The liars at the USDA are at it again. Mike Johanns, Secretary of Agriculture, (phone: (202) 720-3631) has announced results of surveys of public opinion about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) to be that:
“Most respondents were in favor of an animal identification system.” He goes on to say “Of the respondents who are in favor of an animal identification system, most would prefer a mandatory, publicly funded system with full Government control of the tracking database.” -USDA Survey Results
What the Flying Duck is wrong with this man?!? Is he hard of hearing? Is there a disconnect between the public and his brain? Was he dropped on his head, repeatedly, at birth? Maybe he is living in a hole in the desert and hasn’t noticed the storm of public opinion against NAIS? Go read the memo for yourself. Don’t miss his intro either.
The USDA has totally lost touch with the reality of small farms and and homesteaders in America who will be destroyed by NAIS. Whom did he survey? Big meat exporters and RFID tag manufacturers? The polls I have done myself and the poll by Farm & Garden show that 90% of the people do not want NAIS. They don’t just not want it, they vehemently oppose NAIS.
Mike Johanns just doesn’t get it. Email him or phone him at (202) 720-3631 and let him know how you feel.
Mike Johanns will be leaving a path of destruction in his wake by 2008. He also supports horse slaughter and will not be happy until the BLM wipes out all our wild mustangs to make room for the cattle baron’s herds to graze on OUR public lands; beef that is consumed by 3% of Americans, the rest goes overseas. He favors big business. I am guessing he gets a kickback.
His lies out of self-interest.
Comment Mari Jung — April 4, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
I would agree that Mr. Johanns is out of touch with a significant portion of at least a portion of the demographic affected by the potential of this action…BUT in order to effectively fight this it will be necessary to demonstrate adequate representation. According to the the Farm & Garden Poll there have only been 326 total respondents to the survey…not really a representative sample. In order to argue effectively against this survey results we need access to his instrument and to whom he presented this poll and his methods. How can we get this info? Some how, some way, this issue has to be ratcheted up from simply a small producers problem to an assault on personal liberty. We need the voices of those people that do not keep animals to be just as defensive as we are, but to understand this issue as personal to them as well. We have to get this into the mass media. I’m coming in late on this and I know effrts have been made but the only things I have seen on this issue are in things that WE (as a group with similar interests)gravitate toward. We REALLY need to get this into some magazines and/or newspapers. How can we finance such a campaign?
Comment Jack Caddell — April 4, 2006 @ 12:50 pm
Mr. Johanns,
Many residents, and voters, in south Texas wish to see the data you have to support the conclusion you cited. We do not believe there are any animal owners in our area who would favor this costly and intrrusive scheme.
The idea of tagging our exostic animals is so unrealistic we are amazed any knowledgeable and thinking person would even give it a thought. It will be impossible to comply with, even with government (taxpayer) money. If applied to domestic food stock prices will go up dramatically.
What about those animals that run loose over the country belonging to no one?
I learned of this planned program only a few days ago. Why has it not been made known to the general population before now?
Obviously I oppose NAIS in all its aspects because it will not do what is claimed, and it imposes an unnecessary tax which can only grow each year.
This proposed program should be immediately cancelled,and the person(s)who formulated it sent to a farm or ranch to conduct a “trial” tagging experiment.
Sincerely,
L.L. DAVIS
Comment DAVE DAVIS — April 4, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
Jack, Contact: Downsize DC about NoNAIS & email karber@pldi.net for details on that.
Comment walterj — April 4, 2006 @ 1:43 pm
Jack where is the poll/survey located that you are talking about?
Comment Gisela — April 4, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
Walter, we are doing a complete campaign for Downsize DC which will get the word out to more people and get the figures and documents out to real people. Mr. Johanns is very selective in his findings from information that did not include all the detail and consumers or small producers. Exactly who was part of the surveys and in what settings. Target groups will respond as predicted if filled with just those whose response one wants.
Most people are just now finding out about the program with slanted reporting in favor.
So I really am excited about the Downsize DC campaign with Celeste Bishop famous for her wonderful interview on Coast to Coast and Farm for Life Mary Zanoni, Ph.D. who has written, spoken and is Head of Farm for Life.
To donate earmarked funds for No National Animal ID System contact Mallory at 703-236-5202 or mail Downsize DC 1931 15th Street Cuyahoga Falls, OHIO 44223 or use the form on donations on Downsize DC web site. http://www.DownsizeDC.org/ look on left side and use the print out but use the above address on this email.
This will help get truth to the public.
Thanks for the outlet Walter. We are fighting for our freedom here and one on one everyday to wake up the people.
Comment Sue Karber — April 4, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
IF these are the figures being used then it is a stacked program against small producers, own use producers, orgainic raisers or local market producers and consumers. Read full survey at this link.
