The scenario that Miguel describes in his comment on yesterday’s posting–of regulators paranoid that wild animals or small herds of healthy animals will spark an epidemic among the immune-compromised animals of factory farms–was played out a few years ago on a sheep farm in Vermont. It is recounted in depressing detail by Linda Faillace in her book published earlier this year, "Mad Sheep" (which I reviewed last month, and included a link to a radio interview of Linda and her daughter.)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture came after Linda’s European sheep because a scientific paper suggested they could carry Mad Cow disease. Based just on the suggestion of that paper, USDA agents launched a major campaign of harassment, surveillance, and legal actions against Linda and her sheep. They quarantined her farm, arguing that her sheep could infect factory cattle herds. Despite huge amounts of favorable publicity and sympathetic local politicians, the USDA won its war against Linda, and carted her sheep off for slaughter. The scientific paper was eventually discredited, but it was too late for Linda. Equally important, the discrediting of the paper did nothing to change bureaucrats’ minds.
The same mindset is at work with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The commentators over the last couple of days who are expressing worry about possible abuse by the USDA have good reason to worry.
I suspect these regulators know how weak the animal herds are, and that is why they are worried. Their biggest nightmare scenario is that an epidemic gets going on their watch. They can’t even conceive of where to start in fixing the factory farm problem, since they perpetuate the system. No good bureaucrat would ever be so silly as to want to change the system he or she is charged with protecting. So they seek backward solutions, going around trying to stomp out imagined brushfires that could ignite the massive forest fire, and get them fired.
As disheartening as the situation seems, it’s important to keep in mind that the USDA has experienced a great deal of frustration in trying to implement the NAIS. The program has been delayed, the USDA has been forced to water it down, and now a number of states are stalling the agency even further.
Of course, the bureaucrats won’t just throw in the towel. They will scheme and distort and obfuscate to get their way. That means the opponents must be diligent and determined, willing to accept risks. I think Greg Niewendorp, the Michigan farmer I quoted in my BusinessWeek.com column, has the right idea. The government is going to need to obtain search warrants and court orders to enforce anything at his farm. If the government only has to get warrants and court orders for a handful of farms, it will have no problem, just as the USDA had no difficulty handling Linda and the Canadian government had no problem letting raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt launch a hunger strike. So long as he was the only farmer doing it, well, what’s one less farmer? (He’s since ended his hunger strike, as I anticipated a few days ago.)
But if enough farmers are standing up the way Greg plans to do, the government could be overwhelmed. There is strength in numbers. That is the USDA’s second biggest nightmare–a different kind of forest fire.
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