary Services; design and implementation of identification systems to achieve animal traceability; zoning and compartmentalisation; application of compartmentalisation; general hygiene in semen collection and processing centres; collection and processing of bovine, small ruminant and porcine semen; collection and processing of in vivo derived embryos from livestock and horses; general recommendations on disinfection and disinsectisation; certification procedures; OIE procedures relevant to the World Trade Organization Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures; quarantine measures applicable to non-human primates; model veterinary certificates for international trade in live animals, hatching eggs and products of animal origin; control of hazards of animal health and public health importance in animal feed; biosecurity procedures in poultry production; prevention, detection and control of Salmonella in poultry; transport of animals by land; transport of animals by air; slaughter of animals; killing of animals for disease control purposes; control of stray dog populations and use of animals in research and education; anthrax; Aujeszky’s disease; bluetongue; foot and mouth disease; vesicular stomatitis; avian influenza; Newcastle disease; contagious bovine pleuropneumonia; lumpy skin disease; equine influenza; equine viral arteritis; Chlamydophila abortus infection and scrapie.

This edition includes a new chapter on communication.

The chapters on avian tuberculosis, duck virus enteritis, fowl cholera and Marek’s disease were deleted from this edition.

The development of these standards and recommendations is the result of the continuous work since 1960 of one of the OIE’s Specialist Commissions, the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission. The first Terrestrial Code was published in 1968. This Commission draws upon the expertise of internationally renowned specialists to prepare draft texts for new articles of the Terrestrial Code or revise existing articles in the light of advances in veterinary science.

The value of the Terrestrial Code is twofold: that the measures published in it are the result of consensus among the veterinary authorities of OIE Members, and that it constitutes a reference within the World Trade Organization Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures as an international standard for animal health and zoonoses.

The OIE Terrestrial Code is a reference document for use by Veterinary Authorities, import/export services, epidemiologists and all those involved in international trade.

A users’ guide is available.

The Terrestrial Code is published annually in paper form in the three official OIE languages (English, French and Spanish), and in Russian. The contents of the 2011 version of the Terrestrial Code can be consulted in Web format.

Homeland Security Calls and CEEZAD Call for Animal Traceability/Identification and One Health

Speaking recently at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science Summit Conference in Washington, D. C., Professor Juergen Richt, Kansas State University Regents Distinguished Professor and Director of the DHS Center of Excellence for Emerging and Animal Diseases (CEEZAD), surprised his audience by opening with a little-known fact: “It has been estimated that a pound of meat (beef, chicken or pork) generally travels about 1,000 miles from farm to fork.” In view of such extensive movement, Dr Richt explained, “our agricultural supply chain here in the United States is under threat, because of our remarkable mobility that permits animals, people, food, diseases and even terrorists to move around the world with impunity.”

 

The Challenges Ahead

 

“For various foreign and zoonotic diseases—that is animal diseases that cross the species barrier to infect people—we face six tough challenges: (1) a research challenge for scientists to understand how viruses and prions behave;(2) a developmental challenge for pharmaceutical firms to manufacture the necessary vaccines and antiviral drugs quickly; (3) an organizational challenge for international agencies and national governments to fund and distribute those vaccines and antiviral agents; (4) an agricultural challenge for farmers and firms to protect their animals and workers; (5) a medical challenge for physicians, nurses and families to care for those who are ill; and (6) a personal challenge for politicians, public health officials and households — to each one of us—to respond with resilience and calmness.”

“The scale of this challenge is indicated by the fact that in the past two decades there have been numerous outbreaks of infectious diseases, each of which has cost its host country at least $350 million. The most serious recent outbreaks have all begun in animals—Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which cost China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and other nations some $50 billion, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) which cost the United Kingdom some $30 billion, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) which cost the United Kingdom $13 billion, and numerous outbreaks of Avian Flu in Asia, North America and Europe costing more than $10 billion.”

 

The Need for an Effective System of Animal Identification

It is precisely the unpredictability of emerging diseases that makes it essential to introduce an effective system of animal identification in the United States in order to ensure animal traceability. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has now taken the lead in a new effort to codify federal regulations and require an interstate certificate of veterinary inspection for all livestock moved interstate. Although producers and distributors of livestock are concerned by the costs of implementing an animal identification system in the United States, such costs are minimal compared to the costs of a major animal disease outbreak in the U.S. For example, the efficient control and eradication of FMD cannot be achieved without traceability data to identify the location of infected animals.

The Need to Link Human and Veterinary Medicine

“The opening line of Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, summarizes what I have tried to communicate,” commented Dr Richt. Remember when Dickens wrote: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.’ Today it is the best of times when we develop policies that are grounded in One Health, linking human and veterinary medicine with an ecologically healthy environment. It is the worst of times when we think that we can ignore the possibility of a major disease outbreak in the U. S.”

