By: John E. Peck
Family Farm Defenders, executive director
An edited version of this letter was printed in the Wisconsin State Farmer (1/27/2006)
The current controversy over national livestock identification is not just of concern to the meat industry, and the recent opinion piece in the Wisconsin State Farmer (Dec. 30, 2005) by NCBA president-elect, Mike John, warrants a response. Contrary to his claim that NCBA critics do not have ideas of their own, there have been dozens of groups, including Family Farm Defenders, testifying at USDA hearings and presenting proposals.
The ongoing Mad Cow crisis in the U.S., which finally brought the need for livestock tracking into the limelight, is first and foremost a question of disease transmission and food contamination. It is extremely shortsighted and frankly irresponsible to have farm leaders espousing greater concern for producer secrecy and corporate profit than for human health and consumer safety. It was reckless free enterprise and negligent public oversight that got us in this mess in the first place.
Worse yet, Mad Cow remains just the tip of the iceberg given all the other threats now lurking in our cupboard and refrigerator thanks to industrial agribusiness and global free trade – avian flu, antibiotic resistance, bovine tuberculosis, synthetic hormones, foot and mouth, pesticide residues, the list goes on and on. Already, 2006 has started off with a nationwide outbreak of deadly pet poisonings due to aflatoxin-tainted dogfood.
It has been known for centuries that disease is not just spread by live animals. Yet, federal agencies like the USDA and FDA seem more interested in public relations than disease prevention. A sincere nationwide program to tackle the spread of diseases like Mad Cow would include: mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for all human food and animal feed; comprehensive testing using state of the art science for both domestic and imported animals prior to slaughter and the meat afterwards, as well as the banning of dangerous cross contamination practices – such as the feeding of meat, blood, bonemeal, tallow, and platewaste to confined animals and the use of bolt guns, air injection stunners, and advanced meat recovery in slaughterhouse operations.
Farmers who raise their animals well on pasture and butchers that follow safe humane standards, have nothing to hide, and they deserve the right to prove such in the domestic and overseas marketplace through independent Mad Cow-free certification. Yet, such private efforts are now being blocked by the Bush White House at the behest of the meat industry, which is – once again – more interested in damage control than food integrity. Oddly enough, a private solution to national livestock tracking is just fine for NCBA as long as it enables them to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and public scrutiny. Consumers and farmers, though, have every right to know just who is - and who is not - responsible for the problems now plaguing our food system.
Any mandated livestock identification system must be fair and that means it should be taxpayer funded, technologically neutral, and publicly managed – not extorted from farmers through check offs or subcontracted to a corporate monopoly. In particular, such a system must respect cultural differences and geographical realities so as to allow Amish dairy farmers, Native American communities, and Western cattle ranchers the choice to use more appropriate ID techniques (ear tags, brands, tattoos) and not force everyone to adopt an electronic chip system that would be more costly and prone to abuse. Animal identification should also be linked to a premises, rather than an individual, so as to better accommodate different forms of management, whether a tribal council, extended family, cooperative, or corporation.
Claims by agribusiness and government that the U.S. food supply is the “safest in the world” have been debunked by Mad Cow. If we really want to get serious about safeguarding public health and restoring consumer confidence in our food system, we will need to do away with the business as usual attitude that leads to bottom-of-the-barrel behavior and shift to a more sustainable, transparent, responsible, and democratic agricultural system.
