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AboutFarm for Life grew out of a desire to assist those people and groups who are sincerely opposing the USDA’s NAIS, the National Animal Identification System. We also engage in research and publication on other topics related to restorative farming, food security and food sovereignty, and the relationship of self-sufficiency (in food and other aspects of human culture) to environmental concerns. We continue to concentrate upon NAIS as a keystone issue because the implementation of NAIS would cause such immense harm to local-scale food production and self-sufficiency that those movements would be decimated. NAIS (together with associated programs in other wealthy nations) is the first system to propose intensive technological surveillance of all livestock animals, even those for private use. NAIS therefore presents unique dangers to personal privacy, to independence from government mandates, to the ability of the poor in developing nations to feed themselves, and to the efforts of citizens of overdeveloped nations to scale back from the environmentally destructive technologies of fossil-fuel based transport and dependence on grid electricity. The manner in which the USDA has implemented NAIS is also a case study in the dangers of corporate control of government and the failure of the United States government to abide by the laws and procedures that are supposed to control and limit the power of the state over its citizens. We all easily see what the world’s principal problems are today. Overuse of fossil energy resources and consequent global warming. Wealth disparity, the concentration of great luxuries in the hands of the few, while many are hungry. Depletion of the natural resources without which humankind and many other species cannot survive. In all ways, a return to a smaller scale, individually self-reliant society is the antidote to the above problems. The back-to-the-land movement in the United States in the 1970s is a recent model we can build upon. Perhaps most important, it is easy to motivate people to adopt a less technological and more self-reliant life, because such a life is filled with harmonious interaction with nature, healthful physical activity, the most satisfying home-produced natural foods, and well-deserved periods of rest and celebration. FounderFarm for Life’s founder, Mary-Louise Zanoni, is a lawyer and former university professor. She holds a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Cornell University and is a graduate of Yale Law School. Her professional legal experience includes work in the areas of federal litigation, federal constitutional law, complex statutory interpretation, and civil rights law. Interspersed with her legal work, Mary-Louise Zanoni has interned on small-scale and organic dairy farms and has read widely in the literature of ecologically responsible farming and environmentalism. From these practical experiences and studies, she became convinced that a simple, less technological way of life is the most viable means to avert the growing ecological crisis. This conviction in turn has motivated her to return to a traditional life of small-scale homestead farming and rural self-reliance. She now lives in a very rural area of New York State and works toward increasing self-sufficiency and lessening dependence on environmentally harmful technologies. Farm for Life does not operate as a tax-exempt charity and does not seek donations. Our work is supported by income from our print newsletter and other services. Your subscription to our newsletter (PDF) helps to defray our operating expenses and will also provide you with valuable information about NAIS and related restorative livelihood issues. |
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