LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Heads-up to 4-H and FFA families

by Leellen Koroulis customdraft@earthlink.net

This letter is offered to give a ‘heads-up’ to 4-H families and anyone who owns livestock in the state of Colorado and isn’t already aware of this issue.

The following is a statement made by Dr. Jeff Goodwin, Director of 4-H Youth Development Programs, Colorado State University, on March 28, 2007: "4-H is a program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). An effective National Animal Identification System (NAIS) protocol is important to protect the livestock industry. In support of this national initiative, all Colorado 4-H livestock project animals (beef and dairy cattle, sheep, swine, goat, poultry, llama and horse) must have a premises registration. As of October 1, 2007, premises registration with NAIS will be required at livestock project enrollment in the Colorado 4-H program. The Colorado FFA program will have an identical policy beginning October 2007. County fair boards are also encouraged to adopt similar practices." Another document entitled " A Few Thoughts about Premises Registration in the State of Colorado," revise d March 29, 2007, goes on to state ... "The first step of NAIS is premises registration in all segments of the livestock industry (emphasis added)…" http://equineextension.colostate.edu/files/news/Premises_Registration_Speaking_Points.pdf (page 1 of 8)

Dr. Goodwin further states in "Why Colorado 4-H Requires a Premises Registration:" "Even though premises registration is currently a voluntary program at the federal level, most agriculturists believe it will become essential (emphasis added) in the future. Colorado is taking the lead on this issue and will become a national model for addressing contentious issues such as this by bringing a broad coalition of stakeholders together to ensure "the right thing" (emphasis added) gets done." http://www.ag.state.co.us/animals/COAnimalID/4HPremisesDoc.pdf (page 9 of 9)

"The bottom line," states Dr. Goodwin, "We stay the course, and in two years this will be a non-issue."

To recap, premises registration is currently voluntary at the federal level, but will be mandatory for 4-H/FFA families in October 2007 as a part of registration in a livestock project. It will become essential (mandatory) throughout all segments of the livestock industry, according to Dr. Goodwin.

The NAIS is to be implemented in a three stages.

1. Premises Registration. Every person owning (in whole or in part) any livestock animal would have to register the premises where the livestock is held within the state. Livestock animals include cattle (beef and dairy), hogs, sheep and goats, chickens and other poultry, horses, bison, deer, elk, alpacas, llamas and others.

2. Animal Identification. There will be two levels of animal identification: individual animal or group or lot identification. Most animals in the program would need to be individually identified with a unique 15-digit number. Animals would either be implanted with a microchip or tagged with a radio frequency device, or otherwise physically identified. The tag will have to bear the entire 15-digit number, with the number easily read. For at least some species, radio-frequency identification devices would be required. Group or lot identification could only be used where groups of animals are managed together from birth to death and not commingled with other anim als. In practice only large confinement producers of poultry and swine would be able to avail themselves to this exception to the individual tagging rule. If animals do not meet the requirements for group identification, they will have to be individually identified.

3. Animal tracking. Every time a tag is applied, lost or an animal is missing or needs to be re-tagged, the event would have to be reported to the government within 24 hours. "Commingling events," i.e., rodeos, horse shows, livestock shows, clinics, etc., will have to be reported to the government within 24 hours, including both public and private sales, regional shows and exhibitions. Livestock animal owners may choose their own Animal Tracking Database (ATD) for tracing certain individual animal or group/lot movements.

The premises registration itself is free, but the tagging, reporting and tracing are all at the expense of the livestock owner.

4-H/FFA families are the first to be mandated to comply with premises registration in the state of Colorado. I am a 4-H mother and have done extensive research on this matter as the issue seems to be staring me down and can no longer be avoided. I find the entire system to be in violation of the rights provided to me under the Constitution of the United States.

