NAIS is Dead!

I guess I can take down all the anti NAIS stuff on this blog and the Boulder Belt Eco-Farm website because the NAIS is dead!

It looks like the USDA is moving in another direction.


http://nonais.org/
USDA ANNOUNCES NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ANIMAL DISEASE TRACEABILITY


http://www.iowafarmertoday.com/articles/2010/02/06/top_stories/nais.txt
USDA abandons NAIS


http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?contentidonly=true&contentid=2010/02/0053.xml
USDA ANNOUNCES NEW FRAMEWORK FOR ANIMAL DISEASE TRACEABILITY

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2010-Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced today that USDA will develop a new, flexible framework for animal disease traceability in the United States, and undertake several other actions to further strengthen its disease prevention and response capabilities.


"After concluding our listening tour on the National Animal Identification System in 15 cities across the country, receiving thousands of comments from the public and input from States, Tribal Nations, industry groups, and representatives for small and organic farmers, it is apparent that a new strategy for animal disease traceability is needed," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "I've decided to revise the prior policy and offer a new approach to animal disease traceability with changes that respond directly to the feedback we heard."


http://www.aphis.usda.gov/traceability/
On February 5, 2010, USDA announced a new, flexible framework for animal disease traceability in the United States.

The Education of the Chicken

I was out feeding and watering the chickens, who are all 4 days old as of yesterday, and I noticed they had figured out that insects are good to eat. This is a good sign that this batch of chickens will do well on pasture. That they will eat more than the grain they are given 2 to 3 times a day. That they will eat various bugs and lots of greens such as red and white clover (clover is amazingly high in protein, around 18%). That they will move their bodies around.

Most chickens raised on pasture are in a brooder house for the first 4 to 5 weeks of their lives. they are not outside on pasture and thus miss out on that important window of opportunity to learn to eat things other than chicken feed. From watching hens raise chicks I have figured out that the first 5 or 6 days are an important learning time and again at around 2 to 3 weeks they have another big learning spurt. Chicks brooded indoors miss both of those opportunities and when they are put on pasture for the last 3 to 4 weeks of their lives they do little more than sit around in the shade until grain is brought to to them. Than they slowly waddle over to the chicken feed and gorge themselves.

Ours, because they are out on pasture from day one (we rig up a heat lamp in one of the tractors to keep them warm enough) they are physically active throughout their short lives. They eat a lot of natural food (up to 25% of their diet is bugs and pasture-because they are a hybrid they really do need the rest of their diet to be the 25% protein feed ration they get or they will start to die).

It is fascinating to watch them learn how to be chickens. It is amazing how much seems to be innate behavior. The pullets, even though they are only a few days old, know to scratch in the dirt to find bugs. The boys are not as quick to catch on to this behavior but they will in another few days. I have also seen them start learning to fly (an idea that will be aborted in a few weeks when they get too big for their wings). They seem to be at their happiest when trying to fly (though eating is a close second). for the next 2 weeks they will have fully fledged wings that will allow then to get a few inches off the ground for up to 2 feet. That reality will come crashing down and their bodies will get too big for flight (but they will still extend and flap their wings and run around like children pretending to fly).

I had forgotten how much fun having chickens is. Of course, with the threat of NAIS Looming I doubt we will get laying hens again and we may have to resort to killing our own birds in the future so we can fly under the NAIS radar. Since we do not intend to raise poultry for public sale that may work for us. Slaughtering chickens is not the nicest job in the world, especially when you do not have all the equipment such as plucker and the proper knives. I would really like to avoid having to do my own killing and cleaning but the fact is that all processors will be requiring NAIS ID numbers in order to start a job and if we do not get our premises registered and the chickens ID numbers that we cannot get them processed at any state or USDA inspected plant. So it will likely be home processing in the future.

Perhaps NAIS will become such a white elephant the gummint will dump the whole idea and we will not have to be so hassled. But I am not holding my breath.

The Myth of HR 875 and SB 425

There has been a lot written and posted all over the world wide web and Internet about 2 bills in congress, HR 875 and SB 425.

Paranoid people with an agenda to kill all government regulation have interpreted this bill as one that will kill organic farming, criminalize the back yard garden, fine housewives for cooking food that they have grown in their own kitchens and make what I do for a living virtually illegal as small farmers will be forced to comply with the draconian regulations that may be imposed on the interstate/international corporate farms and food processors. I have even seen people claim that the NAIS is a part of these bills (it is not).

Amazing what a few writers good at arousing emotions can do on the interwebs.

The trouble stems from two emails that I guess started out life on a couple of anti government/pro farming blogs.

Here is one of them

http://shepardpolitics.blogspot.com/...aw-family.html

HR 875 Would Essentially Outlaw Family Farms In The United States

I get a lot of e-mails each day and one today (hi Cheryl!) pointed my attention to HR 875, a bill introduced into the 111th Congress for consideration. SO, I went and did something that members of Congress rarely do and actually went and read the bill, or more accurately, at least glanced through it which is still more than they ever do. It was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT 3rd) and has around 36 co-sponsors including Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN 7th) as of this writing. It immediately strikes me as being terribly bad legislation.

Under a heading described as protecting the public health and ensuring the safety of food it creates a "Food Safety Administration" within Health and Human Services. Oddly, not just adding regulations to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) which is also under HHS. And don't we have the USDA as well? The bill applies to all manner of "Food Establishments" and "Food Production Facilities" (note the following excerpt).


(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.


The bill would appear to even cover fishing boats and your downtown hot dog street vendors. In fact, the bill probably would also apply to your family garden since no exemption is apparent.

What it essentially does is place a tremendous regulatory burden on all of these organizations and individuals by requiring them to have "food safety plans", consider all relevant hazards [note: I wish Congress would consider all "relevant hazards" or unintended consequences of everything THEY did], testing, sample keeping and to maintain all kinds of records. The bill also allows the government to dictate all manner of standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, packaging, temperature controls and other items.

This massive bloat in government regulation (and taxpayer expense to support it) would add additional cost and headache to every farm, fishing boat, restaurant, slaughterhouse, processing plant, CO-OP and anyone else associated with growing, storing or processing food. The bill authorizes fines of up to $1,000,000 (one million) dollars for "each act" and for "each day" of a violation.

We'll skip over the concern over how important food production and distribution, largely recession proof, could be if our economy continues to decline and inflation takes hold and just address this on the apparent lunacy that it is. As those familiar with history know, large dominant corporations often will use government to demand industry regulations that force the small competitor out of business or introduce barriers to entry that prevent new companies from starting up to compete. In the early part of the 20th century a tremendous amount of regulation was written by the industries themselves to be enacted into law.

In this case, I think this bill could do tremendous harm to family farms or independent food operators. Only massive companies have the ability to meet these regulations and imagine the legal expenses that could be incurred to defend oneself? Never forget, the government has near unlimited resources where you might have to cough up $200 to $500 an hour for a good attorney to defend yourself, your farm, boat, truck, restaurant, orchard, vineyard or hot dog stand. And what about the increased cost of food associated with the cost of compliance, it's not unreasonable to think that many places would have to hire staff or outside assistance just to comply with the law.

We have an excellent history in the United States of safe food, but as Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel suggested recently, "You should never want a serious crisis to go to waste." He spoke those words relative to looking for opportunities to do things that people would not otherwise accept without some crisis. We should be very careful not to let the very rare instance of something like the recent peanut problem be used as such a "crisis". There is no impetus to point the bureaucrats of government and the guns they control, their ability to not only deprive someone of life or freedom but to destroy whole families, careers and reputations, at everyone in the country who might be involved in ensuring we have stuff to eat.

We're doing just fine without this legislation.

Here are a couple of diatribes by Lin Cohen-Cole who writes for OpEdNews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-s-dream-bill-HR-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090309-337.html

These articles talk about things that these congressional bills do not touch such as seed saving and NAIS (both under the jurisdiction of the USDA and not the FDA). She writes to scare people and get them all in a tizzy about a brand new bill that will not make it in to committee for many months, if ever.

Now here is what Tom Barlow has to say about these bills
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/03/12/will-proposed-national-legislation-kill-the-farmers-market/ he does not see these bills as doing anything close to shutting down farmers markets, criminalizing organic farming etc., etc..