 

Dr Richt concluded, “We are confronted with many challenges, but given sufficient determination and funding these challenges can be met

 

WA State Wants Money for Animal Disease Traceability (Trace n NAIS)

WSDA is going to appropriations for money to fund Traceability in Washington State.  Here is the dirt at what is going on at the Legislature:

 

AnimalDiseaseTraceabilityLegislativeFiscalNote

 

10 Minute Citizen:  Call your Representatives and Senators and say No to Traceability.  Support small local farmers not multi-national agriculture with the UN call for global governance.

Merging Humans with Animals

Merging Humans and Animals Begins with Identification

 

Merging humans with animals began quietly with the incremental implementation of the Terrestrial Animal Health Code and a challenge in the legal sphere to human supremacy.  Most people are not even aware that these two quiet battles will merge most facets of being human with the animal kingdom.  After the US adopted much of the Terrestrial Animal Health Code created by the UN for global governance shielded from most eyes animal husbandry began to change from its traditional norms to a artificial science-based mutation. The program which morphs names calls for:

1.  Registration

2.  Electronic Identification

3.  Constant surveillance

What began as a program for animals is now being phased into programs for people.  Below was extracted from the Department of Homeland Security website.

The division strives to identify and generate the best technologies for assisting our operational customers in the areas of Personal Identification Systems, Human Technology Integration, and Social and Behavioral Threat Analysis. The primary federal customers for the division include Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) and U.S. Secret Service (USSS). End users also include federal, state, and local emergency management officials, first responders, and private sector infrastructure owners and operators. Continue reading

Food Fight: Washington State Considering Animal RFID’s Again…

This bill pertains to animals in holding facilities but mentions the dreaded ANIMAL DISEASE TRACEABILITY which has it’s roots in the National Animal Identification System, NAIS, that was morphed into ADT. Senator Shin brings Washington State this bill. The monies collected from fines, penalties, etc… goes to sustain this program’s existence.

The problem with the bill is multi-fold:

  • It caters to agri-business will strangling the small farmer who is often the target of  ‘suspected’ problems which totally removes it a small farmer from Constitutional protection.
  • RFID’s are KNOWN TO CAUSE CANCER. Is the Legislature willing to accept this liability when scientific evidence has proven the cancer link? According to Washington State law proposed bills that generate revenue remove Legislative immunity and person (s) can prosecute individually and jointly.
  • This is a deceptive incremental adoption of Trace n NAIS, that this Legislature found contentious with consumers, farmers and ranchers categorically opposing.

Yes!  I want to see the proposed bill!

10 Minute Citizen: Time to dust off those Memorandum’s of Opposition. You can find them on the right hand side. Take a few minutes and send a strong message to the Legislature.

States’ Animal Identification Statutes

A National AgLaw Center Research Publication

Elizabeth R. Rumley

Staff Attorney

National Agricultural Law Center

On February 5, 2010, the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, announced the abandonment of the National Animal Identification System (“NAIS”), which was a voluntary federal program meant to identify and trace the movement of animals throughout their life cycle. NAIS was implemented in order to facilitate the quick identification of animals that had been exposed to a potential disease threat. Instead of NAIS, Secretary Vilsack explained that a new approach would be taken, with states and tribal governments bearing responsibility for their respective identification programs. Since the programs are now state-based, they will necessarily be governed by state-specific laws as well. This compilation of States’ Animal Identification Statutes provides the statutory text of each state’s laws dealing with animal identification programs, along with the date of its possible expiration. The primary aim of this compilation is to provide the researcher with easy and free access to a state’s statutory language by simply clicking on the state’s image in the map below.

For the map go to this link:  http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/animalid/index.html

Porkers Calling for the Return of Animal ID Pork

Celeste Bishop

It has been determined by the President, Congress, and the Agricultural Committee that after years and millions of wasted taxpayer dollars the experiment to alter traditional animal identification methods failed dismally. But the porkers, true to their kind, want pork and more of it.  The porkers along with the Cattleman’s Association did fabulous acting jog pretending to be “the industry” when they went crying to state and Congressional leaders.   The USDA program known as the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)  was bold in their demands:

1.  Register all property (whether you own an animal or now, if you have potential to make $1000 from your property, not that you are making more, just the potential.  Why even apartment dwellers can do that.

2.  Electronically identify animals which we now know causes cancer thanks to the diligent work of Dr. Katherine Albrecht and an investigative reporter.  This was also a slam-dunk profit maker for new electronic identification methods.

3. 24/7 surveillance-Your papers please!  Health officials, under the Emergency Clause, not only in the US but around the world suspended national and state Constitutions as a few wealthy  individuals breached sovereign borders to make a few more dollars for their pockets.  If you take your chicken to the vet or travel on the roads or or maybe even take one of your animals for a walk it was proposed that you must file an extensive electronic report and carry the animals papers at all times.

