Assault on Small Farmers—Can We Defeat It?
by Justin Sanders

You bet! We can defeat the NAIS. New York attorney Mary Zanoni has founded an organization called Farm for Life and has filed official comments with the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) decrying the NAIS. In her brilliantly argued statement filed in June 2005, she put this whole scheme into perspective.

“The security of America’s food supply and the resilience of livestock in the face of diseases are best served by decentralising and dispersing food production and processing, and breeding and maintaining livestock. If more citizens could depend on food raised and processed within, say, 100 miles of their homes, the danger of large-scale disruptions would be minimised, the costs of transport would be less affected by volatile fuel prices, and any food-borne diseases… would be contained by the system’s natural geographic limits. Similarly, if animals, such as cattle, for example, are kept in small herds of, say, 10 to a 100 animals, infectious diseases will have much more difficulty in spreading beyond a discrete geographical area.”

Although USDA claims NAIS won't be mandatory until after 2009, this could change instantly, especially if Congress passes pending legislation such as HR 3170 or HR 1254 and HR 1256. Meanwhile, many states have rushed forward with their own programs. Texas, for one, has proposed mandatory premises registration. We must now fight on 51 fronts—each state and the federal level.

• What You Can Do

Justin Sanders of Westpoint, Tennessee, lives among terrorist chickens, lambs, cows, proletarian pigs, Percherons, Haflingers, and a Belgian, while raising three sons, none of whom yet has a government-approved tag. He is working with his state’s legislators to protect Tennessee farmers from NAIS. This article appeared in The Evener 2006 issue of Rural Heritage.