Nor does the Organic Consumers Association which calls this fear mongering "the Internet Myth of the week"

This week, we received numerous calls and emails from OCA supporters who came across alarming YouTube videos and emails circulating on the Internet that claimed a new food safety bill (HR 875) introduced in Congress would make "organic farming illegal." Although the Bill certainly has its shortcomings, it is an exaggeration to say that is a secret plot by Monsanto and the USDA to destroy the nation's alternative food and farming system. In actuality, HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, is a limited-vision attempt by moderate Democrats and Republicans to craft food safety legislation to address the out-of-control filth and contamination that are inherent in our industrialized, now globalized, "profit-at-any-cost" food system.
This being said, OCA does not support HR 875 in its present form, given the fact that, if the Bill's regulations were applied in a one-size-fits-all manner to certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations, it could have a devastating impact on small farmers, especially raw milk producers who are already unfairly targeted by state food-safety regulators. Although the OCA deems this Bill as somewhat well-intentioned, we are calling on Congress to focus its attention on the real threats to food safety: globalized food sourcing from nations such as China where food safety is a joke and domestic industrial-scale and factory farms whose collateral damage includes pesticide and antibiotic-tainted food, mad cow disease, E.coli contamination and salmonella poisoning. And, of course, Congress and the Obama Administration need to support a massive transition to organic farming practices.

Food and water watch has this to say about these bills:

Food & Water Watch’ s Statement on H.R. 875 and the Food Safety Bills



The dilemma of how to regulate food safety in a way that prevents problems caused by industrialized agriculture but doesn’t wipe out small diversified farms is not new and is not easily solved. And as almost constant food safety problems reveal the dirty truth about the way much of our food is produced, processed and distributed, it’s a dilemma we need to have serious discussion about.

Most consumers never thought they had to worry about peanut butter and this latest food safety scandal has captured public attention for good reason – a CEO who knowingly shipped contaminated food, a plant with holes in the roof and serious pest problems, and years of state and federal regulators failing to intervene.

It’s no surprise that Congress is under pressure to act and multiple food safety bills have been introduced.

Two of the bills are about traceability for food (S.425 and H.R. 814). These present real issues for small producers who could be forced to bear the cost of expensive tracking technology and record keeping.

The other bills address what FDA can do to regulate food.



A lot of attention has been focused on a bill introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (H.R. 875), the Food Safety Modernization Act. And a lot of what is being said about the bill is misleading.

Here are a few things that H.R. 875 DOES do:

-It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of FDA by splitting it into 2 new agencies –one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.

-It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of inspection on the risk of the product being produced – but it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees.

-It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.

-It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.

And just as importantly, here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:

-It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish.)

-It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.

-It does not regulate backyard gardens.

-It does not regulate seed.

-It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.

-It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food that is sold across state lines).

-It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve traceability of foods, but specifically says that record keeping can be done electronically or on paper.)



Several of the things not found in the DeLauro can be found in other bills – like H.R. 814, the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system, or H.R. 759, the Food And Drug Administration Globalization Act, which overhauls the entire structure of FDA. H.R. 759 is more likely to move through Congress than H.R. 875. And H.R. 759 contains several provisions that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:

-It extends traceability record keeping requirements that currently apply only to food processors to farms and restaurants – and requires that record keeping be done electronically.

-It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.

-It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to fund the agency’s inspection efforts.

-It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish Good Agricultural Practices for produce.

There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for one size of agriculture – the largest industrialized operations. That’s why it is important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers different from agribusiness. And the work doesn’t stop there – if Congress passes any of these bills, the FDA will have to develop rules and regulations to implement the law, a process that we can’t afford to ignore.

But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food safety system is not an approach that works for consumers, who are faced with a food supply that is putting them at risk and regulators who lack the authority to do much about it.

You can read the full text of any of these bills at http://thomas.loc.gov

___________________________
Sarah Alexander
Senior Food Organizer
Food & Water Watch

1616 P St. NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
salexander@fwwatch.org
www.foodandwaterwatch.org

So you can see these bills while they need the wording tweaked a bit are not the death knell to small organic farms selling their products direct to the public.

All that said, NAIS Is a real threat to small farms that raise animals and NAIS is in committee and can be commented upon right now here is where you do that http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=APHIS-2007-0096

NAIS Threatens Access to Local Food

http://www.naturalnews.com/025569.html

NAIS Threatens Access to Organic, Local and Sustainable Food
by Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor
See all articles by this author
Email this author

(NaturalNews) At first glance, many readers of Natural News will think the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is nothing that concerns them because they eat only plant based foods. However, NAIS is only one part of a much bigger issue. The implementation of NAIS directly threatens the ability of everyone to eat locally grown, organic, and sustainable foods, including fruits and vegetables. NAIS is the first step in the final round of the takeover and regulation of all agricultural products, including plant based foods and supplements. Once NAIS is implemented it will be easy for growers of all agricultural products to be pushed around, intimidated and finally taken over by big agribusiness and its best friend, the government. NAIS is the next step in the destruction of the freedom to eat as we choose and enhance our health with supplements.

If you are opposed to the loss of liberty and the expansion of government tyranny that NAIS represents, your help is urgently needed to block the next step in its implementation. Comments must be received at the USDA by March 16, 2009. Specific information and a link to sample comments appear at the end of this article.

NAIS hands over production of food to factory farms

NAIS is a system of regulation that poses a serious threat to consumers of organic animal products. As a consequence of the implementation of NAIS, the small scale farmers and ranchers who produce high quality products meeting the certifying standards to be labeled as organic will be put out of business. NAIS stacks all the cards against small organic farmers in favor of the huge factory farms owned by big agribusiness that produce products that in many cases are not fit to eat.

A recently proposed rule mandates the NAIS Premises Identification Number (PIN) as the sole means of identifying properties for official USDA purposes. This rule also mandates the use of the NAIS numbering system for ear tags. All animal tagging is required to be linked to the NAIS PIN.

NAIS will drive small and medium-sized farmers and ranchers out of business, increasing the consolidation of the food supply into the hands of a few large, multinational corporations. These are the corporations who have shown again and again that they have nothing but contempt for their customers. The NAIS wastes taxpayer dollars on a program that will lead to increased food prices and decreased food quality.

What is NAIS?

NAIS has no specific legislative authorization. No input from farmers, ranchers or homesteaders has been sought in its creation. NAIS is a result of the same international trade negotiations in Uruguay that produced the World Trade Organization and gave rise to CODEX alimentarius. The National Institute for Animal Agriculture, the organization that represents major meat producers such as Cargill, major manufacturers of tag and tag reader equipment, and major trade associations such as the National Pork Producers Council asked the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to begin implementing NAIS in 2002.

As a result, the USDA has been working for over five years to force NAIS onto American animal owners, although several coalitions of farmers and ranchers have been formed to block it.

NAIS is designed to identify and track each and every individual livestock and poultry animal owned by family farmers, hobby farmers, homesteaders, and pet owners across the country. If made mandatory, the program will compel every person with even one animal on their premises to register their homes and property into a government database and subject their property and animals to government surveillance, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Under the current plans, each animal would have to be identified and physically tagged, in many cases with radio frequency tags or microchips. Factory farms would be able to identify whole groups of animals with one number, but most regular farmers, ranchers and individuals would have to identify each animal individually. "Events" in the animal's life would required reporting to the database within 24 hours. The information in the database would be kept by state government or private companies, while the federal government would have the right to access this data as it deems necessary.

Although initiated as a voluntary program, the USDA has been pushing and in some cases coercing people to sign up. This new rule and the implementation of the PIN would effectively remove the last vestige of voluntarism from the program, as it would require registration under the PIN into the database for any activity involving disease control.

Premise registration would be automatic any time veterinary services personnel conduct an "activity" related to a federal disease control program, including such activities as certification or surveillance. Moreover, veterinarians are expected to provide information on their clients to government authorities to facilitate registration. The proposed rule clearly mandates that all locations with disease program activity will be identified with a NAIS PIN, and the property address will remain in the NAIS database whether the property owner is in agreement or not.

The USDA claims that NAIS is a disease tracking program, but has refused to provide any support for this claim. In reality, NAIS will replace state run, existing, well functioning disease response and brand inspection programs with an untested, expensive and unreliable system. It will also impose high costs and government surveillance on every farmer, rancher and animal owner for no significant benefit, and will force many small producers out of business.

NAIS will result in a decrease in food safety

Animal diseases are not prevented or controlled by NAIS, and NAIS does nothing to improve food safety for consumers. The initiative is not intended for this purpose. NAIS expands corporate profits, not consumer safety. Contamination of food generally happens after the food leaves the farm or ranch. Contamination is found at the slaughterhouse, food processing and handling facilities, or during food preparation, long after NAIS stops doing anything to collect information that would help in a response. NAIS does nothing to address the risks associated with slaughterhouse practices or the failure of the USDA to enforce current laws.

