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Don't Say No to NAIS, Say "NO!"
Small/Rural Farmers way of life in danger
NAIS is the National Animal Identification System. It was created by large companies for large companies supposedly for the purpose of making the meat market safer by being able to track an animal back to the farm within 48 hours. There are ways to make the meat supply safer but the NAIS is not it.

First, let’s look at whose idea this was in the first place because it says volumes about the motives behind the NAIS. Two groups are the primary initiators of the NAIS. Not surprisingly, it is large corporate meat producers and the makers/sellers of the animal identification equipment. Imagine that, the two groups who would financially profit most are primary players in the promotion of the NAIS. Small farmers, homesteaders, people on hobby farms, and those keeping farm animals as pets were not represented. In the NAIS plan, statistics are noted that 59 out of 60 people commented in support of NAIS and 35 of 47 people said that they wanted the program to be mandatory. The NAIS plan continues to say that the NAIS surveyed its members who said, 8 to 1, that a mandatory system was desired. This is the support the NAIS is basing this program upon – 94 people and not even all of its own members?

Second, lets look at the three main goals of the NAIS
1) Register Farms; any homestead that has one or more camelids (llamas and alpacas), cattle and bison, cervids (deer and elk), equines, goats, poultry, sheep, and swines must register their homestead. The NAIS will then assign a NAIS premise number, a global positioning location, and specific information regarding the homestead will be recorded in a database.
Would the database be secure? NAIS says no, it is not private. So, any animal rights fanatic or bio-terrorist could access the data and plan an attack.
Who makes the decisions about the use of the database? What will be done with this database? Will the database be sent to the IRS for further taxes? Will the database be sold to advertising companies?
Currently there is no fee for voluntary registration of a farm, but in the future there will. There could also be an annual fee to keep a farm registered (is that a form of taxing?).
2) Register Animals; any animal leaving the premises of it’s birth would need to be registered and tagged. The tag at the top is a radio frequency identification (RFID) ear tag. Some animals aren’t suited to ear tags such as lamancha goats, which have very small ears. And, who wants an ear tag hanging off of their pet – nothing like going out to pet and hug your animal and have an ear tag in the way.
The registration of every animal, which leaves the premises, would mean that if I wanted to raise my own meat animal and send it to a meat processor, I would have to register each separate one, for a fee for each of course. In fact, the NAIS states that the animals on your premises would not even be your animals, they would be part the national herd. That just doesn’t seem right; I purchase or breed an animal, raise and care for it, tend to it’s needs three times or more every day plus the seasonal upkeep, but, it’s not mine? If the government wants to hire me as their farmer, then send me a pay check and I want, no, I deserve, benefits such as health insurance and paid vacation time.
If I wanted to have a buck from another farm to come to my farm for stud service, he would have to be registered, for a fee of course.
If I wanted to sell/give my neighbor a bird out of my flock, it would have to be registered, for a fee of course.
Every animal at every fair and every animal show (think of the number of animals involved – every fair and show in every county of every state) would have to be registered, for a fee of course.
If an animal is missing, the assumption is that it is off the premises and it must be registered (within 24 hours). So, if one bird out of my flock went missing, I would have to register it, for a fee of course. The bird may turn up two days later, having gone broody and fixed a nest for herself behind the old outhouse, so the NAIS would have to be notified again (probably for another fee to handle the additional paperwork of noting that she was always on the premises after all).
3) Track Animals; each time the animal leaves your farm, NAIS would need to be contacted, for a fee no doubt. So, a goat cart ride around the area would need to be reported to the NAIS. A trip to the veterinarian with the animal would need to be reported to the NAIS. Participating in a town parade with your animal would need to be reported to the NAIS. In fact, the NAIS is tracking the farmer as much as they are tracking the animal; how’s that for personal privacy?
How will the NAIS handle the sheer volume of data?
How will all these activities be recorded in the database in a timely manner?

Let’s look at the costs involved with NAIS. Fees are potentially abundant; fee for registering your farm, annual fee to keep your farm registered, fee for registering an animal, annual fee to keep an animal registered, fee for registering an animal transfer of ownership, fee for registering a termination of an animal, fee for registering movement of an animal. Other costs are the RFID tags that are noted to be up to $2.50 per animal and, potentially, the RFID reader noted to be up to $2000.

Are the costs for the small farmer fair? Large meat producers can pass costs on to the consumer but the small farmer, who raises the family’s food cannot. Large meat producers can reduce their costs for registration fees by grouping a large number of animals in one registration, the small farmer cannot. The small farmer is more active in his/her local community than large-scale farms, participating in fairs, shows, and parades with their animals. So, will the small farmer have to endure more fees, simply to participate in the community, than the number of fees endured by the large-sale farmer?

