Posted on 12/18/2007 6:35:59 AM PST by davidgumpert
NAIS, which the US Department of Agriculture has been rolling out in concert with many states since 2003, is stunning in its projected scope. Over the next few years each of the nation's 1.4 million farms (plus thousands of veterinary facilities, export/import stations, livestock barns and genetic facilities) will be affected, with all their approximately 95 million cattle, 1.8 billion chickens, 60 million pigs, 93 million turkeys, 6.3 million sheep, 2.5 million goats and every other livestock species, including bison, camelids, cervids, horses and llamas. In all, more than twenty-nine species and more than two billion animals are slated to be fitted with the ID tags or be injected with transponders that transmit, to a national network of databases, information as basic as date of birth and as sophisticated as DNA profiles and chemical-residue measurements in the bloodstream.
NAIS, ostensibly intended to contain disease outbreaks among livestock, has sparked the most severe political backlash rural America has seen in decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
The govt just doesn’t need to be in that business. It is trying to build a huge bureaucracy because of wealthy agribusiness lobbyists. These lobbyists have exempted their employers from most provisions, knowing that the small farmers would be stuck paying for it. History tells us that the scope will grow too. Small farmers will get to foot the bill for an expensive homeland security program that only a handful of lobbyists want. Its like the water, land use & environmental regulations all over again.
Responsible personal recordkeeping can do everything the govt electronic database program can do. Farmers are used to occasional losses. When the govt is involved, they are guaranteed a loss.
It’s being pushed by large agribusinesses because they know it will force smaller farmers and ranchers out of business.
Just another case of one group of business people using the power of government to shut down a free market and force their competition out of business. And Republicans are rolling with it.
Except you can already track that. That's why we haven't had an outbreak and even things like E.coli can be tracked back to the exact processing equipment and farm the animal came from.
It's just a scam by Cargill, etc. with larger profit margins to drive up the cost of production and force their competition out of business.
Why is it the government’s job to protect major meat growers, all large corporations, from negligence in their business practices ?
And coincidentally, destroy the jobs of small farmers in the process.
Let’s see - who benefits ?
Hmmm - that would be the major corporations, the same ones already sucking off the $20 billion farm subsidy teat.
We have to differ here just a bit. Your concerns are all correct, but speaking as the owner of 3 sport horses that compete all over the US and who often leave the farm for training, shows, etc, or just to hack out across neighboring farms, the paperwork necessary to just go on a one hour hack across 14 other farms would be prohibitive, expensive, and just lead to noncompliance because of the onerous nature.
The government is deep in the process of facilitating a fascist state.
Real good points my friend, I was not aware of the details you bring up.
larry
Maybe. There are companies working on it.
Don’t rule it out...
Requiring 4H kids to push their parents to participate in NAIS is one of the most distasteful aspects of the entire program.
The European experiences were the result of the worst of factory farming practices. The solution here is to encourage appropriate sanitation and feeding practices, to inhibit disease, not to implement a boondoggle of a program that forces smaller farms out of business.
No size limits. So anyone who has a few chickens for their own eggs or a couple of goats for milk has to report the animals, and report to the government every time they wander into a neighbor’s yard.
I think you’ve captured well the craziness of this boondoggle.
You’ve got it.
Yes, they want to be sure you don’t violate any Monsanto (or other corporate) patents, and will fine you big dollars if you do, even inadvertently.
I’d think there was a conspiracy to divorce most people, and especially kids, from any experience with farm animals or agriculture. So where is the great crusader Micheal Moore on this? It will just lead to more corruption, massive noncompliance and perhaps a civil war. Wars over food are the worst. I don’t want to see this happening, but they are playing with fire in the long term.
This is an attack on self-sufficiency guised as a “health” program. Centuries of small farms, self producing families and people who don’t need the government for anything other than “peace and tranquilty” will be be wiped out in a generation in favor of factory farms.
All the easier to reduce the amount of non-participants in a future cashless society.
Oh, well... people can start breeding meat animals too small to attract attention ... rabbits, even guinea pigs and mice, can be eaten.
The initial phase of the animal ID is large stock. The policy includes when fully implemented ALL animals raised for consumption, even fish and fowl and rabbits with ability for expansion.
Which shows me that they’d have to get an awful lot more intrusive if you just buy a couple of rabbits from the pet store and breed them in your home. How is anyone else going to know? I just see loads of corruption and black market potential there.
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