Because NAIS tracking ends at the time of slaughter, NAIS will not prevent food borne illnesses such as e. coli or salmonella contamination. Food safety is better served by focusing on programs such as increased testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow), improved oversight of slaughterhouses and food processing facilities, and increased inspections of imported foods.

The NAIS will heavily burden small, organic, and sustainable farmers, which will hurt efforts to develop safer, decentralized, local food systems. As evidenced in the recent peanut butter recalls, having a centralized food processing and distribution system means that contamination in even one plant can lead to deaths and illnesses of thousands all over the country, and create problems very difficult to track and isolate. Consumers clearly support a local, sustainable food supply, which means the agencies need to write rules that work for small independent farmers, instead of rules such as NAIS that were designed for the benefit of vertically integrated centralized animal feeding operations.

To the extent that contamination occurs despite efforts at prevention, trace back efforts should focus on tracing the meat, rather than the animals. USDA currently avoids tracing contaminated meat from the processor back to the slaughterhouse, as in the case of the e. coli contaminated ground beef that was found at John Munsell's packing plant. While USDA focused its efforts on shutting down Munsell's family run packing plant, the agency refused to address whether the contamination had actually occurred at the ConAgra slaughterhouse that supplied the meat to Munsell. Within a few months, one woman died and dozens of others were made sick from beef traced to the Con Agra slaughterhouse, resulting in one of the largest recalls of meat in history. Tracing of the meat from the packing plant to the slaughterhouse might have prevented the illnesses and saved millions of dollars. This sort of tracking program would be far more beneficial and far cheaper than NAIS.

Costs are high and benefits are low with NAIS

Costs involved in the implementation and use of NAIS include: (1) the development, maintenance, and update of massive databases; (2) the costs of tags, most of which will contain microchips, and computerized tag reading equipment; (3) the labor burdens for tagging every animal; (4) the paperwork burdens of reporting routine movements that include eating one of your chickens for dinner or taking your horse out for a ride, and; (5) the costs of enforcement on millions of individuals. The databases needed to register the properties, identify each animal, and record billions of "events" will dwarf any system currently in existence.

NAIS diverts resources from more critical needs such as disease testing, disease prevention through improved animal husbandry practices, and disease detection in currently uninspected livestock imports.

Because of the costs and government intrusion of NAIS, future farmers will choose not to go into farming, while current producers will decide not to stay in farming. This will result in less competition, greater reliance on foreign imports and poor quality at higher prices.

NAIS creates disincentives for people to seek veterinary care for their animals and participate in existing disease control programs. Animal owners who object to NAIS may avoid participating in programs beneficial to the health of their animals because it would mean automatic registration into the program. This would increase health risks to the public and to other farm operations.

In the end, it is the consumer as well as the small farmer and rancher who will bear the burden for the high costs of NAIS.

You can help put an end to NAIS

It is critical that the USDA and Congress hear from the millions of people who will be adversely affected by the NAIS program. This includes animal owners, consumers who care about locally produced, organic, and sustainable foods, taxpayers who object to wasteful government programs and expanding government bureaucracy, advocates for a safe food system, and anyone who wishes to continue to have access to nourishing food and supplements.

Step 1: Submit comments to the USDA online or by mail. The comments must be received at the USDA by March 16, 2009.

Submit comments online at:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmpubli...
Click on the yellow balloon under "add comments".

Or mail two copies of your comments to USDA:
Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096
Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS
Station 3A-03.8
4700 River Road Unit 118

Clearly state that your comments refer to Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096.

Here is a link to downloadable sample comments:
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/cont... Click on the sample comments link

STEP 2: Send a copy of your comments to your Congressman and Senators.

You can find who represents you, and their contact information, at www.congress.org

Sources:

Farm and Ranch Freedom Allance http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content/

nonais.com

Before You Vote for Hillary Read This.

Check out this open letter to Ms Hillary Clinton and her relationship with industrial ag, Monsanto, biotech. Scary stuff. I was not intending on voting for her in either the Ohio Primary or the national election (if she is nominated) but this does it for me.

Damn I am disappointed that Kucinich is out of the race. At least he was not sullied by such corporate ties. The best we have now is Ron Paul

An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from Another Wellesley College Alumna

Dear Hillary,

By polling logic, I should be your supporter - Democrat, older woman, white, liberal. I was even in a dorm with you in college. I have pulled for you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in my life to protect them and others, I need to speak out.

I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto, again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced

And farmers couldn't collect seeds from their own fields to try again (true since time immemorial). Monsanto "patents" their DNA-altered seeds as "intellectual property." They have a $10 million budget and a staff of 75 devoted solely to prosecuting farmers. http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2008/01/17./). Since the late 1990s (about when industrial agriculture took hold in India),166,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide and 8 million have left the land.

Farmers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia,South America, Central America and here, have protested Monsanto and genetic engineering for years.

What does this have to do with you?

You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food-related roles. Your Orwellian-named "Rural Americans for Hillary" was planned withTroutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists.

Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world's largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's - now Monsanto's - terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson), the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (Walmart).

The inbred-ness of Rose's legal representation of corporations which own controlling interests in other corporations there and of corporate boards sharing members who are also shareholders of each other's corporations there, is so thorough that it is hard to capture. Jon Jacoby, senior executive of the Stephens Group - one of the largest institutional shareholders of Tyson Foods, Walmart, DP&L - is also Chairman of the Board of DP&L and arranged the Wal-Mart deal. Jackson Stephens' Stephens Group staked Sam Walton and financed Tyson Foods. Monsanto bought DP&L. All represented at Rose.

You didn't just work there, you made friends. That shows in the flow of favors then and since. You were invited onto Walmart's board, you were helped by a Tyson executive to make commodity trades (3 days before Bill became governor), netting you $100,000, Jackson Stephens strongly backed Bill for Governor, and then for President (donating $100,000). http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2006/0828.html

read the rest http://henwhisperer.blogspot.com/2008/02/before-you-vote-for-hillary-clinton.html

Keep NAIS Out of he 2007 Farm Bill

Tell Congress To Keep National Animal Identification Out of Farm Bill


The industrial agriculture companies have been pushing for a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) for several years. The proposed NAIS program would require every person who owns even one livestock animal, right down to a single chicken or a pet horse, to register their property with the federal government, identify each animal (in most cases with microchips or other electronic identification), and report their movements to a database. This program would impose particularly heavy burdens on sustainable farmers raising animals on pasture because of the labor and costs. As a result, it would reduce the availability of organic and grass-fed products, and raise prices.

Because of the grassroots opposition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has limited NAIS to a voluntary program at the federal level (although some states have been more aggressive). But now the House Committee on Agriculture is considering a provision in the massive 2007 Farm Bill that would implement NAIS as part of the Country of Origin Labeling. The House Committee on Agriculture will vote on the bill July 12, so time is of the essence. Please contact them immediately, and tell them you want them to strip Section 121 from the Farm Bill and NOT to include NAIS! The Senate Committee on Agriculture will start working on its version of Farm Bill shortly as well, so we need to send them the same message.

(Scroll to bottom of this page to send letter to Congress)

Please also leave a short message for the following lawmakers if you are from their state. Your message can be as simple as "Say 'No' to NAIS and 'Yes' to COOL".

Blanche Lincoln (AR), (p) 202-224-4843, (f) 202-228-1371 Ken Salazar (CO), (p) 202-224-5852, (f) 202-228-5036 Saxby Chambliss (GA), (p) 202-224-3521, (f) 202-224-0103 Mike Crapo (ID), (p) 202-224-6142, (f) 202-228-1375 Tom Harkin (IA), (p) 202-224-3254, (f) 202-224-9369 Charles Grassley (IA), (p) 202-224-3744, (f) 515-288-5097 Richard Lugar (IN), (p) 202-224-4814, (f) 202-228-0360 Pat Roberts (KS), (p) 202-224-4774, (f) 202-224-3514 Mitch McConnell (KY), (p) 202-224-2541, (f) 202-224-2499 Debbie Stabenow (MI), (p) 202-224-4822 Norm Coleman (MN), (p) 202-224-5641, (f) 202-224-1152 Amy Klobuchar (MN), (p) 202-224-3244 Thad Cochran (MS), (p) 202-224-5054 Max Baucus (MT), (p) 202-224-2651, (f) 202-224-0515 E. Banjamin Nelson (NE), (p) 202-224-6551, (f) 202-228-0012 Kent Conrad (ND), (p) 202-224-2043, (f) 202-224-7776 Sherrod Brown (OH), (p): 202-224-2315, (f) 202-228-6321 Robert Casey, Jr. (PA), (p): 202-224-6324, (f) 202-228-0604 Lindsey Graham (SC), (p) 202-224-5972 John Thune (SD), (p) 202-224-2321, (f) 202-228-5429 Patrick Leahy (VT), (p) 202-224-4242

NASS/NAIS, A Lawyer's View

The 2006 Agricultural Identification Survey and the NASS/NAIS Identity

by Mary Zanoni, Ph.D., J.D.