Something not widely advertised is that the entire NAIS program is still in DRAFT form. You may access a copy of this lengthy document at the Colorado Department of Agriculture website. The word DRAFT is watermarked on every single page of the entire document. I encourage you to read this document. It seems quite insidious to me that 4-H/FFA families are being mandated to have their premises identified into a program that is in DRAFT form. It would be similar to being mandated by a government entity to acquire a loan at a bank chosen by the government and, after the loan is signed, wait to find out how much you borrowed and what the terms and conditions of the loan may be. Once your premises have been registered, they are forever registered regardless of what changes are made in the NAIS program.

According to Dr. Goodwin, 4-H agents are agents of the USDA. The entire NAIS system is still in DRAFT form. No one can say with any certainty what will be required of those who have registered their premises until NAIS guidelines have been finalized. Whatever assurances you may be given by anyone (including myself) regarding what may or may not be required of you in reference to the NAIS program, can be no more than pure speculation.

If this were not the case, I do not believe the word DRAFT would be so clearly watermarked across each page.

It may seem sad to readers that my child will be prohibited from showing a lamb at the 2007 Colorado State Fair and at any county fair in the state of Colorado in 2008 (I am certain to be chided), but it is important. As a private citizen who has neither been accused of nor convicted of any crime, I believe it is a small price to pay to maintain freedom from constant government surveillance. If foregoing one fair or twenty fairs will maintain the freedom we currently enjoy for my grandchildren, the sacrifice must be made. Many have fought wars and died to maintain these freedoms.

I am one 4-H mother who has not received any grants, has not been promised any grants, has no corporate ties, am not up for election or re-election, owes nothing to any lobbyist and am an agent for no one, other than my family. I am one 4-H mother asking simply that anyone considering registering their premises under the NAIS program do their own research on this subject. This is much bigger than 4-H. I started my research by simply typing the words ‘NAIS Opposition’ into a search engine and ask that you do the same. It only takes a few minutes.

-- Leellen Koroulis customdraft@earthlink.net

The worm finally seems to be turning, as beef is beginning to receive renewed and well-deserved respect as a superb, nutrient-rich, health-giving food. Recent attention has focused on its conjugated linoleic fatty acid (CLA) content which serves as a valuable metabolic regulator: CLA moderates insulin levels, which in turn reduces problems with obesity and the risk of diabetes and heart disease; CLA also blocks tumor growth. Interestingly, CLA content is reported to be highest in grass-fed beef.

Beef supplies many other valuable fat factors as well. Among them are the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K which aid in mineral uptake and protein utilization needed to build good teeth and bone structure and healthy immune systems in our children.

Beef´s complete protein, rich enzyme and mineral content, and its natural fat factors are important as well to adults and the elderly, as we also require high quality food in order to repair and rebuild diseased and damaged body organs and functions from the cellular level on up.

Beef´s chief competitors -- the cheap oil/margarine industry, the "junk" carbohydrate processors, the synthetic vitamin and supplement manufacturers -- have been waging an untrue and unfair propaganda war against beef and its natural fat for many years. The truth is finally beginning to come out: the real human health culprits are heavily refined and processed sugars and starches and heat-extracted vegetable oils.

Unrestricted use of beef, including its natural fat, is increasingly recommended as an important part of almost any successful corrective and preventative diet aimed at improving the average American´s health and well-being. In other words: the only thing better for you than being a vegetarian is eating one!

--Jeanne Charter, Shepherd, Montana

I am just a plain ordinary American citizen, certainly not endowded with excessive useless, education. But I certainly do not have my head stuck in the ground like an ostrich!!

First, regarding gun control and the position the National Rifle Association has taken to stand up for the rightsof law abiding citizens. The right to bear and carry arms for their protection.

Americans, please consider the following facts:

Do you really think the police can control the criminal element, if the criminals are aware that only and only the police can carry guns? And do you really think that criminals win not be able to aquire guns? Are youu really that naive, or is it called stupidity?

Please consider the fact that we are surrounded be countries, who are only too willing to supply the needs of the criminal element, and WHY? Simple, there is enormous profits to be made in gun smuggling. The same as the profits made every day by the smuggling of drugs, and the now outlawed automatic rifles.