NIAA NAIS Progress Survey
Conducted Oct. 5 to Oct. 10, 2005
among NIAA members and ID/INFO EXPO 2005 attendees.
Total number of responses: 198
Percent
1. Which of the following best describes your professional status?
Producer or Producer/Farm/Commodity Assn. Executive 18.69%
State Agriculture or Animal Health Official/Employee 23.23%
Federal Agriculture or Animal Health Official/Employee 3.03%
Practicing Veterinarian or Vet. Association Executive 6.57%
Academician/Extension/Researcher/Diagnostician 9.09%
ID Technology or Information Systems Provider 23.74%
Market/Processor 4.04%
Media/Communications 4.04%
Other Allied Industry Stakeholder 7.58%
Comment Sue Karber — April 4, 2006 @ 3:01 pm
The Legislator’s are going to HAVE to Answer for NAIS! No Exceptions this time! Ken,Thank you, for every thing you are doing and continue to do. We must all strive for our freedom, upheld by Our Constitution. It is amazing to see just how astray the U.S. Government and State Government officials, and political’s, have moved off base to a one world government direction, typically controlled by agri-biz and govi-biz, allegedly concerned about their own personal interests whatever, that may be, but telling us, they will keep us safe. Did the Norad Military facility, keep us safe on 911? No, they were told to stand down allegedly.. It appears the Government is unable to protect us so now they want to lock us in a box, with NAIS. Having freedom means, we all take a risk, but even if I am safe, in a lockbox, I don’t want to live my life there. The government is using our animals as the first step to controlling the people’s movements. Under NAIS, the 3 tier program, will eventually, require you to mandatorily report all human being’s movements on your premises.
I myself, am a simple, one person family, 2 acre, mobile home, in God’s Country, with one miniature horse, and a couple dogs, which are my family now, as my children are grown up. I served My Country Honorably in the Military for 10 years, and have served My Country and States where I lived in many other ways… I am no one special.
But I am a member of the United States of America, and I served Honorably, I therefor, expect each and every member in Our Government system to do the same.
I will tell you this, and you can take it to the bank. If someone, as non-intrusive, little old me, with one horse, on 2 acres, out in the country, want my privacy, person, left alone, and the government won’t let me alone, It starts me to pounding the pavement to the Whitehouse, Congress, USDA, Iowa offices, etc., as I am not going to be trodden upon. Just think of the power the people of this country have, to influence our Country for the Right to maintain our freedom, upheld by true authority of the Constitution, influenced by the Hand of God. This United States is and the Constitution is for the freedom of ALL Americans, including the ones with animals.
There shall never come another day, which shall have a more profound affect or be, more vital to the security of this Nation, than the demands of the people to live freely from government intrusion or violation. Especially when it affects our family and our animals. We are not rebelling to conquer the U.S. Government, we are demanding the U.S. Government, live by our forefather’s demand to be free, and upheld by The Constitution.
What the American people “do” or “not do” now, about NAIS,will effect our children and grandchildren for life ever after.
My Friend, Do Not Be Afraid, to exercise your Rights of Free Speech as an American, solely because of your impression on how you speak your mind.. We the People, are all entitled to say our piece, no matter, how we can say it. The important issue here, is Say No to NAIS.
God’s Speed, My Friend,
Dean Ayers
Glenwood, Iowa 51534
DeanAFOSI@aol.com
Comment DeanAFOSI(IOWA) — April 4, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
If you REALLY would like to know what NAIS is about, you have to first read and understand Executive Order 10998.
NAIS is simply a scheme by the federal government to be able to easily identify where the food supplies in our country are located, to make it easier for them to confiscate said food when they decide it is in their best interest. It’s just like registering your guns - it makes their thievery and acts of oppression easier!
Comment MarkA — April 4, 2006 @ 3:18 pm
The more we hear about the NAIS the worse it gets.
On the Derry Brownfield show last wednesday–I’m just catching up– they put forth the theory that this “plot” is global and the plan for NAIS is coming from outside the US. A little paranoid in my opinion–the whole Bilderberg Conspiracy and such.
However, during the show they mentioned something probable which I had not heard yet. A Plan to make the sellers of Hay register their premises and track who cut the hay, where it was cut, and who delivered it to the final location. The call is for Feed traceability both forward and backward. Feed stores are even beginning to demand people register with them before they’ll sell feed.
If my feed store trys that I’ll be shopping elsewhere. There’s plenty of ways–going into summer–to plan to feed your livestock without paying to be watched. If we the consumers, farmers and producers of this nation don’t stop this by whatever means America will cease to be and I don’t want to be part of the Totalitarian state which will take its place.