Like many small-farm advocates, I have been fielding questions over the past few weeks about the above survey being sent out by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Many people ask if there is any relationship between the survey and the data being collected (often without the knowledge or consent of farmers) for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). As we shall see, although USDA personnel won’t admit it, NASS data is the foundation of the USDA’s aggressive pursuit of NAIS.

To my great surprise, in this morning’s mail I myself received a 2006 Agricultural Identification Survey (2006 AIS). I say “to my great surprise,” because I am not and never have been engaged in any type of commercial agriculture whatsoever. I have never before received any type of communication from NASS.

The envelope states in very large letters, “YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.” The envelope further states that the due date is January 29, 2007. As explained below, it is clear that many people receiving this form are not in fact “REQUIRED BY LAW” to answer it. Further, a recipient has only a couple of weeks between the receipt of the form and the purported deadline, and it would be impossible for the average non-lawyer to do enough research within that time to figure out whether he/she is or isn’t actually required to respond.

The form itself begins with several general questions, such as “Do you own or rent any land?” “Do you grow vegetables, hay or nursery stock?” “Do you receive government payments?” The questions appear deliberately designed to imply that anyone who would answer “yes” is among those “REQUIRED BY LAW” to fill out this form. The USDA is thus casting a very wide net in this particular intrusion into the lives of American citizens, because, frankly, just about everyone who is not homeless “owns or rents” real estate; some 75 million people in the United States “grow vegetables;” and some 60 million people receive “government payments.” (See 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, Table 1226 (vegetable gardening); Table 528 (government transfer payments).)

Now, perhaps it is possible that this “wide net” might not be as intrusive as it appears. After all, maybe NASS has only sent this form to people reasonably assumed to be farmers. But in fact it was distressingly easy to confirm that intrusiveness and deliberate over-inclusiveness are the hallmarks of the NASS approach. This morning, I called the information number listed on the form and spoke to a woman at the USDA’s Helena, Montana call center. According to her, the call center is being swamped with calls from people who live in cities and have nothing to do with agriculture. She stated that the call center employees really have no idea of why or how all these people have been sent the 2006 AIS. When asked for some conjecture as to how so many unnecessary people could have been included in the mailings, the woman explained that, for example, anyone who had ever subscribed to a “horse magazine” might have been included in the database.

Now, that raises interesting questions. How is the USDA/NASS getting the subscription lists of “horse magazines”? Why and how are “horse magazines,” or, for that matter, any rural-life publication, any breed association, feed store, or private or public livestock or horticultural enterprise whatsoever, giving their member/subscriber/customer lists to the government without telling their members, subscribers, or customers?

Or, worse yet, how is the government accessing such lists or databases without the awareness of the businesses or organizations in question? During times when the Executive Branch of the United States Government has secretly gathered the records of most people’s incoming and outgoing phone calls, and the President asserts a right to open your mail and my mail without a warrant, this is not a trivial question.

Returning to the first page of the form, we see the wide net growing ever wider. The form states: “Many people who don’t consider themselves farmers or ranchers actually meet the definition of a farm or ranch and are important to agriculture.” “We need your completed form even though you may not be actively farming, ranching, or conducting any other type of agricultural activity.” Finally, the first page of the form reinforces the threat of the “REQUIRED BY LAW” language of the envelope:
“ ‘Response to this survey is legally required by Title 7, U.S. Code.’ ” (Emphasis in original.) (Note the single-double quotation marks – the threat actually is in quotation marks, employing that common tenth-grade stylistic conceit of “quoting” something to make it appear extra-important.) One senses evasions aplenty here — the form has referred to the “definition of a farm or ranch” but nowhere tells us that definition. It suggests that anyone receiving a form has a legal obligation to answer it, even though their enterprise may not meet the definition of a “farm.”

Given the foregoing ambiguities, I had further questions about the definition of a “farm” and the possible legal penalties for not responding to the 2006 AIS. Specifically, I asked if my understanding of the definition of “farm” as an operation with at least $1000 in sales from agriculture was correct. (See 2002 Census of Agriculture, FAQs, HYPERLINK “http://www.nass.usda.gov/census_of_agriculture/frequently_asked_questions/index.asp#1″ www.nass.usda.gov/census_of_agriculture/frequently_asked_questions/index.asp#1.) Further, having found the penalty listed in 7 USC § 2204g (d) (2), namely, that a “person . . . who refuses or willfully neglects to answer a question . . . . shall be fined not more than $100,” I noted that, insofar as the 2006 AIS actually contains 42 separate questions, it could be important to know whether there was a separate $100 fine for each unanswered question, or just a single $100 fine for not answering the entire 2006 AIS. These questions were beyond the purview of the call-center woman, so she made a note of the questions, referred them to a member of the NASS professional staff, and promised that the NASS staff member would call me with the answers.

The next day, January 12, 2007, I received a call from Jody Sprague, a NASS statistician. First we addressed the question of the “farm” definition. Ms. Sprague conceded that someone whose property or operation did not meet the “farm” definition would have no obligation to answer the 2006 AIS. She also conceded that the basic definition of a “farm” as an operation with at least $1000 in agricultural sales was correct, but explained that in addition to the gross sales figures, NASS also assigns certain “point values” for particular agricultural activities. If the points add up to 1000, your operation would meet the definition of a “farm.” When asked for an example of how the point values work, Ms. Sprague explained that 5 equines would equal a farm but 4 would not. (Subsequently, she explained that each equine equals 200 points.) When asked how many cattle equal a “farm,” Ms. Sprague said she did not know. At one point Ms. Sprague said that NASS wanted, through the 2006 AIS, to determine if they could delete people who should not be on their mailing list. But for the most part she contended the opposite, e.g., that she would “advise” anyone who had received the form to fill it out; and that even a person with one horse should complete the questionnaire, although she previously had conceded that someone with fewer than 5 horses would not meet the definition of a “farm” and therefore would not be required to fill out the survey.

We next turned to the issue of how NASS may have compiled its mailing list for the 2006 AIS. First Ms. Sprague maintained that the sources of the NASS mailing list are “confidential.” I noted the call-center woman’s reference to a subscription to a “horse magazine” as a source of names, and asked for some other possible sources. Ms. Sprague said that growers’ associations, such as the Wheat Growers’ Association and Barley Growers’ Association, were examples of sources. I asked for more examples but she was reluctant to give any, claiming that some are “confidential” and some are “not confidential.” She explained the overall process of list building thus: as NASS comes across lists where there are “possibilities of agricultural activity,” NASS incorporates those names into its mailing list.

We returned to the subject of “point values” for different livestock. Explaining that many people were likely to have questions about this, I asked if Ms. Sprague could find out for me the point values of cattle or other non-equine livestock. She put me on hold for a long while. Subsequently, she gave me the following point values: beef cattle, 310 points per head; dairy cattle, 2000 points per head; goats and sheep, 50 points per head. (I wanted to ask about chickens, but I was getting the distinct sense that I might be pushing my luck.)

Ms. Sprague stressed that she did not want people to be concentrating on the point values. For example, she noted that people should not say they have 4 horses if they really have 5 horses, “because it wouldn’t be ethical.” (But apparently under the NASS moral code, rummaging through some of those Choicepoint-type consumer profiles to track your reading habits is perfectly “ethical.” And, as we shall see, the NASS moral code also permits forking over your data to states that are in hot pursuit of the NAIS premises-registration quotas imposed as a condition for the states’ continued receipt of federal NAIS grant money.)

We went on to the question of the $100 non-compliance fine. Ms. Sprague assured me that a farmer’s failure to answer any or all of the 42 total questions on the 2006 AIS would only result in a single $100 fine. She also said that the fine is “rarely enforced” and that if any “producer” “chooses” not to report, no one from NASS would seek them out.

Finally, I asked Ms. Sprague if there were any relationships between NASS and the APHIS NAIS program, and she said, “Absolutely none.” I asked her if any other agency, state or federal, would ever be allowed to use NASS’s database to solicit premises IDs for NAIS, and she said, “Absolutely not.” And indeed, pursuant to 7 U.S.C. § 2204g (f) (3), “Information obtained [for NASS surveys] may not be used for any purpose other than the statistical purposes for which the information is supplied.”

