EU BIOSECURITY MADNESS

Since I've been on a bit of a streak with foreign information the last couple of days, I'll share another one from a former Polyface apprentice who lives in Austria.  He was here some 20 years ago and now operates a Texas Longhorn breeding program near Vienna.  And pastured poultry and other things.

                  He just emailed me the following (I've taken the liberty to clean up some grammatical issues due to German-English idiomatic differences):

I follow your blog and liked your blog article about the poultry disease opinion not to kill all but leave the healthy ones.

Here in Hungary and Slovakia, FMD (Foot and Mouth disease) was found and they already killed thousands of cattle. In Europe we have a 0 tolerance policy and on any affected farm, all animals are killed. (Pigs, sheep, goat, cattle, alpaca)

It has not come to Austria yet, but farmers get nervous.

The message is to run the farm like a biosafety facility - no visitors, disinfection entrance, etc..

That is definitely not what a farm should be like. Only 5% of cattle die if FMD infects them, but it's EU law to not treat them or vaccinate them. 

            There you have it folks, straight from a farmer in Austria who deals with this every day.  I visited him a year ago when he organized one of my masterclasses for farmers.  The biosafety requirements suppress outdoor pigs and poultry especially.

            All visitors and vehicles having to sanitize in and sanitize out creates a de-facto "No Visit" policy for farms.  That further divides the rural and urban.  It also adds social isolation to farmers, who are already struggling to find fellowship opportunities and cultivate relationships with other people.  

            Realize that according to him, if you have an animal with Foot and Mouth disease, all your animals are killed--all species.  This is mandatory extermination without judicial recourse; I've been there, and I can tell you farmers are terrified of offending EU regulatory bureaucrats.  They don't have a Bill of Rights like we have in the U.S. 

            When you put all this together, you see a broad net being spread to capture people, food, commerce, property, and public opinion.  Captivity is a wonderful thing if you hold the key.  This is why I'm tireless about trying to get thousands and thousands of people to grow food, to own a piece of land, to befriend maverick farmers.  We need more of us than there are people who want to control.  

            Don't be fearful and don't be despondent.  Let's be engaged, active, and doing all the things to create a parallel universe.  Let's stand tall into the agenda and make sure righteousness wins.

            What would you do on your farm or homestead if government policy was "No Visitors?"