Don't Just Say "No"

I had the opportunity to attend the first of the series of NAIS listening sessions in Harrisburg last week. These thoughts stem from that trip……

The session was divided into two parts: a morning meeting at which people were drawn by lottery and invited to give a three minute statement to the room and an afternoon session at which the participants were divided (by the randomly chosen colored dot on the portfolio of information supplied to the attendees) into one of three groups. These groups then held moderated/facilitated discussions, largely concerning the list of issues about which these sessions are asking – a list from which they are trying to gather some solutions and ideas.  The group to which I was assigned strayed from that list a little, but ended up covering all the points.

The sessions seemed to be divided between those who are pro NAIS and those who are against it. By sheer numbers, the against faction took the cake. However – and this is the things that I find really significant – they had nothing to offer except for their against-ness.

And some of their against-ness appeared to have very little to do with NAIS per se. This further diluted the strength of those who did not support the NAIS and also, in many cases, lent an appearance of eccentricity to the “anti” group.

These sessions appear to be designed to get some solutions to things that have been identified as issues in NAIS. The web site is clear about the items under consideration at these sessions. The full agenda can be found at:

http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/naislibrary/documents/NAIS_LS_agenda.pdf

Discussions evolved around cost, impact on farmers, privacy, liability, premise registration, traceability….. and folks had opinions about all of these – and more!

While my personal opinion is decidedly not that of pro-NAIS, over the last while I’ve come to some realizations. This system is going to be put in place – one way or another. There is too much vested interest and calls for action on both food security and food safety to let it fall by the wayside. And to back off now would result in a huge “loss of face” for the government – and we all can see why that backing off something that has been pushed sooooooo hard would stick in the craw of the instigators of this legislation. Additionally, when you really get down and look behind the movement for NAIS, it’s evident that much of the impetus behind this system is predicated on the demands of the international trading community. Want to trade globally – have some clear system of animal identification in place.  No ID – simple. Sell your stuff at home.  However, the instigators of this proposal elected to paint with a very broad brush and essentially lump all farmers and folks with stock into one bunch.

So – what we are really left with in all this mess seems to involve the issue of what form the NAIS legislation is going to take and who is going to be involved in both the final formation as well as in the actual identification process. 

While many of the pro camp are involved in international trade and exports and also in the business of providing third party recording (a reasonable idea when one considers the issues of potential real privacy of information if it’s held by a governmental body that is bound by the freedom of information laws…… These private record keeps are not held to the same freedom of information responsibilities. And, in this situation, at least for some, that can certainly be considered a “good” thing…..) as well as folks with a vested interest in food safety and security, the majority of the anti faction was comprised of farmers and eaters.

Over the past few weeks I’ve come to approach this issue from a somewhat different place on the circle. Follow me here if you will, then make your own choice and let your own voice be heard.

As I said, there was lots of anti at the meeting, but none of the anti had any real coordinated options or suggestions about what to do. I’d like to explore what I consider a viable “to do” option.

When one takes a step back and looks at what is happening in farming today, we can see that there are essentially two groups of farmers: those who farm and those “farmers” who are essentially involved in large/r corporate agribusiness.  And there is an evolution of two streams of food supply – that which is grown and procured locally and/or with a relationship with the farmer and the processors and that which is more anonymous and comes from far off, from imports, from aggregated sources, and from industrial growers and packers.

When we look at the local food supply we can see that there are farmers who sell directly to eaters and there are farmers who sell a little less directly to eaters – but who still maintain a face and a name to their products. Many of these farmers belong to third party certifying programs that ensure issues of quality and inputs and handling * and of identification of the animals who end up on the hook and in the meat cooler and on the plate *. Contrast this with corporate meat production where the trace backs now can (more or less proudly) track the pound of burger to a group of three hundred cattle!

Following the thread here…. Come along…..

These groups of small/er farmers already have a voluntary system in place, a system in which they have taken the responsibility for their food products, a system in which they and their animals are already being identified and tracked from farm to fork.

The group for which this is not happening (and ironically this is the group that is handled less individually in the current NAIS proposal) is those producers who are growing for the large consolidated markets, including the export market. And it’s this group of producers that need to be the primary target of NAIS legislation.

It makes not one whit of sense to impose another system of identification on farmers who can already identify from whence things came. And it makes not one whit of sense to increase the burden on the people and use taxpayer and farmer money for a new program that duplicates what is already in place (and what is already working very well).  It does make sense to implement a program that calls to accountability those producers who have not been as diligent in being able to follow the food they produce from farm to fork. And it makes sense to have a system in place that will allow those producers who want to trade internationally to do so without imposing that system on all classes/groups of farmers.

My sense when I was at the listening session in Harrisburg is that there was an interest in not only listening, but in hearing what the people had to say. But at the end of the day, if the people do not speak in a manner that offers viable and concrete suggestions, it’s going to be just a bunch of noise.