Several weeks ago, Missouri antiNAIS activist Doreen Hannes sent a series of questions about Missouri’s solicitation of NAIS premises IDs to Steve Goff, DVM, the Animal ID Administrator of the Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA). Dr. Goff provided written answers on December 20, 2006. When asked where the MDA had obtained addresses for its solicitation of NAIS premises IDs, Dr. Goff stated: “the mailing was done through a contract with the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.”

I won’t answer my 2006 Agricultural Information Survey. Instead, I will send a copy of this article to my Congressman and my two United States Senators. I will ask them to have the House and Senate Agriculture Committees investigate the rampant and shameful abuses of federal law and common morality inherent in NASS’s compilation of its mailing lists and use of those lists to promote the APHIS National Animal Identification System. Why will I do this? Because I don’t live by the USDA’s false code of ethics; I answer to a higher authority.

Copyright 2007 by Mary Zanoni. The following article may be distributed solely for personal and non-commercial use without prior permission from the author. Non-commercial distribution and posting to assist in disseminating information about NAIS is, in fact, encouraged, so long as proper credit is given and the article is reproduced without changes or deletions. Any other distribution or republication requires the author’s permission in writing and requests for such permission should be directed to the author at the address/phone/e-mail address below.

Mary Zanoni, Ph.D., J.D.
P.O. Box 501
Canton, NY 13617
315-386-3199
mlz@slic.com

Farmers Fear Livestock ID Mandate

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&artic

Farmers Fear Livestock ID Mandate
Tracking animals with RFID could prove pricey, they say
Marc L. Songini

January 15, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Independent livestock ranchers last
week were quick to criticize signals that the new Congress may soon
mandate implementation of the RFID-based National Animal Identification
System.

Signing on to the NAIS program has been voluntary since it was first
proposed in 2003, but Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), the new chairman
of the House Agriculture Committee, said last week that he may soon push
for the program to become mandatory.

“The voluntary approach is a good steppingstone in the process of
achieving a functioning animal ID system,” Peterson said. “But full
participation may ultimately be necessary in order to ensure that we
have a system that meets the needs of livestock producers and the
public.”

The farmers and ranchers, and the industry groups that represent them,
contend that a mandatory NAIS program would impose unnecessary costs and
technical challenges on their businesses.

NAIS calls for using technology to tag and track cattle and other
livestock from birth to the slaughterhouse. No technology has yet been
chosen for the effort, though analysts expect that most farmers would
use radio frequency identification tags.

The program aims to track animals through the supply chain to help
health officials find the source of meat-borne diseases such as bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the
program, last week insisted that participation in NAIS will remain
voluntary and that the agency won’t limit participants to using a
specific technology.

But Peterson argued that the effort has yet to see much success and
needs a boost.

“USDA’s success in implementing the NAIS to date has been limited at
best,” Peterson said. “Nearly $100 million has been spent to establish
the system, and yet we still do not have a functioning system.

Many other countries, including Canada and Australia, established
functioning programs at a lower cost than we have already spent.”

Frank Albani, president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of
Massachusetts, an organization based in Barre, Mass., that counts 900
small farmers among its members, argued that NAIS will benefit only RFID
gear vendors and large meat producers and retailers while hurting small
farmers. “They have [tracking] systems in place in Ireland and
Australia, and they cost an exorbitant amount of money,” Albani said.

Large agribusinesses have already installed systems to track animals or
meat that is shipped cross-country or internationally, he noted. On the
other hand, smaller farmers generally sell their wares locally, so such
a program isn’t needed for them, Albani said.

‘Points of Failure’

Karin Bergener, founder of the Hollow Rock, Tenn.-based Liberty Ark
Coalition, said that the exact cost of using RFID chips on animals
remains undetermined. However, she said that her group, which was
established to fight NAIS, has estimated that costs in countries such as
the U.K. and Australia can run as high as $69 per head of cattle, a
total that could erase the profit margin for some species.

She also noted that “the points of failure involved with such a database
are almost impossible to count.” Bergener also raised privacy concerns,
contending that the technology could also be used to track animal owners.

Pushback from producers prompted the USDA in November not to switch from
a voluntary program to a mandatory one, an agency spokesman said. At the
time, the USDA also shifted technical and implementation responsibility
to state governments. “We believe the best program respects states’
rights,” he said. “It’s up to the states [to determine] if they want
to
make it mandatory.”

So far, only Michigan has moved to require mandatory compliance with the
rules. All cattle in that state must have RFID tags by March 2007.

The USDA spokesman noted that the department has spent about $84 million
thus far to implement NAIS.

Meanwhile, Peterson is calling on his colleagues in Congress to seek
ways of making NAIS implementation cheap, efficient, secure and
mandatory. No timeline has been set to discuss his proposal.

Another NAIS Site

This anti NAIS site is from the western rancher POV. Most of the other sites I have seen around the web have been from the POV of the small diversified farmer who maybe has a cow or a horse but certianly has chickens. Lots of info about NAIS and how to combat this regulation.

NAIS OP Ed Piece

Contact information; Bob Parker Bob@Bakerealty.com 417-457-6111

To the Editor

Most of us small farmers are just finding out about the National Animal Identification plan or NAIS as it is being called. I'm referring to the USDA draft plan which can be seen on the USDA website along with the technical supplement that describes the computer coding and requirements of reporting and such. When you read it, you realize what Farm Bureau has planned for all of our horses, cattle and sheep, 27 species of animals in all.

Our animals are to be micro-chipped, processed, computerized, and verified. They are to be reported when they are born, sold, die, and relocated, all within 24 hours of the ''event.'' There is even a code for turning in your neighbor if you see he isn't complying with the program! Every time you trail-ride with your friends you are required to report where you went. Think I'm kidding? Read the plan. We have yet to be told the cost of the tags, databases, tag readers, computers and computer programs. How many people do you think will be required to handle the data on all of this information?

This ID plan begins as a ''Voluntary'' system and then moves to ''mandatory, with enforcement''. Several states have already gone mandatory with animal ID. The first step is the registering of your ''Premise'' and getting a premise number. In January of 2008 all animals will be required to be electronically ID'd, and in January 2009, all movements of such animals will be mandatory according to the plan. Secretary of Agriculture Johannes said in his April 6, 2006 teleconference that this system wouldn't need to be made mandatory if 100% of livestock owners comply with every piece of this draft plan. He also claims that he has been authorized in the 2002 Farm Bill to implement a mandatory system and that no further votes or congressional action are required to make this system mandatory! You can read this on the USDA site also. Click on the news conferences link.

Where did this come from you ask? Because of 911? Terrorists? Disease control? In 1994 there was an organization called the Livestock Conservation Institute, or LCI. This meeting was attended by Ken Olson from American Farm Bureau, Beth Lautner, National Pork Producers Council, Neil Hammerschmidt, Holstein Association and currently the number two man in USDA, also Fred Bower, International Llama Registry, Chuck Sattler, National Association of Animal Breeders, also eartag and electronics manufactures Magtag, Allflex, Trace-em, as well as the USDA, starring John Weimers, and others. Ninety percent of those present said they wanted a national Identification system for economic reasons. The transcripts of this meeting show that it was determined at that time that the system must be mandatory, it must be standardized, it must be computer chips, and it must be a unique number for each animal. Remember, this was 1994!

This organization was later re-named the NIAA, the National Institute of Animal Agriculture [www.animalagriculture.org] NIAA?s membership includes 13 state Farm Bureau Associations, American Farm Bureau, The American Association of Equine Practitioners, American Horse Council, as well as Cargill, Elanco, DFA, Monsanto, Pfizer, Schering-Plough Animal Health.

The membership also includes the USDA, American Veterinary Medical Association, Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, Livestock
+Marketing Association, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, and numerous state departments of Agriculture.

Additionally, the following ear tag and electronics manufactures are members, Allflex USA, Inc, Bloodhound Animal Identification Systems, Digital Angel and Electronics ID Inc, E-merge Interactive, Inc, EZ ID Systems, National Brand and Tag company, Optibrand Ltd.,LLC, Science Applications International Corporation, the list goes on and on. [See the full list on their website.] As you can see this is a real cozy club of the big Ag organizations, big corporate interests, and the regulators. Where were the small producers at these meetings?

As you can see, the agencies have conspired together when they developed this system. Millions of dollars are currently being handed out to animal organizations across the country promising big bucks for handling the data bases. Don't be fooled when they tell you this isn't so. The draft plan was entered into the Federal Register and has never been replaced or removed. Ask for documentation from those that disagree with what I have said here. Ask them what they are basing their statements on.

