The LocalHarvest Blog
05 Nov Sun 2006
NAIS, At What Cost?
Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter!
As we head into the cooler, crisper months of autumn, and the summer harvests of garden fresh salads and luscious strawberries cease, many people turn to warmer, heartier meals to fuel our families and ourselves. Baked goods and meat stews, soups and roasts of all kinds find a place in the everyday and holiday feasts at this time of year. Indeed, it is a booming season for our local farmers who are raising livestock and poultry, and, thankfully, the demand for local organic meat, eggs, and dairy products continues to grow.
While we are celebrating both the season's abundance and the increasing availability of high quality meats and dairy products, we also want to draw your attention to a grave threat to the continued growth of small scale meat production. This month we write about the National Animal Identification System, a thorny and ill-conceived attempt to track the movements of all farm animals as a means of containing disease outbreaks. While we're all for safety in the food system, this particular program promises to give more political clout to factory farming while hamstringing family farmers with red tape - and in the end there is no real promise for increased consumer protections. It's an issue many of our LocalHarvest farmers feel passionately about, and since it is not getting much press elsewhere, we wanted our readers to be aware of it so you can take a stand if you choose.
