USDA Brings Armed Guards To Protect Itself From Wendell Berry

by: Jill Richardson

Thu May 28, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT

All I'm saying is: You don't need armed guards to protect yourself from this man. Unless you are so afraid of the power of his words and their ability to incite a riot. And now that I think about it, that might be a valid fear.

Here's what happened when the USDA went to Louisville, KY for a NAIS (National Animal ID System) Listening session and Wendell Berry showed up...

You could tell that this USDA dog and pony show had already hit on the reality on the ground:  massive and passionate rejection by 90% of farmers across the country, well represented in the first listening sessions in Pennsylvania, Washington state, Alabama, and Texas.  This representation of angry farmers at the listening sessions came despite the very short notice provided by USDA (two weeks) and the choice of the absolutely busiest month of the farm year, May!!  This tactic was roundly denounced by farmer after farmer, noting the hardship for farmers of having to take most of a day off to drive hours to Louisville to attend this session...

Wendell Berry, also wearing a nice suit, said that the problem N.A.I.S. was supposed to solve was a problem caused by agricultural industrialists themselves, who now intended to use that problem as a pretext to further marginalize and limit the possibilities of small-scale agriculture.  He said it was insulting to rural Kentuckians that USDA had hired policemen to be present at this listening session.  He noted that USDA's fear of the people they were supposed to be serving made it clear what N.A.I.S. was all about. And he said that if NAIS were implemented, USDA was going to need far more than a couple of policemen to deal with the resistance and civil disobedience that would result.  Naming Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as honorable examples of the tradition of non-violent non-compliance, Berry said he would absolutely not comply with N.A.I.S. As an older person, he said he had little to lose by going to jail for the sake of the younger generations whose lives and livelihoods would be threatened or eliminated by such oppression, and who still did have much to lose.

Another account, NAIS Update: Wendell Berry Speaks, gave more or less the same story. Both pieces noted that the vast majority of speakers were opposed to NAIS and only a handful were for it.