After several public meetings in Missouri, USDA and the State Vets won't even show up anymore because they look so bad when challenged with the documents. A Missouri Farm Bureau State board member showed up at the last public meeting in Belle Missouri in August but when I asked the crowd to raise their hand if Farm Bureau needs to do a 180-degree turnaround on this issue all the hands went up. Farm Bureau has covered up the truth about this system to their membership, as have many other organizations.

Missouri Farm Bureau told the USDA last year in a letter dated July 6, 2005 and signed by President Kruse [contrary to Missouri FB policy at that time] that;

· They believe a Mandatory System will ultimately be necessary.

· Producers would be willing to pay a fee.... for tagging.

· Both seller and buyer should report animal movements

· Animals [should] be identified prior to entering commerce or being commingled

· The suggested timeline for implementing NAIS is realistic.

· All livestock listed in the draft standard plan should be included, [e.g. cattle, bison, swine, sheep, goats, horses, poultry, alpacas, llamas, deer, elk, and aquaculture.

Missouri Farm Bureau President Charles Kruse is also on the American Farm Bureau Board that does favor a MANDATORY System. The NAIS will suck billions from the pockets of producers over the next several years unless it is stopped. This can be stopped if we get our legislators to refuse to implement this program on the state level. The states must stop taking money from the Federal Government for this program! This will be devastating for the last of our independent small farmers and ranchers as they struggle to remain viable. This is a violation of our constitution. This is a violation of our freedom. This is a violation of all that we in the country hold dear, and it must be stopped!

Bob Parker and his wife Karen have farmed in Missouri since 1977. They continue to run registered Corriente cattle on their 700 acre farm near Raymondville, Missouri. Bob has served on the Texas County Farm Bureau board for many years and continues to travel across Missouri and Arkansas speaking at public meetings about the National Animal Identification System.

Bob can be reached at Bob@bakerealty.com

NAIS Action

The agriculture appropriations bill is expected to be voted on the House
floor this week. Congressman Ron Paul has introduced an amendment to block
funding for the National Animal Identification System. The amendment will
probably be voted on late Wednesday afternoon or evening.

This is a great opportunity to stop NAIS. If the funding is cut off, then
the USDA cannot continue to give grants to state agencies to promote and
implement the program!

Please call your Congressman today! We do not have much time to rally
support for Ron Paul's amendment, so it is critical that everyone take
action without delay.

The Capitol Switchboard number (202) 225-3121. If you don't know who to
call, go to
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
and enter your zip code in the box on the left-hand side of the
screen. Your official's contact information will be provided.

Ask him/her to vote for Ron Paul's Amendment to HR 5384 to block funding for NAIS because (choose a couple of reasons you think most appropriate, or
use your own):

1. NAIS will be too costly and burdensome for farmers and ranchers.

2. NAIS invades the privacy of every American who owns even one livestock
animal, whether a horse, pet pot-bellied pig, chicken, cow, goat, sheep,
etc.

3. NAIS will not protect us against disease or bioterrorism because
(a) it does not address the causes of disease;
(b) it does not address how diseases are transmitted;
(c) we already have sufficient means of tracking diseases and controlling
outbreaks;
and
(d) the recommended technology (ISO radiotags) can be easily reprogrammed,
so that it is ineffective against intentional introductions of disease.

4. NAIS will greatly expand the government bureaucracy, at the cost of
individuals' rights and the free market.

5. NAIS will raise the cost of food, while not providing any additional
food safety.

6. NAIS has been developed by the USDA without Congressional hearings or
debate, and without any real involvement of the tens of thousands of
individuals who will be affected.

If you have questions about this action alert, please contact Judith McGeary
at judith@farmandranchfreedom.org

Please call now. And forward this alert to all of your contacts, so that we
can create the support we need for Congressman Paul's amendment!

Judith McGeary (Austin, TX Chapter Leader)
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=77
252357&u=709459

If you wish to join Judith's mailing list on NAIS, please go to
http://en.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=77
252357&u=709460

NAIS Op Ed Piece

NAIS and What It Means To You
Jennifer Smith, Capriherb Farm
January 19, 2006

Until recently NAIS (National Animal Identification System) was something that was non-existent.

This article hopefully will explain a bit about NAIS and how it will affect you!

The USDA has a Department called the Animal Plant Health and Inspection Services (APHIS). This Department is charged with protecting the National Food Chain, among other things.

A few years ago, there was an outbreak in England of Hoof and Mouth Disease. If you remember, several million animals were destroyed because of this outbreak. At that time, the USDA and APHIS took a look at the US food chain and decided that a "trace back" system was needed. Not only to protect the consumer but to also protect the National Livestock Industry.

In goats, we were affected because Scrapie is a disease that can have large financial affects with the sheep. And because goats "can" possibly get Scrapie, they were included. This was the beginning of a plan by APHIS to give all goats a uniform Identification so that if an animal were to be found (and there has never been a case of a goat getting Scrapie unless co-mingled with sheep), that herd/flock could be identified and tested.

The ADGA Board of Directors was very involved in this and worked to create a Unique Tattoo Policy which was approved by APHIS. It cost several hundred thousand dollars to get this implemented at ADGA.

Today, if you take your goats to market and don't take your registration certificates, or they aren't available, the auction house (and sometimes even if you do provide papers) will tag each of your goats so they will have a "trace back" to your farm if an animal shows up with a "reportable" disease such as Scrapie, Anthrax, Hoof & Mouth Disease, etc. To date, there has NEVER been a case in the USA!

In other words, our "national herd" is clean.

Because of the outbreak in Canada of a cow with BSE was found in the NW, the APHIS felt that more was needed, and developed a new program called NAIS.

That's the history. Now for what NAIS is and what impact it has on you and your farm.

>From the NAIS website http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/index.shtml
http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/index.shtml ):



The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is a national program intended to identify specific animals in the United States and record their movement over their lifespans. It is being developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and State agencies-in cooperation with industry-to enable 48-hour traceback of the movements of any diseased or exposed animal. This will help to ensure rapid disease containment and maximum protection of America's animals."

This all sounds very good and well on the surface, but it has implications that are far reaching and very scary to all of us! A Draft Proposal was launched April of last year.
Draft pdf 1
Draft pdf 2 
In it is found what the Federal Government is doing, plans to do,
and has already done. It is very disturbing, to say the least!

The Draft says basically that every animal in the United States will have to be tagged in a way that can be easily read. This includes all fowl, alpacas, llamas, deer & elk, equines, cattle, sheep, swine, and goats! The USDA has also already intruded into your farm by targeting all land and owners through Global Positioning Satellites! What this proposes is that EVERY
owner of even a pet chicken register their "premises" with their State Government, who will pass this information on to the USDA. And every animal be uniquely identified as well. The goal is to have a trace back of any of these animals within a 48 hour period.

What does this mean to you as an animal owner? You will be forced to register your farm (premises) with the State. And give an inventory of every animal on your premises. The Government will be allowed by law to come to your farm at any time and check your inventory. This inventory will be required to be updated and reported within a 24 hour period. So if you decide to barbecue buckyboo, you will have to report it. If you have a coon
kill a chicken, you will be required to report it within 24 hours. If you have a doe die in labor, report it! And if your farm inventory doesn't match what is on record, then you will face misdemeanor charges, which could include jail time!

The implications become even worse if you dare take an animal off your farm. If you decide to ride your horse over to the neighbor's, you must report it within 24 hours. If you go to a show, you will have to report that movement within 24 hours. And even worse, if that could possibly be said, is the show will have to report every single animal at their show, within 24 hours. So if there is a county fair, the fair officials will have to report every
SINGLE animal as it comes onto the fairgrounds, then every animal again, as it leaves and where it leaves to. So terminal goats will have to be reported as to where they go as well. Does it get any worse? Well, yes it does. The USDA also will give special "premises numbers" to those who don't normally house animals but have contact with them. Do you have your feed delivered? Your feed store will have to have a premises number and report that they have delivered feed to your farm within 24 hours of doing so. Your Veterinarian will have to report every time you come to their office with
your goat. And report every time they visit your farm!

The draft proposal also will not allow tattoos as they can not be readily seen from a distance. In Texas they are already discussing putting radio tags on every animal. Those tags will be paid for by the farmer. And we all know that tags on goats ears last about 2 weeks if you have a goat that likes to chew. I can't even imagine how long a tag will last on a chicken'sleg! Even if they aren't radio tags, EVERY animal will need to be tagged.

There are several problems with this Draft Proposal. First, it goes against everything American. It goes against our right to privacy. It states that this information will be public, so any PETA organization will have access to that data. If you barbecue a goat, will your local PETA chapter be at your door? It also denies YOU, the farmer, the right to privacy on your property.

