NoNAIS.org

Letter urging Congress to drop all funding for the USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS):

September 10, 2009

Re: 2010 Agriculture Appropriations bill and the National Animal Identification System

To the Honorable Members of the Agriculture Appropriations Conference Committee:

The undersigned organizations urge you to adopt the House version of the 2010 Agriculture Appropriations bill with respect to the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), eliminating the funding for NAIS. Contrary to its stated purposes, NAIS will not address animal disease or food safety problems. Instead, NAIS imposes high costs and paperwork burdens on family farmers and creates incentives for CAFOs and vertically integrated systems. This ill-conceived and badly implemented program should not receive any federal funding, and we urge the conference committee to adopt the House version of the bill on this issue.

USDA’s plans for NAIS describe a far-reaching three-step program that calls for every person who owns even one livestock or poultry animal to register their property, tag each animal when it leaves the property it was born on, and report a long list of movements to a database within 24 hours. The provisions would apply whether or not that animal is used for commercial purposes. NAIS would directly impact millions of animal owners. Group or lot identification would only be allowed where animals are managed as a group from birth to death and never commingled with animals outside of their production system. In practice, group identification would apply mainly, if not entirely, to confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and vertically integrated operations.

Our organizations have sent previous letters outlining the many problems with NAIS. In this letter, we will touch on just a few of the reasons that NAIS is fundamentally flawed:

1) No analysis or quantification of the alleged benefits. USDA has made unsupported assertions that our country needs 48-hour traceback of all animal movements for disease control. Yet USDA has failed to provide any scientific basis, including risk analysis or scientific review of existing programs, to support this claim. USDA has also asserted that NAIS would provide 48-hour traceback, but has failed to address the many technological and practical barriers. Existing disease control programs, combined with measures such as brand registries and normal private record-keeping, provide cost-effective traceback. A new and costly program such as NAIS is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive.

2) High costs. The costs of complying with NAIS will be unreasonably burdensome for small farmers and many other animal owners. The costs of NAIS go far beyond the tag itself, and include: premises registration database creation and updates; tags and related equipment, such as readers, computers, and software; 24-hour reporting requirements, imposing extensive paperwork burdens; labor for every stage of the program; stress on the animals; qualitative costs, from loss of religious freedoms, privacy, and trust in government; and enforcement.

3) No food safety benefits. NAIS will not prevent foodborne illnesses from e. coli or salmonella, because the contamination occurs at the slaughterhouse, while NAIS tracking ends at the time of slaughter. Thus, NAIS will neither prevent the contamination nor increase the government’s ability to track contaminated meat back to its source. In addition, NAIS will hurt efforts to develop safer, decentralized local food systems.

4) Unfair burdens placed on family farms and sustainable livestock operations. NAIS would also impose significant reporting and paperwork burdens on small farms. In addition, sustainable livestock operations that manage animals on pasture would face higher rates of tag losses than confinement operations, due to animals getting their tags caught on brush or fences. NAIS essentially creates incentives for CAFOs, with the accompanying social and environmental concerns.

For these reasons, we strongly urge you to adopt the House position and eliminate funding for NAIS in the 2010 Appropriations bill. We thank you for your consideration.

