The "consensus" on NAIS is rather clear. Independent farmers and ranchers do not support this program. It will literally destroy any semblance of a free market in farming that remains in this country. If the big producers with a large meat export interest want a traceability system for foreign standards, let them fund it privately and voluntarily, not place disproportionate costs on independent farmers through their thug-buddies, the USDA. Let them compete. That's called laissez-faire capitalism.
Press Release
Contact; Paul Hamby 816 632 0602
For immediate release
June 5, 2009
Jefferson City, Missouri.
Farmers, Ranchers and Consumers will hold a protest of the NAIS – National Animal ID System on Tuesday June 9 from 8 am to 12 noon. The protest will run concurrently with the USDA NAIS listening session at Truman Hotel & Conference Center in Jefferson City, Missouri. More than a dozen organizations have signed on in support of the peaceful protest and will have members attending to speak out against NAIS. The USDA has been pushing for mandatory NAIS, originally calling for mandatory in January of 2008 and with enforcements in January of 2009, but has delayed implementation due to huge public outcry against the program. USDA is now asking for public input on how to overcome objections to the program. Bob Parker, a southern Missouri farmer, has toured the state speaking out against NAIS, “The USDA does not want to accept that the people are against this program. They are asking how to make it more palatable. Our message to USDA is to end NAIS now.”
NAIS is a three phase program designed by the USDA and the Nat’l Institute for Animal Agriculture to advance guidelines for international trade through an agency of the World Trade Organization called the OIE. NAIS will tag and track movements of 33 species of animals worldwide. Phase 1 requires livestock owners to obtain a GPS linked Premise ID number for their property. Phase 2 requires all animals be identified with an international ID device. Phase 3 requires electronic reporting of movements on or off a premises to effectuate 48 hour trace-back to the premises of origin of any and every animal. Each phase is predicated upon the preceding phase. There can be no NAIS animal ID without a NAIS premises ID.
Opposition to NAIS is strongest from independent cattlemen, small farmers and hobbyists.
Doreen Hannes is a researcher, author and public speaker whose family has a small farm and raises much of their own food. She states, “The design of NAIS is effectively a license to farm. This program would cost us at least $4,000 the first year. There is no method for growers to recoup the cost of the program, and the implementation of NAIS will be the destruction of the family farm and rural America. The cost to freedom is simply immeasurable.”
“The Missouri Libertarian Party has worked with farmers and ranchers in Missouri for years to prevent implementation of the burdensome regulations of the National Animal Identification System being forced on them by the USDA”, Glenn Nielsen, Missouri Libertarian Party Chair.
Paul Hamby, NW Missouri coordinator for Campaign for Liberty, states “NAIS will put an undue burden on non-electric Amish farmers, small hobby farmers, 4-H and FFA members while providing no benefit to them. NAIS will not make our food supply safer. I am against this international livestock ID program run by the same federal government who just bought General Motors. “
The following organizations are sending members to Jefferson City to speak against NAIS on June 9.
R-CALF USA, Missouri Campaign for Liberty, Arkansas Animal Producers Association, International Dairy Goat Registry, Missouri Independent Consumers and Farmers Organization, Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Organization, Ozarks Property Rights Congress, Missouri First, Inc., Liberty Restoration Project, Legislators Against Real ID, Missouri Libertarian Party, Missouri Constitution Party, Missouri Rural Crises Center, Citizens for Private Property, Douglas County Citizens for Liberty.
For interviews or talk radio guests call,
Doreen Hannes 417 349 9625/417 962 0030
Bob Parker 417 257 8711
Ray Cunio 314 223 6925
Paul Hamby 816 632 0602
Updates and links to organizations listed above www.missouriansagainstnais.com
1 Comments:
Had a pleasant chat with a very nice lady at FoodLogiQ a company that tracks veggies from farm to store AND cattle in Wisconsin and Canada…I asked did they have plans to include home gardens as they could be a source of pathogenic contamination —she said no that would be too intrusive, too much trouble on their part and logistically impossible and there would be a huge outrage from the people. In other words it just could not be done!
I asked but what if salmonella or other pathogen from a private garden somehow got on the produce that would eventually go to the factories for canning, freezing or just to any grocery store…her reply was the factories are rigidly controlled to prevent that kind of stuff and the TRACEBACK WOULD BE JUST
TO THE INFECTED PRODUCE THAT CAME FROM THE FIELDS (regardless of how they were infected) NOT THE PRIVATE GARDEN FROM WHICH THE ACTUAL INFECTION MAY HAVE COME FROM!!!
And from this past few months we have experienced how stringent these factories truly are when it comes to tainted food (i.e. peanuts)
so I asked her if the govt knowing about every privately home grown tomato or cucumber was too intrusive AND UNWORKABLE then why does the same argument not hold for privately owned cattle, goats,
pigs, ponies, chickens, etc when it comes to NAIS.
She agreed with me.
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