We’ve got to stop supporting stores and people who support the NAIS. This cut me out of two feed stores and made me drive 20 more miles, but now I get my feed from a local source and it is not made by any company in the NIAA or sold by their franchises. I’ve also stopped buying beef until I can find a local source that isn’t supportive of the NAIS. If we don’t practice what we preach our stand is worthless. But if enough of us do this things will change in a hurry.
[Read this document, this document and do a Google search on the UN’s Agenda 21. -WJ]
Comment Podchef — April 4, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
I have written this letter a million times.It always comes out too long.
I got sucked into politics against my will. I’d rather be farming, but here I am
because somebody’s gotta do it and nobody else would.
As representatives you want to know what we think,right? At least that’s
what we elected you for.
And as nobody else would come I had to elect myself to represent my neighbors
who either don’t care or don’t believe in the government. They are busy trying
to be farmers.
Farming as we knew it is no longer possible in Arkansas or anywhere else for that
matter. Arkansas is losing her rural base.Corporate factory farming and government
regulations are driving us out of business.
Developers,taking advantage of our plight are buying up good farmland and
turning it into urban sprawl.which is a blight upon the landscape and a waste
of our precious soil.
The monster that is agi-biz swallows up people and spits out slaves as food
production becomes concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.
This is bad for Arkansas ,’not only economically,but morally as well. We are less
happy..
Now the government wants the N.A.I.S. to add insult to injury. It wants to
label us and our livestock as though we were nothing more than dollars and cents.
Well we don’t like it…period ! It stinks of corporate greed and insensitivity to
to both people and animals. It is excessive intrusion into our private lives and
our right to farm as we see fit on our own land..
It is unfair to make us pay for the mismanagemeents of globalized corporate
agriculture.
Factory farming is unnatural and wrong.High concentrations of animals in
cramped conditions harbor and spread disease. Humans could never
survive under these conditions but these animals have no choice but to
suffer in silence.
Factory farms generate huge concentrations of waste which pollute our
water supplies and pollute our air. We are all breathing chicken dust..
Natural farming does not pose this threat to the environment. Responsible
farmers respect the land and the dignity of each individual animal.
When we farm the land as God intends we don’t need the government to
tell us how to do it.
We do however need some serious laws to protect us from the abuses of
unfair competition and you ,our reprsentatives are the only ones who can
do it.
Let’s not wait for Washington to lay down the laws. They don’t have a clue about
what farmers need.
The spirit of arkansas is independance. Let’s keep it that way. siddartha@care2.com
Comment sid sargent — April 5, 2006 @ 7:27 am
We here in Texas are fighting this also. The Texas Animal Health Commission, yesterday, stated that they would not be taking any action until 2007. This is not legally binding, I think it is designed to cool down the populas. It does however buy us some time to get HB 1361 repealed.We all feel the same, so I will not preach to the choir. Just remember us here in Texas, after all we are all Americans and these are Americans liberties that our government is eroding.
Comment Charles W. Murray — April 5, 2006 @ 8:28 am
The darn government thinks it can find and track 7 million pet horses, but it claims it can’t find 11 million undocumented Mexicans. Preposterous. Which poses more of a challenge to the health, general welfare, and continuity of the country? Last I checked the horses aren’t carrying incurable TB, leprosy, polio, and dengue fever. The horses aren’t agitating to take over whole states like the Aztlan crazies are. The horses are not advocating a genocide of every non-Mexican in the Americas like MeCHA, LULAC, Aztlan etc. do. As yourselves why NAIS and why now? It’s like Traitor John McCain insulting and belittling the American worker while sucking up to the Mexican ones as was reported yesterday in the news. It’s our own government attacking us while winking at crimes and misdemeanors done by outsiders. I see NAIS as more and more part and parcel of the US government’s all-out war on the American people.
Grace
Comment Grace Jaye — April 5, 2006 @ 8:44 am
don’t forget:
the mexicans were here first
and so were horses
and all issues are moral
and that is the only standard
that need be applied
let’s focus on morality and
forget the details of all those
stupid plans
if we would refuse to eat their
meat we would make a good start
Instead of giving your life to jesus you could be a born again
no more factory farm meat eater.
won’t you join with me????
you can buy piglets from walter
and eat more beans.
no more factory eggs either.
the first person to join gets
a sid painting in the mail,
siddartha@care2.com
you can still give your life to
jesus.jesus wouldn,t eat it
either.
Comment sid sargent — April 5, 2006 @ 10:14 am
Awww Sid, sorry, but Mexicans were not here first. They are just as much an import into the Western Hemisphere as you or I. They are “Mestizos” which means mixed–European, African, and Indian. Or did I miss my American History 101 and the Pilgrims were not met by Indians, but my Mexicans? LOL
I have no idea what you are talking about equating some Christian relgious conversion with giving up factory farmed meat.
