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By Linn Cohen-Cole~OpEd News
Hillary Clinton’s platform for a massive and centralized “Food Safety Department” did not die when her campaign for president did. Instead, it has been introduced by friends of hers as a series of “food safety” bills which are being moved rapidly through Congress now.
We need millions to be fighting this so contact Eli Pariser at MoveOn to tell him MoveOn is badly needed. Write him at moveon-help@list.moveon.org.
And then please forward this to all your friends and family and organizations, asking them to send a message to Congress and asking them to reach MoveOn as well.
NAIS was designed by NIAA (the National Institute of Animal Agriculture), a corporate consortium consisting of Monsanto, industrial meat producers such as Cargill and Tyson, and surveillance companies such Viatrace, AgInfoLink, and Digital Angel. The NAIS scheme fits agribusiness, biotech, and surveillance companies to a T:
1). they are already computerized, and they engineered a corporate loophole: If an entity owns a vertically integrated, birth-to-death factory system with thousands of animals (as the Cargills and Tysons do), it does not have to tag and track each one but instead a herd is given a single lot number.
2). NAIS will only be burdensome and costly (fees, tags, computer equipment, time) to small farmers which helps push them out of business, thus leaving more market to giant agribusiness.
3). Agribusiness wants to reassure export customers that the US meat industry is finally cleaning up its widespread contamination. NAIS would give that appearance … without incurring the cost of a real cleanup.
4). NAIS will allow total control over Giant Agribusiness’ competition: Owners of even a single chicken would be required to register private information, the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of their ‘premise’ and if any animal leaves its ‘premise’, the owner will be required to obtain an ID number for it and have the animal microchipped. All information, including 24 hour GPS surveillance would be fed into a vast corporate data bank, allowing for ease of false slaughter tohide true problems or to substitute biotech’s genetically engineered animals .5). NAIS may allow plundering of farmers through required DNA samples: DNA samples would be invaluable to Monsanto and biotech corporations already genetically engineering animals. Farmers who raise heritage breeds would have no say in how their distinct DNA would be used and to the sole profit of biotech companies.
