Family Farm Defenders joins effort against federal school lunch coercion

Family Farm Defenders joins over 70 other organizations in and effort to keep animal ID requirement out of the federal school lunch program

On June 25th a letter was sent by over 70 organizations to the House Appropriations Committee asking Congress not to connect the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) to the School Lunch Program. Among the signers is Family Farm Defenders which has been at the forefront of grassroots resistance to premises registration, RFID chipping, and animal tracking - the three stages of NAIS, the first of which is already mandated in Wisconsin.

A copy of the letter to Congress can be found:
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content/files/SignOnLetter080625.pdf

The misguided proposal in the 2009 Agriculture Appropriations Bill would require the School Lunch Program to buy only meat from farms that have been registered under NAIS. This proposal would discriminate against smallscale producers who have chosen not to participate in the largest invasive surveillance project in U.S. agricultural history. In Wisconsin alone over 10% of dairy farmers have refused to register, many for religious reasons such as among the Amish, the fastest growing segment of the state's dairy industry. If passed, this proposal would force many local farm to school lunch programs that have successfully introduced healthier grassfed meat into cafeterias to go back to factory farm suppliers and corporate meatpackers.

"This corporate-driven perversion of the school lunch program is masquerading as a food safety measure, despite the fact that USDA officials have repeatedly stated that NAIS is not a food safety program," noted John Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders. "School children will still be stuck eating dubious meat at taxpayer expense - whether it is from cloned animals, animals force-fed mad cow material or injected with synthetic hormones and antibiotics, or contaminated and irradiated after slaughter. In fact, it is highly debatable whether NAIS even helps keep animals healthier since the best disease prevention option is to keep livestock outside eating their natural foods on pasture."

“The provision favors the most vertically integrated farms that can easily prove that all their meat is from a NAIS-registered farm, as well as confinement operations (CAFOs) that will be able to use group identification under NAIS,” added Kathy Ozer, executive director of the National Family Farm Coalition.

Family Farm Defenders calls upon concerned citizens to contact their Congressional representatives (Capital Switchboard #202-224-3121) to oppose any NAIS related requirement that would prohibit unregistered family farmers from supplying healthy local grassfed meat to the federal school lunch program.