Idaho is taking a page out of Washington state and the USDA book by fraudulently signing up small farmers and homesteaders for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) without their permission. Currently NAIS and Premise ID are supposed to be voluntary programs. Small farmers and homesteaders are almost universally opposing NAIS so the government is resorting to dirty tricks to make their statistics look good so they can claim support for NAIS.
“Idaho is one of many states to sign on and is fully engaged in the first goal of NAIS — premises identification. With voluntary sign up sparse, the Idaho State Department of Agriculture brought alongside Global Animal Management (GAM), a data collection company. According to ISDA records, GAM has “successfully extracted data from Idaho’s brand database,” which resulted in 13,907 unique premises identification numbers.” -The Times of Magic Valley
Currently the USDA and states are making a big deal out of claiming that 204,700 people have voluntarily signed up for Premise ID. They tried to sign up our farm fraudulently here in Vermont. I heard on a radio show about them doing this in other states. Many people have sent me email saying the states and USDA have fraudulently signed them up as ‘volunteers’ for NAIS Premise ID. Other people have told me about being told they had to sign up and doing it without realizing what they were getting into. None of these are real voluntary signups. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg. How many other fake signups has the government done?
The government uses these numbers, which they say represent 10% of the farms, to justify NAIS and claim that farmers widely support NAIS. A mere 10% signup rate as an overwhelming support for this draconian set of regulations. Realize that you also have to subtract from their numbers all of the truckers, auction houses, veterinarians, slaughter houses, butchers, processing plants and other places where animals might go for any amount of time. This dramatically cuts the USDA’s count. In reality their signup rate is far less than they are claiming and their support is far, far smaller. Among small farmers and homesteaders, the groups who will be hurt the most, there is virtually no support for NAIS at all.
Frankly, NAIS should be kept 100% voluntary - the big producers could have their trace-back program and the rest of us could get on with our lives. This would help preserve our traditional rights to farm and our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms (see Amendments 1, 4, 5, 13 and 14). The only real justification for NAIS is the big meat exporters desire to gain more profits by shipping high priced meat to Japan. Let them pay the price for their program since they are the only ones benefiting from it.
With the government lying about little things like this you have to wonder where the big lies are…
How can one find out if his/her farm has been “voluntarily signed up” with this program?
Comment Gwenyth — March 13, 2006 @ 2:22 pm
I am not a big supporter of rodeos or the like but we must get the Rodeo Associations behind this too because this form of all American entertainment will also dissapear. Ive checked their websites and found nothing on the animal ID issue, Do you have a daughter in barrel racing a son in calf roping?? competitions?? Can you imagine the hassle of meeting the US requirements let alone the individual state requirements in travelling to competitions? The prefessional arenas will also disapear. I raise rare heritage turkeys and a few chickens for my own enjoyment, eggs and meat. Good Lord I gag when I think of eating store bought eggs and meat.
Comment Carol Kiser — March 16, 2006 @ 10:27 am
I’m not very fond of rodeos, either, but we need ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE who in any way, shape, or form is connected to animals to get in on this protest. If you find an animal-oriented website where there is no mention of NAIS, email the webmaster or other contact person and give them the info. I recently contacted PETA and they were not aware of NAIS, either. I know a lot of people don’t like PETA for a lot of reasons, but they ARE activists and they DO oppose factory farming with a passion. As the saying goes, we must all hang together or they’ll hang us one by one…
Comment rooster-lover — March 24, 2006 @ 10:12 am
I cannot believe this is what humans in the world have come too. It’s so inhumane what is done to our animals. If they could speak, boy I bet we’d be in big trouble.
Tagging the animals, it’s total bull. Leave them be. I mean, this is so ridiculous. There’s greater concerns in the area, where tagging animals shouldn’t even be on the list. Leave it alone.
Comment Jackie Pysz — April 6, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
I would like to know if there is any groups i can contact in the central california area.
Ruth
[Ruth, check out CA Against NAIS which you can find in the List Discussions of the right sidebar and also Central Californians Against NAIS web site which is in the Featured Web Sites section of the right sidebar. Cheers, -WJ]
Comment Ruth Schick — August 15, 2006 @ 9:55 pm