Acres USA
Adopt a Farm Family
Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network
American Goat Society
American Grassfed Association
American Indian Horse Registry
American Policy Center
Arkansas Animal Producers Association
California Farmers Union
Carolina Farm Stewardship Association
Carriage Operators of North America
Cattlemen’s Texas Longhorn Registry
Citizens for Private Property Rights (MO)
Colorado Independent Cattlegrowers Association
Constitutional Alliance
The Cornucopia Institute
Dakota Resource Council
Dakota Rural Action
Davis Mountain Trans Pecos Heritage Assoc. (TX)
Edible Austin
Edible San Marcos (TX)
Empire State Family Farm Alliance (NY)
Equus Survival Trust
Fair Food Matters (MI)
Family Farm Defenders
Farm Aid
Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
Food and Water Watch
Food for Maine’s Future
Freedom 21
Grassroots International
Gun Owners of America
Independent Cattlemen of Iowa
Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska
Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming
Innovative Farmers of Ohio
International Texas Longhorn Association
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Jackson County Local Action Coalition (OR)
LaCrosse/ Monroe County Farmers Union (WI)
Local Harvest
Maine Alternative Agriculture Association
Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association
Marshall County Citizens for Property Rights (AL)
Massachusetts Smallholders Alliance
Michigan Farmers Union
Michigan Land Trustees
Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance
Mississippi Livestock Markets Association
Missouri Rural Crisis Center
Missourians for Local Control
Montana Cattlemen’s Association
Montana Farmers Union
National Association of Farm Animal Welfare
National Family Farm Coalition
Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society
North Carolina Contract Poultry Growers Assoc.
Northeast Organic Farming Association-Connecticut
Northeast Organic Farming Assoc.-Massachusetts
Northeast Organic Farming Assoc.-New Hampshire
Northeast Organic Farming Association-New York
Northeast Organic Farming Association-Vermont
Northeast Organic Farming Assoc. Interstate Council
Northern Illinois Draft Horse and Mule Association
Northern New Mexico Stockman’s Association
Northern Plains Resource Council (MT)
Organic Consumers Association
Organization for Competitive Markets
Ozarks Property Rights Congress
Paragon Foundation
Paso Fino Horse Association
Powder River Basin Resource Council (WY)
Progressive Agriculture Organization (PA)
Property Rights Congress
R-CALF USA
Regional Farm and Food Project (NY)
Rocky Mountain Farmers Union
Secure Arkansas
Small Farmer’s Journal
Small Farms Conservancy
South Dakota Stockgrowers Association
Sovereignty International
Stop Real ID Coalition
Sustainable Food Center (TX)
Texas Eagle Forum
Texas Landowners Council
Tuscaloosa Property Rights Alliance (AL)
US Boer Goat Association
Virginia Land Rights Coalition
Western Organization of Resource Councils
Weston A Price Foundation
Wintergarden Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (TX)

For more information, contact Judith McGeary at 512-484-8821 (cell), or Judith@FarmAndRanchFreedom.org

[I was just alerted to this. Hearing today. -WJ]

Community Farm Alliance
~ 614 Shelby Street ~ Frankfort, KY ~ 40601~
502-223-3655
communityfarmalliance.org

FOR RELEASE MAY 22, 2009

KENTUCKY FAMILY FARMERS AND ALLIED GRASSROOTS GROUPS PROTEST NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM AT USDA PUBLIC HEARING

Small Farmers Say Big Business Gets the Long End of the Stick as USDA Stacks the Deck

Louisville, KY (May 22, 2009)– The Community Farm Alliance today charged that the agenda for the upcoming listening tour for the National Animal Identification System is biased against small family farmers and will do nothing to improve animal health or food safety. Members of the Community Farm Alliance are especially outraged that the USDA’s proposed system favors large corporate agri-business and factory farming. Ultimately, full implementation of NAIS would annihilate family scale farms, which are the majority of farms in Kentucky.

“The USDA has stated these hearings are a forum to discuss ‘stakeholder concerns’ about NAIS, when the hearings should be focused on whether or not it is needed at all,” said Adam Barr, CFA President and livestock producer. “This program is not an option for a state like Kentucky, where the majority of our farms are small scale. Our farm economy is based in large part on a multitude of beef cattle herds. NAIS would place an undue burden on beef and other livestock producers, who would be required to track all their animals and file a report on a daily basis. We cannot take this from the federal government, we must fight back! As family farmers, our concern is to stop the implementation of this program in its entirety.”

The listening tour, which was promised by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a meeting in Washington D.C. last month, kicked off with a day-long session in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania May 15 and will be stopping in Louisville on Friday May 22 during its 12 city run. CFA members and allied organizations from across the Commonwealth and into Southern Indiana and Ohio will assemble at the meeting to send the message to USDA that there Kentucky farmers do not need NAIS.

