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Just when we thought it was safe to turn our attention to summer farm tours and harvest preparations, the folks in D.C. try to slip something by that has the potential to harm rural America and the local food movement.

What I’m talking about is a provision in the House Agriculture Appropriations bill that will require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to purchase meat products for the School Lunch Program that come only from farms that are registered with the National Animal Identification System.

This animal identification system was originally designed to compel all owners of farm animals to register their premises and personal information in a federal database, and to buy microchip devices and attach them to every one of their animals. Every off-farm movement in the life of each animal n every trip to the vet or 4-H show n would have to be logged and reported. Fees, of course, would be charged to register the premise and animals, and fines up to $1,000 a day were possible for any noncompliance. Every cow, horse, pig or chicken in a farmer’s backyard would have to carry an individual 15-digit ID number. All this unnecessary burden and financial drain on small livestock producers was promoted with the notion that it would somehow make our food safer.

We believe, in fact, that the animal ID program, as defined by U.S. Department of Agriculture, will not contain animal disease outbreaks in the United States. The source of E. coli, salmonella, listeria and other common meat-borne illness mostly results from mass crowding, feeding regimens, rushed assembly lines and poor sanitation most often found in industrial-scale meat operations. Further, animal tracking ends at the time of slaughter, and it’s from slaughter onward that most problems occur.

Understandably, when this program was first suggested, there were many complaints from family farmers and people who own livestock as pets and are not intended for food. The program costs would be high, and were developed by large livestock companies and the microchip industry.

At its most discriminatory, animal ID will not be implemented uniformly. The same diligence required of family farmers will not be required of large corporate animal facilities. These operations, which control the lives of thousands of poultry or livestock from birth to death, will be given a single lot number to cover the whole flock or herd. That’s a significant advantage.

The USDA has since backed off in its demand that animal identification be mandatory, but strongly urges voluntary participation. But, trying to tie the school lunch program to premise registration is just an underhanded way to accomplish their goals, and, if approved, it will undoubtedly impact the local food movement and farm to school programs just when they are beginning to flourish.

According to numerous studies, these local food programs help improve children’s nutrition while providing family farms with a reliable market. They also promote the local economy and environmentally sustainable agriculture as well as help children and parents re-connect with the providers of their food.

This provision in the Agriculture Appropriations bill is just another back-door attempt to benefit large-scale, confinement livestock operations at the expense of small-scale livestock producers. If this requirement is allowed to remain, what other food market is the next target? Denying our nation’s school children the possibility of benefiting from locally produced food is simply wrong-headed policy. We need, instead, to work to increase the amount of local food consumed locally.

Alan Merrill is president of the Montana Farms Union. He writes from Great Falls.

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