Consequences from the NAIS can already be seen. Some who have already registered their farms now regret it, not realizing that it was voluntary, and cannot un-register. Anyone who wants to apply for a loan or a grant from the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program must provide a premise identification number.

Other consequences from the NAIS may be on the way. The NAIS states that the registration of farms will be enforced but it does not specify what that means. Does it mean there will be fines, confiscation or killing of animals, jail time? Will you have to provide your NAIS premise number to sell/purchase an animal at a sale/auction or to purchase animal feed at the local feed mill (the NAIS plan states that market forces may move the NAIS plan to be mandatory)? Will you be denied veterinary services if you do not provide your NAIS premise number? What will the price of day-old-poultry ordered through the mail be when each and every bird must be registered and tagged (and will anyone be able to afford it)? Will it mean that there will be an extinction of heritage breeds of animals as more small farms will be giving up due to the excessive costs involved and the government hoops to jump through?

Asking what the NAIS would do for the safety of our meat supply, the answer is nothing. It simply tracks farmers and the animals coming and leaving the farms. There is a logical system of keeping tract of meat processed in the U.S. and the safety of that meat. The system is used in Europe and Japan. It is to simply test every single carcass. Why does the USDA refuse to do this? Perhaps there are too few inspectors, too little funding. The government would rather dump money (18.8 million to just get the NAIS started) into a system that does nothing to ensure the safety of the meat processed. Not testing every animal that enters the meat market means that problems are missed, or at least not caught as quickly as they could be. If the USDA is not concerned with detecting problems as quickly as possible, then why are they so concerned to be able to track down the farmer of that animal within 48 hours?

The main place of meat contamination resulting in a recall occurs at the large scale meat packing plants not at the local small farm. If animals were produced within 100 miles of the consumer on small farms, then even the consumer would know where their meat came from. Currently, how may people know where their chicken for tonight’s dinner came from (except for the small farmer who raised his/her own)? Was the animal raised with the care small farmers can give animals that large overcrowded meat producers cannot? The small farm animals would be fed natural products rather than pumped with antibiotics, vaccines, hormones, and fed animal by-products. The small farmer and small meat processor is producing a product for his/her family and community rather that a worker that has no attachment to the product. Small farms have less chance of affecting a large number of people with contaminated product simply by geography opposed to large-scale productions which can send contaminated product throughout the country and foreign countries too. It is easier for a serious contamination attack of our meat supply at one large-scale meat processor than it is at many small ones. So, if we want a safer meat product, we need to move away from the huge corporate meat processing and toward local, healthier means of producing our meat.

There have also been religious aspects involved with the NAIS plan. There are groups who are opposed to technology involved in their lives. There are other groups who do not take the killing of an animal lightly; the animal sacrifices it’s life to sustain the human consumer and so the animal must have the best of care and be without blemishes (any puncturing of the skin as it is being raised is not accepted so no ear tag, no under-the-skin chips, no tattoos). Would these groups be exempt from the NAIS? So far, the word is that there will be no exceptions.

The website www.SurvivalBlog.com/nais.html notes that in July, 2006, the USDA plans to have open public comments. When the media method is announced and the public comment period is open, submit an individual comment letter, email or voice message strongly stating your opinion.

Everyone who has any farm/livestock animals, or who has considered getting one, must read more about the topic and notify their local, state, and national representatives to voice their opinion. The website www.congress.org can assist in locating names and addresses for government representatives. Other actions which could assist in letting your opinion about the NAIS be known are below.

· If asked to register your farm, ask if it’s voluntary or mandatory. If voluntary, simply say, “No, Thank You.” If you’re told its mandatory, ask for a copy of the legislation or rule stating so.
· Contact the USDA to let them know your opinion. Go to the web site www.usda.gov and click on Contact Us or email them at animalidcomments@aphis.usda.gov. You can also search for NAIS to get more information about this topic.
· Write letters to the editors of all the area newspapers.
· Contact farming organizations, breed associations, and animal clubs to encourage them to read more about it and voice their opinion.
· Sign petitions, start petitions, circulate petitions. You can find information about petitions on the Internet by searching for NAIS Petition
· Contact you state veterinarian office and voice your opinion. The web site www.aavsb.org (American Association of Veterinarian State Boards) will assist you in locating the address (email and snail mail) for your state veterinarian board

The NAIS is the National Animal Identification System; created for the large by the large and paid for by the small in terms of money and freedom. The solution to a safe meat supply is not tracking the small farmer and his/her animals. Testing every animal who enters the meat market would catch problems sooner and moving toward more small farms and small meat processors will ensure less disease and a safer meat supply. So, why have the NAIS? Look at who is to profit and benefit; the same who are pushing for it – the large corporate meat producers and the makers/sellers of the animal identification equipment. Without the small farmers voicing their opinion, the whole way of life for the small farmer could be no longer.

Petitions, flyers and links to groups opposing NAIS available at http://nationalpropertyowners.org