Coalition: Don’t Tie School Lunch Program to NAIS

WASHINGTON — A coalition of family farmers, independent ranchers, organic and local food system advocates from across the country recently criticized a provision to be included in the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee’s markup bill that would force the USDA to purchase meat for the National School Lunch Program only from sources that are registered in the controversial National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The appropriations bill also increases funding for NAIS $4.8 million above 2008, for a total of $14.5 million for FY2009. According to the coalition, the NAIS provisions will harm the growing local food movement and consumer demand for sustainable meat, while giving unfair advantages to industrial factory farms who are responsible for the overwhelming majority of hazardous food safety practices.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., proposed the idea, and last week R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) sent her a letter to ask that she withdraw the language from the bill, as R-CALF USA believes keeping the measure “would facilitate the ongoing trend toward the industrial integration and concentration of our nation’s cattle production industry ... we share your keen desire to improve the safety of our food supply (but) ... your current proposal would cause harm to the financial viability of our nation’s family farmers and ranchers without addressing the source of food safety problems.”

“The safety of the U.S. beef supply has not been compromised by U.S. farmers and ranchers, but instead, the safety of the U.S. beef supply has been compromised due to USDA’s failure to provide adequate oversight and enforcement of existing health and safety standards,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “The Westland/Hallmark fiasco was the direct result of USDA’s failure to enforce the prohibition against the slaughter of downer cattle for human consumption, and the NAIS could not have mitigated this failure.”