Secondly it puts a huge financial burden on you as a farmer. The program is called an "Unfunded Mandate", meaning the bulk of the cost will be born by the end user, YOU! The 48 hour trace back is dependant upon computers and it is being proposed that all this be done by the farmer via computer. If you aren't connected to the internet, I don't know what you will be doing. And the cost of the tags, having all your animals that die be documented for no
reportable diseases, etc will all be born by you.

This is a "Draft Proposal" right now. It is NOT law yet! But Ohio is working diligently to make this a reality in our state. The web-site for Ohio is:
http://www.ohioanimalid.com/oaid-index.stm
http://www.ohioanimalid.com/oaid-index.stm.

If you want to comment on the NAIS, I encourage you to contact the following people:

Ohio Department of Agriculture
Division of Animal Industry
Animal Identification System
8995 E Main Street
Reynoldsburg, Ohio 43068
614-728-6220
animalid@mail.agri.state.oh.us mailto:animalid@mail.agri.state.oh.us
mailto:animalid@mail.agri.state.oh.us

The State and Federal Congress and your Congressman can be found inside most Phone books.

On a Federal Level, your Ohio US Senators are:
Mike DeWine
http://dewine.senate.gov/
140 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-2315

George V. Voinovich
http://voinovich.senate.gov/contact/index.htm
524 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-3353

The USDA is:

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Washington, DC 20250

Or Office of the Director
terri.teuber@usda.gov
Terri Teuber Rm 402-A,Whitten Building
Washington, DC 20250-1301
202-720-4623

The President is:

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-1111
Email: comments@whitehouse.gov

This really sounds like some scheme that Marx or Lenin has made up and that it could never happen in the USA. But it will become reality on July 2008 if we don't all contact our representatives and protest this very invasive intrusion into all of our lives!

Blame Big Chicken Farms for Bird Flu Threat

from http://www.chron.com

March 19, 2006, 1:41AM
Blame Big Chicken Farms for Bird Flu Threat
Lethal virus is a product of the industrial poultry trade

By WENDY ORENT


Chicken has never been cheaper. A whole one can be bought for little more than the price of a cup of coffee from Starbucks. But the industrial farming methods that make ever-cheaper chicken possible may also have created the lethal strain of bird flu virus, H5N1, that threatens to set off a global pandemic.

According to Earl Brown, a University of Ottawa flu virologist, lethal bird flu is entirely man-made, first evolving in commercially produced poultry in Italy in 1878. The highly pathogenic H5N1 is descended from a strain that first appeared in Scotland in 1959.

People have been living with backyard flocks of poultry since the dawn of civilization. But it wasn't until poultry production became modernized, and birds were raised in much larger numbers and concentrations, that a virulent bird flu evolved. When birds are packed close together, any brakes on virulence are off. Birds struck with a fatal illness can easily pass the disease to others, through direct contact or through fecal matter, and lethal strains can evolve. Somehow, the virus that arose in Scotland found its way to China, where, as H5N1, it has been raging for more than a decade.

Industrial poultry-raising moved from the West to Asia in the past few decades and has begun to supplant backyard flocks there. According to a recent report by Grain, an international nongovernmental organization, chicken production in Southeast Asia has jumped eightfold in 30 years to about 2.7 million tons. The Chinese annually produce about 10 million tons of chickens. Some of China's factory farms raise 5 million birds at a time. Charoen Pokphand Group, a huge Thai enterprise that owns a large chunk of poultry production throughout Thailand and China as well as in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Turkey, exported about 270 million chickens in 2003 alone.

Since then, the C.P. Group, which styles itself as the "Kitchen of the World," has suffered enormous losses from bird flu. According to bird-flu expert Gary Butcher of the University of Florida, the company has made a conscientious effort to clean up. But the damage has been done.

Virulent bird flu has left the factories and moved into the farmyards of the poor, where it has had devastating effects. Poultry may represent a family's greatest wealth. The birds often are not eaten until they die of old age or illness. The cost of the virus to people who have raised birds for months or years is incalculable and the compensation risible: In Thailand, farmers have been offered one-third of their birds' value since the outbreak of bird flu.

Sometimes farmers who don't want to lose their investments illicitly trade their birds across borders. In Nigeria, virus-infected chickens threatened with culling are sold by the poor to even poorer people, who see nothing unusual in eating a sick bird. So the birds — and the bird flu virus — slip away to other villages and other countries.

The Southeast Asian country without rampant bird flu is Laos, where 90 percent of poultry production is still in peasant hands, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About 45 small outbreaks in or near commercial farms from January to March 2004 were quickly stamped out by culling birds from contaminated farms.

Some researchers still blame migratory birds for the relentless spread of the bird flu virus. But Martin Williams, a conservationist and bird expert in Hong Kong, contends that wild birds are more often victims than carriers. Last spring, for instance, about 5,000 wild birds died at Qinghai Lake in western China, probably from exposure to disease at commercial poultry farms in the region, according to Grain. The virus now in Turkey and Nigeria is essentially identical to the Qinghai strain.

Richard Thomas of Birdlife International, a global alliance of conservation organizations, and others dispute the idea that wild birds carried the flu virus from Qinghai to Russia and beyond. They point out that the disease spread from Qinghai to southern Siberia during the summer months when birds do not migrate, and that it moved east to west along railway lines, roads and international boundaries — not along migratory flyways.
What evidence there is for migratory birds as H5N1 carriers is contained in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers examined 13,115 wild birds and found asymptomatic bird flu in six ducks from China. Analysis showed that these ducks had been exposed earlier to less virulent strains of H5 and thus were partly immunized before they were infected with H5N1. On this slender basis, coupled with the fact that some domestic ducks infected for experimental purposes don't get sick, the study's authors contend that the findings "demonstrate that H5N1 viruses can be transmitted over long distances by migratory birds."

Even so, the researchers conceded that the global poultry trade, much of which is illicit, plays a far larger role in spreading the virus. The Nigerian government traced its outbreak to the illegal importation of day-old chicks. Illegal trading in fighting cocks brought the virus from Thailand to Malaysia in fall 2005. And it is probable that H5N1 first spread from Qinghai to Russia and Kazakhstan last summer through the sale of contaminated poultry.

But an increasingly hysterical world targets migratory birds. In early February, a flock of geese, too cold and tired to fly, rested on the frozen waters of the Danube Delta in Romania. A group of 15 men set upon them, tossed some into the air, tore off others' heads and used still-living birds as soccer balls. They said they did this because they feared the bird flu would enter their village through the geese. Many conservationists worry that what happened in Romania is a foreshadowing of the mass destruction of wild birds.

Meanwhile, deadly H5N1 is washing up on the shores of Europe. Brown says the commercial poultry industry, which caused the catastrophe in the first place, stands to benefit most. The conglomerates will more and more dominate the poultry-rearing business. Some experts insist that will be better for us. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota, for instance, contends that the "single greatest risk to the amplification of the H5N1 virus, should it arrive in the United States through migratory birds, will be in free-range birds ... often sold as a healthier food, which is a great ruse on the American public."

The truly great ruse is that industrial poultry farms are the best way to produce chickens — that Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods and Charoen Pokphand are keeping the world safe from backyard poultry and migratory birds. But what's going to be on our tables isn't the biggest problem. The real tragedy is what's happened in Asia to people who can't afford cheap, industrial chicken. And the real victims of industrially produced, lethal H5N1 have been wild birds, an ancient way of life and the poor of the Earth, for whom a backyard flock has always represented a measure of autonomy and a bulwark against starvation.

Orent is the author of "Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease." This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times

NAIS and the Chinese Chicken

It's a banner day for posting it seems. So much to talk about.

here is another item about NAIS and the USDA. This is truly shocking.

While the USDA foists NAIS on American consumers, farmers and livestock* the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proposing importing chickens from China. Yes, that’s right. Is that crazy enough? They want to tag and track all animals in the USA to prevent disease’ and then import poultry from China where Avian Bird Flu (H5N1) has been killing millions of birds as well as some people. Wait a minute?!? Wasn’t one of the justifications for NAIS to stop the spread of Avian Bird Flu???

Not only that, but the USDA wants to ship poultry to China, have it slaughtered and canned and then shipped back to the USA for consumption! What!?!

Does this make sense? Wait… sense… cents… Ah, think dollars!...

read the rest at Ag Dept Wants to Import Chickens from China

Our government is insane. First they want to implement the NAIS in part to keep the US from getting avian flu outbreaks and now they want to import chicken from china where there have been numerous avian flu outbreaks. This is nuckin' futz.