“We think the very fact that the USDA is holding these meetings represents a victory for those who oppose NAIS,” Barr said. “It shows that the USDA is recognizing that there is significant and growing grassroots opposition to NAIS across the country. Already, five states including Kentucky, Arizona, Missouri, and Utah have passed anti-NAIS legislation. We have worked hard to keep NAIS out of Kentucky and we’re fortunate to have a state legislature that passed a bill to prevent the mandatory implantation of NAIS in Kentucky. We are willing to sit down with USDA and discuss a food safety alternative to NAIS, but NAIS in the present form is unacceptable for all American farmers!”

Community Farm Alliance is urging all farmers and consumers who are concerned about the survival of the small family farm and our growing local food economy in Kentucky to attend the hearings, and to submit comments online by visiting http://www.usda.gov/nais/feedback submit written comments by mailing to ATTN NAIS, Surveillance and Identification Programs, National Center for Animal Health Programs, VS, APHIS, 4700 River Road Unit 200, Riverdale, MD 20737.

“We need to make sure that everyone understands that NAIS is not an effective animal health or food safety program,” said Stephen Bartlett, Coordinator of Sustainable Agriculture of Louisville (SAL) and an active CFA member. “The vast majority of animal health problems are the result of the high-density confined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) that concentrate thousands of animals in one location, and in the slaughterhouses, where NAIS traceability ends. NAIS seeks to shift liability to family farmers and away from the true threats to health. NAIS would be expensive, intrusive, unfair and ineffective to boot. It is also arguably unconstitutional with its premise identifications and GPS spyware.”

NAIS requires small farmers to tag and track each animal individually while allowing CAFO’s to track thousands of animals (as many as 80,000 birds in one hen house) under one group registration. CFA members claim that by implementing such a program, USDA would be rewarding factory farms whose practices encourage disease while crippling small farms and the local food movement.

The Community Farm Alliance (CFA) is a grassroots membership organization with over 2,000 members in 75 Kentucky counties. From creating new Farmers’ Markets in underserved urban communities, to developing Farm-to-Cafeteria programs that link local farmers with institutional buyers, to promoting family farm-friendly policies in the halls of the State Capitol, CFA provides a grassroots voice for Kentucky’s citizens-farmer and non-farmer, urban and rural alike-on farm, food, and economic issues. The group’s opposition to NAIS is a part of a larger national movement being led by similar farm and consumer organizations across the country.

CFA members and friends assembled themselves today at the hearing wearing bar-coded “tags” stuck to their clothing, holding protest signs with messages such as “NAIS: Big Business and Big Government killing Small Farmers and Local Food.” They arrived in farm trucks donning protest banners that read “Regulate Factory Farms, Not Family Farmers! Stop NAIS!” A spokesperson for the group said the demonstration outside the public hearing was in response to the USDA’s attempt to keep anti-NAIS comments to a minimum by only allowing those chosen through a lottery to speak during the open comment period of the event. In other states, groups complained that similar strategies prevented those in opposition to NAIS from speaking, while allowing multiple comments from proponents of the program. The group held a press conference at noon stating their reasons for protesting the program and the listening session.

For more information about the Community Farm Alliance visit communityfarmalliance.org

For more information, contact
Kaycie Len Carter, Lead Organizer
502-223-3655
kayciecfa@bellsouth.net

or

Adam Barr, CFA President
859-608-6458

This is totally off topic but I couldn’t resist linking to it:

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

The Republican lawmaker’s harsh comments came during an interview with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT on Monday. They echo remarks he has made in the past about corporate executives and public apologies, but went further in suggesting suicide.

“I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed,” Grassley said. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.
:
The senator’s remarks added to a chorus of public outrage over the disclosure that AIG intends to pay its executives $165 million in bonuses after taking billions in federal bailout money. President Barack Obama lambasted the insurance giant for “recklessness and greed” on Monday and pledged to try to block payment of the bonuses.
-AP News

I’ve thought similar things but am too polite to actually suggest something like that. Bravo to Grassley… Now if he would just show some leadership.