Everyone you mention this scheme to thinks it is ludicrous!  Nevertheless farmers had to leave their farm, which by the way grow your food, to take to the marbled halls so that they could farm without squashing regulations.  The herald that funding had been terminated after this extravagant experiment brought a respite of sorts though several problems remained.

Most Americans are unaware of the the semantic shell game that goes on in the realm of politics.  NAIS was known as a contentious program yet the Department’s of Agriculture  persisted until the outcry became so loud that they could not dismiss it.  The USDA easily solved this dilemma with a pitch-fork response:  rename NAIS to Animal Disease Traceability; hold consensus meeting that really aren’t about the USDA listening to “We the People” (of course they do not have to listen because no where in our founding documents does it mention AGENCY, Department, Bureau, etc…; and lastly to bring back the pork ringer’s to squeal loud enough to drown out the voice of Americans saying, “No”.  One last thing you need to know as an American who needs to eat.  The Federal government knows that you need to eat and so their is a potential money-making operation laying in wait.  The Fed’s offered your state hard, cold cash, to receive grant money for NAIS.  The fine print of that contract, SF 424 A & B put your state on the hook to implement a whole lot more than NAIS, it included the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and numerous Executive Orders.  Your state had to implement all of these to get the cash and then provide Quarterly Reports on their progress.


Why are we in this predicament?

High food prices and contaminated food are a consequence of the United States signing on as a Member to the United Nations and branches such as the OIE who partly manages our food.  The a series of treaties were signed that supposedly we had to go along with in the modern global socialist governance.  It is claimed that these treaties supersede our Constitution.  This is only the case if we voluntarily allow these treaties to be a highest law in our land.

Long ago it was determined that Americans had not more right to food than anyone else around the world so the UN along with its partner Congress decided to “level the playing field”.  What does this mean to you?   Everybody gets the same nutrition, calories, access to food, quantity.  And for good measure it is an excellent funding mechanism because everybody has to eat.

Can the government of the United States actually control and eradicate disease by a money-grubbing program?  The article below mentions all the jobs and wealth this animal identification program will create.  It fails to note that farmers will be driven out of business due to crushing OIE regulations and the cost to support global governance.  It  is laughable this article also says an animal ID program will “save the animals”.  The stark truth of the matter is that the porker’s nor global government cares one single animal.  The only thing that matters is the bottom dollar and making as much of it as they can.

Ponder these things when you go to your local grocery store.  You would do far better economically and health-wise to support your local farmers.  Choose farmers you really trust who  are not really big-agri-business in a sheep suit.  That put’s the porker’s  out of the game, unless you want to be poor and then die from poisoned and fake food.

10 Minute Sovereign:  Call your Congressmen and women, tell them: “No to funding on Animal Disease Traceability.  It is a waste of time and money and we no longer have that luxury.”  If you have a few additional minutes call the Senate Ag Committee and tell them the same thing.  Make sure your voice is heard.  We need to drown out the porker’s who have had their day for their animal identification venture.  Let’s return our Constitution to its rightful spot and return to our traditional ways that made this country the greatest nation in the world.  Apathy and failure to get involved on your part, yes you eat you best get involved, will otherwise sink America’s food supply and it will go down faster than the Titanic.  Is this what you want for your children and grandchildren.  It is food for thought.  Think about it instead of some other activity you are scheduled to do today.

The Porker’s are Back!

This is an article from VetWeb and is for Educational Purposes Only

Calling it vital to the United States livestock industry’s ability to more quickly control and eradicate foreign animal diseases and keep export markets open, the National Pork Producers Council urged Congress to restore funding for a national animal identification system.

In letters sent to the chairmen and ranking members of the agriculture subcommittees of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, NPPC said the pork industry’s competitiveness and its exports, which create thousands of jobs and generate wealth, are threatened by the failure of the U.S. to implement an animal ID plan. Continue reading

WSDA RFID Freudian Slip?

Warning:  DO NOT JOIN any Washington State Animal Health Program unless you know the costs and final details

The Washington State Animal Health Department Programs are Living Programs that change at the whim of bureaucrats

Animal Tags

Electronic Identification and Tracking

Human Babies?

Positive ID Aims To Clean Up A PR Mess

Source: BNet

The pressure has finally taken its toll: PositiveID (PSID), the microchip implant company formerly known as VeriChip, has hired a PR firm to clear up inaccuracies in the media about its products — many of which originate from Positive ID’s own Web sites and its annual report.

There’s a lesson for managers here: hiding in a bunker and hoping that bad press about your business will go away on its own is a rotten strategy. Only by being upfront, transparent and above all quick in your response to negative coverage can you nip PR challenges in the bud. Continue reading