What is NAIS?
By Monica @ 4:15 PM   
This USDA program, the National Animal Identification Program (NAIS), is currently "voluntary" but will probably become required within a year if it doesn't receive strong opposition.
So what is it?
Many farmers have been registered under NAIS without their knowledge and against their will or consent. The supposed aim of this program is to protect Americans from bacteria and terrorism by tracking animals with radio frequency identification chips. Similar aims are touted for Bush's RealID program, which would put RFID chips in driver's licenses at the state's expense and then require a RealID of every person in order to open a bank account or enter a Federal Building. (The RealID program was passed in Congress as part of a military appropriations bill. This is also a program deserving strong opposition from supporters of individual rights, but it is beyond the scope of FA/RM.) If you eat animal products, NAIS affects you. From Northern Express: Its goal is to track every animal from birth to death, and all the movements in between, with the radio frequency IDs that look like white buttons. Supporters say that tagging animals with a 15-digit ID will make the food supply safer. The USDA aims to register all meat producers by January of 2009.
The idea of the NAIS—voluntary in most states—is to quickly identify the source of an infected animal and to protect citizens from terrorists who contaminate the food supply. Farmers will have to log in every "event" of an animal's life, such as going to a fair, trucking them to another farm, or participating in a rodeo. Not just cattle, but also pet ponies, 4-H animals, and backyard chickens (not fish, though). The passage above is somewhat consistent with what is already happening. Here in Colorado, a child wanting to enter their animal in the Colorado State Fair has to be part of the "voluntary" NAIS system. So, technically, it's not voluntary if states require it. Both Michigan and Indiana have mandatory NAIS. Texas, however, has successfully fought against implementation of this system. Go Texas.
This is the government website from APHIS (the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) explaining NAIS. The problem is that the goals of NAIS appear to conflict. The website indicates that NAIS is about disease control. Yet the USDA has recently issued letters assuring farmers that NAIS will not be used for disease control. This makes no sense. Here is what I know about NAIS after months of research. Every farm animal will be monitored with RFID chips as it is moved from location to location, only small or backyard farms will be required to tag every animal, and larger corporate farms that move animals in groups will only be required to purchase one tag per lot of hundreds of animals. (Obviously, at $5-$20 per tag, that's going to create a huge distortion in the market favoring the large farmer.) Large farming corporations designed and are supportive of this NAIS effort, because it will allow them greater access to the international market (not to mention eliminating domestic competition because of the disproportionate costs borne by the small farmer). That is unfortunate but it should be no surprise to anyone who knows anything about agriculture. APHIS would like premises registration and animal identification to become mandatory by January 2008, and enforcement of the reporting of animal movements to be mandatory by January 2009. Thankfully the NAIS program has not met these timelines, but we must still act to prevent further implementation, because it appears that APHIS has just made NAIS mandatory for interstate commerce. To make matters worse, legislators have tried to link NAIS with the School Lunch Program (both are USDA programs), making premises registration under NAIS a requirement of producers selling food that will be used in the School Lunch Program. (I am uncertain as to whether this requirement was actually passed in the agriculture appropriations for 2009 but if it wasn’t, we can certainly expect it to rear its ugly head again in the next Farm Bill omnibus legislation). To summarize, NAIS is a violation of the first, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments. Besides the fact that this program is an obvious violation of individual rights, let’s examine some of the other pragmatic reasons that NAIS is a bad idea. First, it will eliminate small producers. This will further marginalize safety which will then likely lead to further government regulatory mandates to clean up dirty food (such as irradiation) rather than making sure it is clean in the first place. Eliminating smaller producers will also largely erase any vestige of humane treatment in the production of animal foods. (I realize many people don’t care about either of these things, but I do.) Second, it will allow the government unprecedented access to private property information. When considering the proposed EPA animal taxes to control CO2 production and the increased communication we have seen between federal agencies under the Bush administration, this is a very bad thing. We do not need the USDA reporting private property information to the EPA so that the EPA can collect taxes on cow farts. Third, owners will be required to report birthdates of animals, lost tags, and slaughter/death/missing animals. Such events will be required to be reported within 24 hours, with massive fines if they do not cooperate. Fourth, veterinarians will be required to report sightings of untagged animals and register the animals with the USDA (involuntary registration is already happening without the will or consent of farmers by state employees). Fifth, it is unprecedented for the US government to conduct surveillance of citizens simply because they own a specific type of property. The exceptions are motor vehicles and guns, but these are registered at the state level. NAIS would subject all owners of farm animals to federal surveillance and control. What can you do? First, visit Barack Obama’s site at
http://change.gov/pages/rural_agenda/
and tell him what you think of NAIS.
You can also post comments at
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/stop_nais
and vote to move anti-NAIS higher onto Obama's agenda (I have done this and you should see my comment there).
Save your comments and also consider writing your representatives to tell them that you oppose NAIS.
Third, use those comments to write the House Committee on Agriculture at agriculture@mail.house.gov.
Spread the word to family and friends. Consider writing op-eds and letters to the editor.
Also, visit stopanimalid.org and nonais.org for more reading and information.Labels: De-regulation, EPA Tyranny, Government Idiocy, NAIS, School Lunch Program, Why the USDA is Not Your Friend
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