Then think how happy other countries, like China, would be to see unarmed Americans, their´s for the taking.

If that is not enough, take a look at what is happening in Yugoslavia to an unarmed people. I would think that, what is happening there to day is enough to wake you up. Do you really want something like this to happen to you, your sons, daughters, brother,and sisters? Murder, rape, maiming, germicide, I don!t think so!

True, it is horrible, the senseless slaughter of innocents by derranged people. Why is this happening? Because America has lost it´s hold on the values our forefathers installed in this great nation of ours. They certainly didn!t win our freedom from the British, by pointing a finger and saying "BOOM". No it was done by their belief, courage, and by their shedding of blood, sweat, and tears.

Another thing, my brother, and sister Americans. If you succeed in having guns outlawed, how are you going to get the sharp, deadly knives outlawed? These can be made by any one having access to a piece of tempered steel. A knife may not go "boom", but the victim will be just as dead as if he or she had been shot by a cannon. Just how many of you have seen anyone die from knife wounds. It is not a pretty sight ...

Perhaps, You are wondering why I have a right to defend the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution of the Country that I love. I is very simple,, On February 2,1945, my baby brother gave his life in the retaking of Manila, and in the protection of this great country of ours.

It is really disgusting to me to hear peoploe that I feel should exhibit superior intelligence, stoop to and accept, false concepts.

--Charles Brashears, Cuervo, New Mexico

The more I have been thinking about hormones and bananas -- the madder I have been getting. Obviously this country does not export bananas to Europe, but the Clinton Administration decided to take up the cause for Chiquita. Why, instead, didn´t our government move to protect sheep and cattle producers who are being hammered by a flood of imports?

Instead of initiating an anti-dumping suit (like ranchers had to do for themselves through R-Calf) against imported cattle, the government decided that Europeans are not eating enough hormones with their beef. USDA Secretary Dan Glickman trumpets the notion that we are challenging an unfair, unscientific, restriction keeping out American beef. Perhaps we are not supposed to notice that Europe has a surplus of beef and actually subsidizes exports.

The chances that this country will export beef to Europe is slim to nil. Hormones implanted in cattle, may or may not be safe but the European consumers are understandably frightened and wary as a result of the mad cow disease scandal. But if the pharmaceutical companies say that Europeans will eat beef raised with synthetic hormones, Europeans will eat beef raised with synthetic hormones. And apparently, it will be our government that will make sure that they do.

Some may say that the bananas and hormones concern the people over in Europe -- it is not our affair. But the issue here is not whether Europeans purchase hormone raised beef or eat Chiquita´s bananas. The issue is one of democracy and self determination. Have the trade treaties superseded the rights of people in Europe to determine what they eat? If so have the trade treaties also superseded the Constitution of the United States? Do the rights of corporations now come before the rights of the American people?

We are beginning now to see clearly the disaster that NAFTA, GATT, and WTO has caused in rural America. In the propaganda blitz building up to the adoption of these "so-called" treaties, agriculture was promised prosperity. Instead we got the disintegration of competitive markets and an economic depression covering all of rural America if not the world. Globalization has proven to be Globaloney. As we see with the trade war with Europe over bananas and hormones, What has been created, with NAFTA, GATT, and WTO are the conditions where multi-national corporations reign supreme. Now, any local, state, or national law -- in any country -- that any corporation finds inconvenient can and will be disallowed.

I am reminded of the prophetic words of the poet, philosopher, and farmer Wendell Berry when he wrote: "We are now pretty obviously facing the possibility of a world that the supranational corporations, and the governments and educational systems that serve them, will control entirely for their own convenience --: and, incidentally and inescapably, for the inconvenience of all of the rest of us. This world will be a world in which the cultures that preserve nature and rural life will simply be disallowed. It will be, as our experience already suggests, a post-agricultural world. But as we have been warned, as we begin to see, you cannot have a post-agricultural world that is not also post-democratic, post-religious, and post-natural -- in other words it will be, as we have understood ourselves post-human."

--Gilles Stockton, Grass Range, Montana