Now the Chinese are accusing the foreign media for the ‘food scare’. I’m not sure it was a food scare. As I understand it, people have died from contaminated products. Who knows how extensive the food & supplement contamination is. It seems a ready pretext for ‘tracking’ and control.

chineseaccuse

I had two pets die and one still struggling from having eaten top-of-the-line pet food. A friend in Seattle took her sheltie to the vet for a routine visit a few weeks ago; 5 pets with renal failure were ahead of her at that one vet.

We make our own pet food exclusively now but I did notice on the FDA site awhile ago that a goat & sheep feed producer in Iowa had been using melamine in their products, as well.

Why can’t we be left alone to develop our local food sources without federal oversight? They certainly do not have our health & safety at issue. It’s simply a matter of absolute control.

“mexico/u.s. accord working group” “april 9″

It should be the only hit. I tested it and it worked.

I was out of town one week in May, so someone may have posted info on this. If so, I am sorry to duplicate what has been done.

I ran across a one-paragraph article on Brownfield titled, “Andy Miller in Mexico for Tri-National Accord”. I searched “tri-national agricultural accord”, the phrase mentioned in the text of the article, and discovered the following:

Tri-National Agricultural Accord XV, April 16, 2005, NASDA (National Association of State Departments of Agriculture):

US/Canada: “Delegates agreed to continue working toward harmonization of animal health standards, livestock feed regulations and risk mitigation measures in relation to BSE.” AND

US/Mexico: “Delegates reviewed the 2004-2005 work plan, and agreed to continue work on harmonization in animal health policies, including animal identification, and plant health policies.”

link

Mexico/US Accord Working Group, 2007-2008 Work Plan, April 9, 2007

Issue: Animal Identification
Action: Monitor progress of animal identification plans in each country and ensure animal identification is compatible in the three countries.”

link

More is available on the NASDA home page (click on “Tri-National Accord at the top). More meetings are scheduled for this year. I have not found a list of the U.S. delegation. And there are tons of items if you Google “Tri-National Accord”.

No matter how the pro-NAIS traitors push this, out front or behind the scenes, I feel that they know they cannot legally shove this down our throats - otherwise, there would have been a short and sweet piece of legislation to pass Congress.

Regarding the article, “Australian Farmers Urged to Raise Kangaroos, Not Sheep”, how long before the word urged is replaced with “required”.

link

I believe talks are ongoing to enter into a trade deal with Australia.

link

This is what I wrote in my comments. There is so much more that can be said so please add to this!!!

“High costs will result if NAIS is used to implement COOL(Mary Beth Westcott)
Although the 2002 Farm Bill forbade the use of an animal identification system like NAIS (National Animal Identification System) to implement COOL, the 2007 Farm bill has an amendment that marries the two together. Costs will be major if this happens. The NAIS would be costly and burdensome for livestock producers and require much more information collection than is needed to implement COOL. COOL can be implemented simply by requiring that all imports of live animals or food be identified with a country of origin marking. Requiring U.S. livestock owners to individually identify and track all domestic livestock is not necessary. The USDA is just using COOL now as latest excuse to sell NAIS. Cool will add substantial increases at the meat counter if the costs of NAIS is thrown into the program.”

General News
Americans are COOL with labels for imported meat and poultry: report

By Tom Johnston on 7/12/2007 for Meatingplace.com

A Consumer Reports poll indicates that 92 percent of Americans want to know where their meat originates in light of recent domestic food scares involving peanut butter and lettuce.

“I was definitely shocked at how high these numbers were,” the study’s co-author, Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, publisher of CR, told Reuters.

“It’s much like a nutrition label or an ingredient label in that it needs to be part of the general information coming in about imported foods,” she added.

CR polled more than 1,000 consumers between June 7 and June 10. The results come as USDA continues accepting public comment on its country-of-origin labeling measure, and as consumer and producer groups express concern over recent food-safety snafus involving pet food and other products from China.

American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle said the survey results “underscore the value of the existing mandatory country-of-origin labeling rules for imported meat and poultry enforced by USDA.”

In mid-july, you will be considering approving Section 121 of the 2007 Farm Bill. This proposal ties the implentation of COOL with NAIS. These should be considered as SEPERATE items, because that is exactly what they are. NAIS should be stricken from the Farm Bill.

I am seriously opposed to NAIS. It is not a system people will support and furthermore it will never work. Do your research from many angles. NAIS is seriously flawed and is unrealistic, to say the least. There are too many variables such as a houase cat eating a dead bird and then kissing its owner. THen what - the entire farm is “depopulated” because the owner gets sick? NAIS will harm everyone, all of us, society, in the long run by eventually downgrading the needed the biodiversity as small family farmers, who can’t afford the time or money, will get put out of business, while the huge conglomerates will benefit and grow larger while we all loose more gene pools and strains of animals as people stop keeping animals. And if disease ever did come to these large factory farms, how smart is it that we concentrate all this food source in single spots? We’ll need the biodiversity of many small famers so we can recover. More problems that can’t even be thought of with NAIS/USDA such as inspectors dragging disease from farm to farm with their dirty tires; 4-H destroyed, etc. There is a myriad of serious problems with NAIS. It is not a realistic program. It does nothing to stop disease - it can only “track back.” Since most contamination and bacteria comes from the slaughterhouse after the fact, NAIS is not useful for stopping disease. NAIS is only money making for the huge conglomerates. We will all mourn the day NAIS ever went through, so do not let it.

Seperately, Consumers need to be able to differetiate foreign grown products from local with COOL (malamine problem from China for example!)

The Farm Bill process was originally created to benefit family farmers. Do your part in passing a bill that is good for the very occupation this nation was built on.

Thanks for your consideration,

I think we all need to leave our comments on COOL. The recent publication on COOL in the Federal Register can be found here:
link

(Sorry Walter but I don’t understand how to use the html below to add a link)

COOL YES, NAIS NO

[COOL good. NAIS bad. Link fixed. -WJ]

Bobs right,this is our country, our home ,lets not let them scare us out of it, I know it can all be a bit overwhelming but you can do it,

you have it in you,we just have to dig down deep sometimes to find the courage and the resolve to look the devil in the eye and spit in his face,we all have had reservations and fears about what is going on all over the place,

but then thats the point it is “all over the place”,we will find tyrants wherever we go on this planet,no sense trading their tyrrants for ours,besides they won’t let you leave anyway if it really hits the fan.

we have had a good thing here in America,we still do/ will,if we stick together and adopt a “not in my backyard” attitude toward govt stupidity in general.

Govt wants us to believe they hold all the cards and that they are too powerful and all encompasing to be challenged or defied,I’m here to tell you it ain’t so, they know it too,

but they will keep at it as long as we the people let them,like most bullys they have no real backbone or authority,but they have a lot of bluster and intimidating ways,

if we refuse to comply in mass they will soon back down, but if we let them they will run us off the farm ,so to speak.

We are up against a ruthless bunch of tyrant wannabees (govt and corporate) who believe they are destined to rule us,it ain’t gonna happen,we are going to win this fight,one way or another,failure is not an option,so never give up and never say die.

We have gained some ground since we first started this journey,we have a ways to go, but lets hang in there and we will finish this thing for good.thanks.

“Live free or die tryin”