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After a decade of relative quiet, the federal government has stepped up its efforts to control America’s food supply and eliminate all actors and options that do not fully embrace the corporate government complicity that has shaped America’s food and agriculture sectors for the past 60 years.
Buying clubs are confiscating and destroying products. In agricultural markets, inspections and harassment of artisans and local producers are on the rise.
Farmers around the world are facing new regulations, rules and programs designed to make meat processors and middlemen richer and take more money out of their pockets.
If you think that homeowners who keep egg-laying hens won't be targeted, you're wrong.
The government already requires registration for each backyard chicken in the UK, and the original National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in the US required the same for urban kennels. (1, 2)
This time… for what may be the fifth time… the USDA is trying to re-launch the radio frequency identification tags for livestock that were cleverly rebranded from NAIS to RFID a decade ago.
Why RFID?
Industry leaders argue that RFID is needed for greater transparency (from people who process meat from 500 cows in windowless processing facilities!) and to enable quicker response to disease outbreaks across the country.
In fact, the reason they want RFID is to increase control over the farmers who have no choice but to sell into the industrial meat commodity system.
Currently, four or five companies control more than 80% of American beef, pork, and chicken.
They would like that number to be over 100%, and RFID is yet another way to force farmers to farm by their rules and push out smallholders.
First track the animals, then track the people.
RFID is part of a larger, long-term goal by governments and powerful corporations to track every human action and make a profit from it.
Like the push for a single digital currency, the RFID push would allow for:
- The ability to impose limits and quotas on animal husbandry and forced culling, such as the ones we are seeing.
Europe and other countries have a climate change justification (too many cows).
Sheep and goats emit too much exhaust fumes, so we need to reduce the number of animals we raise!) - Ability to enforce strict vaccine enforcement and adoption of mRNA and similar vaccines
Farmers need to vaccinate their livestock so they can process it. - The ability to easily cull animals from a specific area or region under the pretext of an outbreak of disease such as avian influenza.
Diagnosing the flu using fake PCR test results. - Thorough and rigorous oversight of the entire U.S. meat supply.
As former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Catherine Austin Pitts has said, animal ID and digital currency ID are precursors to the larger goal of universal human RFID and tracking.
This may sound far-fetched, but one of the early versions of an RFID program, the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), included a 1-800 number that farmers were required to call within 24 hours if an animal moved outside the designated property boundaries.
The real question was, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” But the USDA didn't care why. They only cared about when and where it crossed, and failure to comply could result in fines of hundreds or thousands of dollars.
With the advent of the Internet and other technologies, phone numbers are no longer necessary. Governments (and businesses with access to data) can now know 24 hours a day where every animal is and what farmers and subsistence farmers are doing.
Much of this movement has involved trying to get people to eat meat-free diets, which have so far been a spectacular failure despite billions of dollars in investment, marketing, and government manipulation.
As we see in parts of Europe and the United States, there is a huge, funded movement to create a food system that is completely meat-free and free of animal products.
We will never allow people to consume nutrient-dense animal products that are naturally raised on pasture, whether through insects, “plant-based meats,” or whatever!
What we can do to stop RFID
If you are a farmer or a subsistence farmer, join tens of thousands of others who have pledged to not follow the law, no matter what, like Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massey, who raises grass-fed beef.
Second, contact your Senators and Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor and support Representative Harriet Hageman’s Amendment 10, the EID/RFID Discontinuation Act. (3)
https://hageman.house.gov/media/press-releases/hageman-introduces-bill-block-mandatory-eid-ear-tags
Also, ask your representative to support Representative Hageman’s resolution HJRes.167, which would reject the rule submitted by the Department of Agriculture regarding “the use of electronic identification ear tags for the official identification of cattle and buffalo.” (4)
Third, I will focus on stopping the use of RFID to harass dairy farmers in Florida in March 2025, as well as joining Reps. Hageman, Joel Salatin, and John Moody in Texas to tackle Rogue Foods in November 2024. I will also help send a message to USDA that we are ready to fight to protect farmers and our food supply.
***USE CODE HHA10 Save $10 when you purchase a 1-day or 2-day ticket to the event!
References
(1) Defra announces changes to the GB poultry register following a request from the NFU.
(2) NAIS is starting again
(3) Hagueman submits bill to block mandatory EID ear tags
(4) Rejects the regulations submitted by the Department of Agriculture relating to “the use of electronic identification ear tags for the official identification of cattle and buffalo.”