Your boycott idea, however, is spot on, and we should publicize it.
Now we have aired our differences, let’s get busy stopping NAIS.
Comment Grace Jaye — April 5, 2006 @ 3:11 pm
Grace Jaye,the mexicans were here before me………i grew up in new mexico and all my neighbors spoke spanish and horses were here before cars
so there
are you ready to boycott meat
or are you just talking???
sid
Comment sid sargent — April 5, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kerr (here in Vermont) has claimed that immediate response and isolation is necessary should the Avian Influenza break out. AI, he says is expected as early as this fall. We should trust the good people in government he said (today = April 5 - on WDEV. We need to prepare because there are only a handful of employees of the Ag Dept. qualified to handle an outbreak. . . . This nonsense goes on and on . . . you kind of wonder - which ag dept. officials will be scouring the bushes rounding up the multitudes of wild turkeys that ply the fields and woods in this state??? And if AI arrives in the fall at the time of Canadian goose flight, what’s to be done about these creatures who frequent corn fields and farm ponds??? Are we to believe that a quarantine maintained around an outbreak in a domestic flock will stop what are touted to wild vectors? If AI is the severe threat to poultry and humans that USDA claims, why waste time on some mandatory ID system doomed to failure, when simply engaging farmers in the detection of AI would serve the purpose? Voluntary cooperation in the self-interest of each person/family is a far more effective tool than forced enrollment. Not many people in this state trust the current government. A mandatory ID program is a red flag garunteed to spark a LACK of cooperation. Duh . . . why are boneheads like Kerr in positions of authority? Because when government grows to the outrageous size it has, few question the credentials of ‘experts’ to pontificate on their area of expertise. Folks are so used to being herded around, that perhaps we should begin with a mandatory ID program for all those who want to ID our animals. Might make the world safer for farmers.
Comment Alan LePage — April 5, 2006 @ 6:48 pm
Has everyone read this http://grain.org/briefings/?id=194
about the birdflu?
There are signs that this whole avian flu thing is being engineered for the outcome the government and agribusiness want–the destruction of domestic poultry flocks.
Bird flu in humans is deep lung, unless it mutates wildly it isn’t likely to spread very far. It is also powerful–in other words, you get it and die. Not conducive to widespread contaigon.
Migratory birds are not spreading the flu–humans are. Humans who think they are better than everyone else. The answer is simple. Know where your chicken comes from. Support your local farmers and say no to factory farming.
And before we go panicing here, let’s watch Great Britain and the rest of Europe where avian flu is actually happening. Aivian flu here is being blown out of proportion to push an agenda of corporate greed.
Comment Podchef — April 6, 2006 @ 8:15 am
Oviousley this man is so full of manure he can’t seperate his own from the Bull’s so this is why he came up with such a wonderful ideal of Horse Dung.
& the sad part about it is He’s stupid enough to think that we are the stupid ones
to buy into this??? come on Man…
Comment Bobcat — April 6, 2006 @ 2:31 pm
I left another email to Johanns telling him I waited 45 years to own horses and his program just striped that away from in a short period.
Stand up people its time to do major rallies. That will get the attention of the media In fact do it in front of the TV stations.
Comment Gisela — April 7, 2006 @ 12:24 pm
Here’s the letter I just sent. Feel free to use it, adapt it, or whatever:
Mr Johanns:
Who, exactly, did you poll to get these results you claim in your report:
“Most respondents were in favor of an animal identification system… “Of the respondents who are in favor of an animal identification system, most would prefer a mandatory, publicly funded system with full Government control of the tracking database.”
These results certainly do not jive with the poll running by Farm & Garden magazine, (http://www.farm-garden.com/poll/nais_2006_03)
where 92% of respondants are AGAINST the NAIS system and certainly do not want it to be mandatory. In fact, every small farmer, organic producer, and backyard hobbyist I know of (and I live in a rural area) either does not even know about NAIS (and therefore could not possibly have been in your survey) or is AGAINST a mandatory system.
I suspect that the only people you have actually surveyed all along are the big meat processing corporations who were pushing for this in the first place. Fine — let McMeat have it on a VOLUNTARY basis so they can ship their meat overseas or sell their cheap burgers in China or whatever. But please stop LYING to the American people by claiming that the majority of us want this system mandatorily imposed upon us. WE DO NOT!!! Visit http://www.noNAIS.org to find out exactly HOW MUXH opposition there really is.
Comment rooster-lover — April 12, 2006 @ 6:18 am