Thanks!
Calpernia. thought you may want to see this ,I just received it
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070124/NEWS/701240381
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Brewer, Gobi target livestock data
By Mary Jo Hill TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
mhill@telegram.com
BOSTON— A federal program to track livestock is being targeted by proposed state legislation that would keep Massachusetts from sending data to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
State Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, and state Rep. Anne M. Gobi, D-Spencer, recently filed the legislation, which also requires the state Department of Agricultural Resources to withdraw any applications for funding for the National Animal Identification System.
And the state, which already has sent some information to the federal government about the location of local livestock, would have to notify owners of those animals about how they can have their information removed from the federal database, Mr. Brewer said.
The animal identification system has sparked outcry among some backyard farmers in the state, who have complained it would be costly and burdensome.
But the USDA has said the program would allow rapid tracing of animals if there is an outbreak of disease.
The first phase of NAIS is the voluntary collection of data about where livestock live, with a goal of eventually providing identification numbers to each animal and reporting each time an animal is moved from one place to another.
Mr. Brewer said he decided to file the legislation after attending many meetings last summer where small farmers spoke out about the identification system.
The program “just appeared to me to be Washington overkill,” Mr. Brewer said. He believes a pandemic would occur in a large chicken processing plant rather than a backyard farm.
“That’s where a huge plague could go like wildfire,” Mr. Brewer said.
Although Massachusetts did stop transmitting data about livestock in the state to the federal government last year after questions came up about whether the data were being kept confidential, Mr. Brewer said the proposed legislation is meant to make sure this data transmission does not start up again.
Kent A. Lage, assistant commissioner for the state Department of Agricultural Resources, said currently Massachusetts doesn’t receive federal money to collect data about livestock for NAIS. The state has been collecting these data for years for its own purposes.
Massachusetts stopped sending its data to the federal government months ago, he
said.