I am hardly up-to-date on much of the current discussion about the food economy in the United States, but I found this bit particularly interesting:
Wendell Berry Picks Jail Over NAIS
The NAIS is short for the National Animal Identification System. In an effort to be able to trace diseases back to their source, the NAIS would require every single livestock animal in the US to be tagged, regardless of the size of the operation. The problem, or so it is argued, is that the diseases exist because we have made it a standard practice to house a huge number of animals of the same species together in relatively small spaces. In these conditions, they are often fed food that is not consistent with their natural diet and because of the resulting health problems, they are treated with huge amounts of antibiotics. Basically, the antibiotics keep the animals alive because they would otherwise die in the conditions they are currently existing in. Sounds good, eh?
In a small farm with crop and animal rotation, such as Joel Salatin’s Polyface, Inc., the animals tend not to get sick because they are treated as they should be – that is, as they were created. The website explains that one of their guiding principles is “Nature’s Template”:
Mimicking natural patterns on a commercial domestic scale insures moral and ethical boundaries to human cleverness. Cows are herbivores, not omnivores; that is why we’ve never fed them dead cows like the United States Department of Agriculture encouraged (the alleged cause of mad cows).
And, as this principle shows, it is not just the animals who are treated well, but we humans also get to live well by recognizing the ‘moral and ethical boundaries’ of our role as caretakers of God’s creation. This is the stuff of real life.
Back to the article, quoting Berry:
The need to trace animals was made by the confined animal industry – which are, essentially, disease breeding operations. The health issue was invented right there. The remedy is to put animals back on pasture, where they belong. The USDA is scapegoating the small producers to distract attention from the real cause of the trouble. Presumably these animal factories are, in a too familiar phrase, “too big to fail”.
This is the first agricultural meeting I’ve ever been to in my life that was attended by the police. I asked one of them why he was there and he said: “Rural Kentucky”. So thank you for your vote of confidence in the people you are supposed to be representing. (applause) I think the rural people of Kentucky are as civilized as anybody else.
But the police are here prematurely. If you impose this program on the small farmers, who are already overburdened, you’re going to have to send the police for me. I’m 75 years old. I’ve about completed my responsibilities to my family. I’ll lose very little in going to jail in opposition to your program – and I’ll have to do it. Because I will be, in every way that I can conceive of, a non-cooperator.
I understand the principles of civil disobedience, from Henry Thoreau to Martin Luther King. And I’m willing to go to jail to defend the young people who, I hope, will still have a possibility of becoming farmers on a small scale in this supposedly free country. Thank you very much. (applause, cheers)
This is the stuff of real life.
Hello
I’ve recently uploaded two rare interviews with the Wobblie, anarchist, and activist Dorothy Day.
Day had begun her service to the poor in New York City during the Depression with Peter Maurin, and it continued until her death in 1980. Their dedication to administering to the homeless, elderly, and disenfranchised continues in many parts of the world.
Please post or announce the availability of these videos for those who may be interested in hearing this remarkable humanist.
They may be located here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/4854derrida
Thank you
Dean Taylor