A few miscellaneous thoughts and references:
–In retrospect, I wonder if I misinterpreted the significance of Greg Niewendorp’s act of civil disobedience in refusing to go along with Michigan’s first-in-the-nation enforcement of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
I assumed that for his action to “succeed,” he’d need other farmers to join him. Otherwise, the authorities would crack down on him and turn him into an example to others.
That may still happen, but as I was reading his comment on my posting of a couple weeks back, I realize that may not matter terribly. Here’s what he stated:
“The move I took was calculated to show that refusing to cooperate causes unelected officials to have to explain their position. They are forced to do things they would just as soon not. They are no longer in control of future events. The element of the unpredictable? I see it as stepping out in faith where events may not go my way. Neither will it for them. They are now assessing the risk associated with proceeding with their draconian measures.”
In other words, by failing to go with the flow, Niewendorp feels he has, at a minimum, confused the bureaucrats. They like familiarity and predictability, which is a major reason they became bureaucrats. They hate uncertainty. Niewendorp has created uncertainty, and in so doing, possibly changed the rules. We’ll see. So far, things are quiet at his farm.
–The assessment by John Mackey of Whole Foods that we’re in a new “ecological era” in agriculture has me wondering if the crackdown on raw milk producers and on small farms via NAIS aren’t possibly skirmishes in the transition from industrial agriculture. Here’s another of Mackey’s comments that speaks to this idea: “There’s a strong vested interest in the industrial system. People don’t give up power easily. Customers have to vote them out of power.”
–For anyone interested in the dynamics of business planning, I did an interview a few weeks back with a Houston radio show, The BusinessMakers, that is now posted online. I discuss how business planning has evolved over the last few years, with less emphasis on a written document, and more emphasis on other factors, like the particulars of a web presence, publicity, and marketplace acceptance.
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