NAIS Agriculture Facism

NAIS is a system the USDA will be implementing sometime in 2008. Over the past 3 or 4 months I have been reading more and more about this on the web. I have seen a couple of dynamite posts about this issue over on the Cauldron Ridge Blog and the slow food website has a lot of information and good discussion going on in their forum (the two items below are from that website). Personally I am opposed to this idea for many of the reasons stated in the article by Mr Lamb and the response to Mr lamb's article.

Remember eating is indeed a political act.

Henry Lamb is the founding Chairman of Sovereignty International
(1996), and the founding ECO of the Environmental Conservation
Organization (1988). He is publisher of eco-logic Powerhouse, a widely
read on-line, and print magazine. His columns are frequently translated
into Spanish and published throughout Central and South America, Spain,
Portugal, and Italy. He has attended United Nations meetings around the
world, is a frequent speaker at conferences and workshops across the
country, and is a regular guest on dozens of talk radio programs. He
has provided testimony for the U.S. Congress, as well as State
Legislatures, and has served as a consultant to FOX News on U.N.
affairs.

For eight years, he was CEO of a national trade association for
contractors, headquartered in Chicago, coming to that position from CEO
of a private construction company specializing in erosion control and
water management structures. His background includes teaching at the
secondary school level, and serving four years as a legislative analyst
for a county government in Florida. E-Mail: h...@freedom.org

The mark on the beast
By Henry Lamb
http://www.eco.freedom.org/el/20060102/lamb.shtml

January 15, 2006

The stated purpose of the program (NAIS) is to enable government to
trace, within 48 hours, the source of a faulty animal food product. The
effect of the program is the transfer of the control of private
property to the government - while forcing the property owner to pay
the cost of the transfer.

Last week's column asked: "What do you call it when government takes
away the use of private property, but leaves the title in the name of
the property owner?" Dozens of letter writers correctly responded:
"Fascism." Last week's column was about government controlling the use
of land; this week, the government is controlling the use of animals.

The program is not limited to commercial producers; it includes the
half-dozen chickens at Grandma's house. Her "premises" and each chicken
must be registered with the government, as the program now stands. In
fact, the pet parakeet in a cage on the 20th floor of a condo in Miami
Beach must also be registered, along with the premises. As the program
now stands, there are no exceptions.

Surely some of the stupidity will be squeezed out of the program as
more people become aware of it, and insist that government has gone too
far. The question, however, is not how far is too far, but whether
government should go there at all.

Nothing among the enumerated powers granted to the federal government
by the U.S. Constitution can be construed to include the power to
control the use of private property. The federal government is
empowered to regulate interstate commerce, but Grandma's chickens and
Aunt Jane's parakeet do not constitute interstate commerce.

Everyone wants a safe, abundant, and affordable food supply, which
America has enjoyed for years - without a National Animal
Identification System. Why is it necessary now? The increased terrorist
threat certainly justifies tightening up security in the food chain.
But, the NAIS does little or nothing to tighten security, while
imposing ridiculous burdens upon the small producer.

The NAIS was initiated by the National Institute of Animal Agriculture,
a non-government organization consisting of the leaders of
agribusiness. The program they designed tends to shift the burden,
cost, and ultimate responsibility for food safety from the agribusiness
giants to the small producer.

Interstate commerce conjures up images of businesses such as Tyson
Foods, which has mastered the art of vertically integrated marketing.
Tyson controls the production of its chickens from birth to market,
using farmers only to provide space and labor to get their product to
slaughter. Here is where government should focus its regulatory concern
- and leave Grandma's chickens alone.

Suppliers of beef, pork, and lamb, often buy their animals from small
producers, who work hard to raise healthy, marketable animals. The
agribusiness suppliers are free to buy, or not buy, from any producer.
Here, at the point where the product enters the food chain, is where
responsibility, security, and regulatory control should be focused -
not on the already overburdened small producer.

But, no. The NAIS requires the small producer to not only bear the cost
of the program, but also to be the ultimate scapegoat in the event that
an agribusiness supplier's product is found to be faulty, for whatever
reason. Should little Johnny get sick after eating a hamburger made
with beef supplied by BigAgri Packing Company, BigAgri simply points
the finger to the producer, or producers, whose cows were in the batch
from which Johnny's hamburger was made. Agribusiness shifts its
responsibility for buying only healthy product to the farmer, who must
guarantee his animals to be healthy.

The NAIS is an industry-designed program, which will drive small
producers out of business, reduce competition, and ultimately put both
supply and price in the hands of industry giants - unless opponents
of this program get organized.

And here's a reader response to Henry's article from a small farmer...

NAIS: Fascism is what we should call it
By Edward H. Ey
http://www.eco.freedom.org/el/20060102/edwardhey.shtml

January 15, 2006

Henry,

Congratulations on grabbing the tip of the NAIS iceberg. You clearly
understand the essence of the major issues facing small agricultural
producers, and the general public. But - there is a much broader set
of implications that you might want to look into.

The incestuous relationship between agribusiness and the USDA is well
recognized by many farmers and livestock producers. The USDA is no
longer a useful agency for American agriculture. The USDA has become
the conscript of agribusiness. All key positions at the USDA are now
held by former agribusiness people, or their minions.

The NAIS scheme currently has little or no support, among small and
independent farmers and livestock producers. Few to none of my friends
and neighbors have bought into the NAIS Ponzi scheme. We recognize the
sleaze, the illicit design, the unnecessary cost, and the political
intentions of this latest useless offering from Washington, D.C.

Beyond the overt display of tracking animals, the NAIS plan is to be
used by the IRS to verify farmer and producer incomes, and the system
will also become a tool used by agribusiness. The USDA has backed away
from direct implementation of the system, and will use contractors and
private organizations to do the dirty work of installing the system and
collecting the data. The Secretary of Agricultural knows when to back
away from a smelly pig.

So, why is the collection of agricultural livestock data important
beyond the control of private property? The answer is because the
agribusiness giants will then have access to all of the information on
the database. They will have knowledge about all sources and supplies
of commodity animals. They will use such information to improve their
ongoing practice of captive supply and market price manipulation. The
USDA has promised protection of my private producer information, once
its on the database. Right! If anyone believes that, they can see me
about some swamp land I have for sale in Florida.

To gain a better understanding of this menace, you might be interested
in the actions and writings of Mike Callicrate, the actions of the OCM
outfit in Nebraska, plus some of the issues defined by R-CALF other
than BSE imports, and the increasing national trend of small farmers
and producers to form more independent co-op outfits to counter the
threat of agribusiness.

Agribusiness killed the independent chicken and pork industries, and
they are now attempting to do the same thing to independent cattle
producers. Agribusiness and the USDA are successfully depopulating the
Great Plains, but a national range war has begun in the cattle
business, and it's liable to get very nasty, very soon.

Fascism is what we call it, when private property is controlled by
government. Clearly, there is no issue more important for the Supreme
Court to fix than private property rights.

But, what do you call it when multi-national corporations (e.g.
Monsanto, ADM) control all grain seeds, via patents, GMOs, and chemical
controls? I still haven't figured out how a corporation can be allowed
to patent a life form.

What do you call it when all beef is controlled by the likes of Tyson,
Cargill, et al, and imported meat receives the coveted USDA stamp of
approval? What do you call it when all pork is controlled and imported
from overseas by Smithfield?

What do you call it when imported agricultural products grown with
illegal chemicals in foreign countries (Mexico), and imported beef
products contain life threatening contaminants, packing house residuals
(Brazil), and potential disease (Brazil and Japan's BSE threat), and
the government will not implement Country Of Origin Labeling
legislation? Why doesn't the U.S. government want me to know where this
food comes from?

I do not mean to belabor the obvious, with these ongoing real events
now taking place in our country, but you must agree that if one thinks
oil dependency on the Middle East is a major problem, just wait until
our food supply system is controlled by agribusiness, their USDA
puppets, Wall Street, and foreign governments.

The current lobbyist scandals in Congress pale by comparison to what is
taking place in our national agricultural system. Actions now underway
by agribusiness and the USDA will seal the fate of the American family
farm and the American consumer. The NAIS is but one step in the overall
strategy.

Henry, you can render a great service to the citizens of this country
by looking into the rest of the USDA/Agribusiness greasy iceberg, and
reporting on it. I promise that you will find the overall strategy of
agribusiness, and its future plans to control your foodstuffs beyond
belief, and very scary.

No plant diversity, no variations, everything monoculture hybrids, and
no controls on quality, origins, or nutrition should raise major
concerns. But, Americans will likely continue to buy from the "Lowest
Prices Always" businesses that feed on the bottom, right next to
agribusiness and the USDA.

Edward H. Ey
East Branch Farm