"The cows have ID numbers. And we should be able, throughout the investigation, which is ongoing as we speak, to be able to track that cow back to where it came from initially"
About this Quote
The line lands with the oddly sci-fi chill of bureaucracy doing crisis management in real time: cows reduced to data points, safety framed as a logistics problem you can solve if the spreadsheet is clean enough. Ann Veneman, speaking as a public servant, isn’t trying to wax poetic; she’s performing competence under pressure. The repetition of “able to be able” isn’t elegant, but it’s revealing. It signals a mind working in public, stitching reassurance together while the facts are still moving.
The specific intent is message discipline: there is a system (ID numbers), there is an investigation (“ongoing as we speak”), and there is a promised outcome (traceability “back to where it came from”). In moments of food-supply anxiety - mad cow disease scares, contamination outbreaks, the dread that something invisible has entered the national body - traceability becomes a surrogate for control. If you can trace it, you can contain it. If you can contain it, you can keep markets open and panic down.
The subtext is political as much as procedural. “Track that cow” is a quiet pledge to consumers and trading partners that the state can police the farm-to-table chain without admitting how porous it often is. It also hints at a modern bargain: industrial agriculture gets to stay vast and fast, but only if it can be audited like a factory. The cow is both an animal and a liability, and the public wants proof that someone, somewhere, has the receipt.
The specific intent is message discipline: there is a system (ID numbers), there is an investigation (“ongoing as we speak”), and there is a promised outcome (traceability “back to where it came from”). In moments of food-supply anxiety - mad cow disease scares, contamination outbreaks, the dread that something invisible has entered the national body - traceability becomes a surrogate for control. If you can trace it, you can contain it. If you can contain it, you can keep markets open and panic down.
The subtext is political as much as procedural. “Track that cow” is a quiet pledge to consumers and trading partners that the state can police the farm-to-table chain without admitting how porous it often is. It also hints at a modern bargain: industrial agriculture gets to stay vast and fast, but only if it can be audited like a factory. The cow is both an animal and a liability, and the public wants proof that someone, somewhere, has the receipt.
Quote Details
| Topic | Food |
|---|---|
| Source | Reuters news report on the first U.S. BSE (mad cow) case, Dec 2003 — statement attributed to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman |
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