The Department of Agriculture doesn't call it the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) any more. Instead, it's "animal traceability." Critics don't see much difference.

Stories for a Yonder Memorial Day:

The New York Times had a grand story about salt. There are all kinds of reports about the ill health effects of consuming too much salt. Trouble is, without salt, much of the (gross) processed food we all eat would be inedible. When Cheez-Its were made without salt, reporter Michael Moss writes, "The Cheez-It fell apart in surprising ways. The golden yellow hue faded. The crackers became sticky when chewed, and the mash packed onto the teeth. The taste was not merely bland but medicinal." Corn Flakes without salt tasted "metallic. Eggo waffles taste like "straw." 

The Washington Post reports that China is pinning its food security on the very western potato. "Potatoes have so much potential here," said Xie Kaiyun, a leading potato scientist at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a government think tank. "Rice, wheat, corn -- we've gone about as far as we can go with them. But not the potato." 

Finally, the Burlington Free Press talks about the "grim future" of the family farm. The problem in Vermont is the collapse of the dairy industry. The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has a worst case scenario that has 200 of the state's farms (20 percent of Vermont's total) closing down this year, primarily because of the collapse in dairy prices. Good photos of a Vermont farm here. 

When is it a bad idea to "Know Your Farmer"?

Three Republican senators have complained that a federal program aimed at educating consumers about where food comes from — "Know Your Farmers" — leaves out "conventional farmers who produce the vast majority of our nation's food supply." Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Pat Roberts of Kansas have sent a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack raising questions about the $65 million they say is aimed at "small, hobbyist and organic producers whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets." 

"In other words," wrote Kansas City Start reporter David Goldstein, "take your arugula and shove it."

Goldstein has a good article on this fight over food. Proponents of the "Know Your Farmer" education program say it encourages alternative agriculture. Sen. Roberts says alternatives are fine, "But you can't go back to Walden Pond agriculture and expect to feed America."

Political polarization has now reached the dinner plate. The right-learning Carolina Journal writes that the Obama Administration's concern about the amount of salt in the nation's food could ruin country ham, a salt-cured staple of Southern life.

 The Washington Post reported last month that the federal Food and Drug Administration is "planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease." The FDA would analyze salt levels in sauces and breads and everything else — including country ham. 

This has become a cause of conservatives, especially when it comes to ham. Sara Burrows in the Carolina Journal reports that country ham is required by the USDA to have at least a 4 percent salt content. (That's how it's cured, after all.) Reducing the amount of salt in country ham would change its taste and make it less healthy, say folks from the National Country Ham Association. 

Our ancestors here at the Yonder have cured their own hams, using plenty of salt. And, yes, we know it's less than healthy. One grandfather told us, "More Kentuckians have died from eating old ham than in all the nation's wars." Maybe so.

 Conservatives are seeing this as another example of big government running out of control. We don't know about that but we do know we like our country (or old) ham salty. It has nothing to do with politics.