Posted on 02/19/2009 11:16:59 AM PST by HighlyOpinionated
Animal owners, consumers and taxpayers: NAIS ALERT! Protect your right to farm and to eat local food. Speak out against the National Animal Identification System!
The USDA [http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome] has proposed a rule to require all farms and ranches where animals are raised to be registered in a federal database under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) for existing disease control programs. The draft rule covers programs for cattle, sheep, goats and swine. It also sets the stage for the entire NAIS program to be mandated for everyone, including anyone who owns even one livestock animal (for example, a single chicken or a horse). Learn more about the legislation in The Truth About the Animal ID Plan. [http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2007-06-01/National-Animal-ID-System.aspx]
(Excerpt) Read more at motherearthnews.com ...
Remainder of Article with information of how to submit comments is at the link. [http://www.motherearthnews.com/Happy-Homesteader/Speak-Out-Against-NAIS.aspx?blogid=1510&utm_medium=email&utm_source=iPost]
If the government has the infrastructure to track every animal, it is a no-brainer to apply it to every person.
Will we be required to have collective farms now too?
Call for REFORM in 2010-2012!!!!!!!
I think some Civil Disobedience is called for en masse.
This is interesting since the government has opposed testing cows for mad cow but now they want to track all the cows - that would seem to undercut their strategy because once one cow goes downer it will be easier to see where the disease came from.
That said, I’m not sure I oppose this on its face.
We’re supposed to be so busy calling the USDA to oppose NAIS, the IRS about cabinet tax cheats, the FCC to complain about Fairness Doctrine, the Dept of Interior about concealed carry and forest fires caused by environmental regulation, the EPA about CAFE requirements....
Who The Frak has time to “grow and consume local food” if we’re supposed to spend so damn much time petitioning the bureacracy?
The Bureaucrats have unlimited time and money.
I say “stay home and do what makes sense and deal with them when they actually show up.”
Conspiracy theory alert! Is this plan, along with the hybridization of plants, a way to starve the us out?
Let's see, you want to force every person to chip every dog, cat, and chicken and report to the Federal government every time you take that animal off your property. You want a report to go to the Feds every time that animal sees a vet. You want it to be reported to the Feds if you decide to eat one too. You want a Federal database and a reportign system capable of tracking the whereabouts and status of hundreds of millions of "animals."
Do you fully understand the implications of what you want?
That is what is wrong with government bureaucratic risk management empowered by democratic whim. You don't have enough information to know what it's really about, until it's too late.
“Animal owners, consumers and taxpayers: NAIS ALERT! Protect your right to farm and to eat local food.”
Or you could, I don’t know....HUNT.
The USDA [http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome] has proposed a rule to require all farms and ranches where animals are raised to be registered in a federal database under the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) for existing disease control programs.
Somehow I fail to see the urgent problem here.
Register your chimp for sure!
If you truly believe the gov has time to actually keep track of every time somebody’s dog goes to the vet, there’s not much that can help. The gov can’t find its a** with a crew of gov’t agents.
The NAIS program is designed to keep what happened in the UK with foot and mouth from happening here. If you are into watching billowing smoke from burning livestock carcasses month after month with no end in sight because farmers were playing games shifting livestock from one end of the country to the other, by all means, call in and oppose this.
Let’s see, you want
You want a report
You want it to be reported
You want a Federal database
Do you fully understand the implications of what you want?
Here is what he said,
That said, I’m not sure I oppose this on its face.
The elements I listed are all parts of the NAIS.
>>That said, I’m not sure I oppose this on its face.
Let’s see, you want to force every person to chip every dog, cat, and chicken and report to the Federal government every time you take that animal off your property. You want a report to go to the Feds every time that animal sees a vet. You want it to be reported to the Feds if you decide to eat one too. You want a Federal database and a reportign system capable of tracking the whereabouts and status of hundreds of millions of “animals.”
Do you fully understand the implications of what you want?
<<
I’m just going by the article but it said “register” not chip and it only says “The draft rule covers programs for cattle, sheep, goats and swine” - i.e. large food animals.
Plus i already have to register my dog plus isn’t Mother Earth news a bit left wing?
That said, if it turns into something worse or you are right that worse is already planned then yes i would oppose it. My comment goes to having to register large food animals so that diseases can be traced.
Geez. They aren’t talking about cats and dogs, although I am very happy my doggie has a chip. This is to track animals that enter the food supply, cows, and at some point I would expect pigs (for cholera and other diseases). The idea is to be able to trace any outbreak of mad cow disease so we don’t have to destroy every last cow in our country. They would chip calves when they are born, or brought across the border from Canada, and be able to tell where they had been. Mad cow has been spread by bad practices such as including cow material from sick cows in cow feed. That practice has been banned here, but, as the peanut butter episode is proving, not everyone follows all the rules all the time.
We had one incidence of the disease being detected in beef in 2003, and the Japanese blocked our beef exports for several years. Producers lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Ask the people in the UK what an outbreak of mad cow can do to the domestic food supply. It isn’t pretty. Given the dismal performance of the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, this is a pretty good idea. I buy what little meat I consume from a speciality butcher who gets his beef from a local producer he knows and trusts.
I know, I know...that'll never happen.....
The original NAIS proposal was exactly what I said it implied. The goal, as cooked up by lobbyists for corporate ag, is to preclude people from raising animals for food with the cost of compliance to bureaucratic regulations.
Since then, the Feds have backed off a bit on the regs, but do you really believe they won't come back by stages?
I chipped my dog. I chose freely to do so. I have no problem with the technology. What I oppose is the Feds mandating the States to do it. It may sound like is serves the purpose of food safety, but it is really not.
When they started it they were. Then they backed off at the noise. What makes you think they won't come back?
I chipped my doggie too. This has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with who controls the information.
The idea is to be able to trace any outbreak of mad cow disease so we don’t have to destroy every last cow in our country.
No, the idea is for corporate ag to put small producers out of business with the cost of tracking.
Given the dismal performance of the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, this is a pretty good idea. I buy what little meat I consume from a speciality butcher who gets his beef from a local producer he knows and trusts.
This plan will put your local producers out of business because the cost of capital is the same regardless of the size of the enterprise. Thus large producers have an incentive to lobby for an expensive tracking system as opposed to taking real measures on the ground to assure a safe product because tracking bad product is a one-time capital expense rather than a unit cost. If you think this is going to do a thing for food safety, you are seriously mistaken.
They can’t track 12 million illegals in order to deport them, but they want track about a zillion cows????????? These people are utterly insane.
Liberalism is an insidiously evil mental disease with no known cure.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.