NOTE: If there are errors in my information, please correct me. I didn't read the NAIS bill but trusted the people who are themselves informed to have done so.
My ignorance last January (2006) was appalling. Walter Jeffries, of Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont, left a comment here saying, "Please write about the National Animal Identification System [NAIS] and let people know just how horribly this will affect small farms and homesteaders. Big Brother Government is breathing down our necks on this one and will soon crush the small producers.”
Well, that's all he said, and frankly, on the date he wrote that, enough was going on in our little family that it soon fell off my radar. I heard a little more about NAIS another time or two, but when I wrote to a rancher friend, she tried to reassure me that NAIS was "voluntary." This is NOT the case.
Susan, at FarmgirlFare, also wrote me about it—what the hell I was thinking, I don't know. My complacency was based on misinformation. And I'm so out of the loop, being unable to keep up on my blog reading, that it wasn't until Michael Ruhlman alerted me to a brouhaha—and asked what I knew—that I roused myself to go find out for myself what the hell this NAIS is about. (P.S.—You need to read the comments.)
Susan writes, in one comment:
The "cost" to small farmers will be in both time and money. Each animal will be charged a registration fee. In addition, tons of paperwork will be required to be filled out. Every single time an animal is moved (say, to the processor--or even the vet!) forms will have to be filled out to track the movements. If a baby chick dies, a form will have to be filled out. I can't speak for other small farmers, but I'm running on too little sleep as it is, and my To Do List is never going to be finished in my lifetime. I'm busy enough caring for my live animals—I don't have time to fill out five different forms stating that Snugglebunny's lamb was breached and died during birth.
It's insane. It sounds like asking every single American to fill out a form for their fingernail clippings.
While the House of Representatives has passed this bill, it's not too late to petition the Senate to STOP NAIS before...well, the unthinkable, the unimaginable, happens. I've been reading for two days about NAIS and its implications, and you need to be one of the people to do something.
You've heard the saying: "Politicians make strange bedfellows"? Well, one of the most lucid and compelling pieces of writing I found in all the things I've read came from a very strange quarter... Ms. Helen M. Valois wrote on a website called RenewAmerica.us, a site run by and for Alan Keyes, a man who, in this house, arouses a great deal of suspicion and distaste, despite his high level of education. The less said about that, the better. In a certain way, that makes Ms. Valois's words all the more powerful: maybe she's a conservative actually interested in conserving something.
I want you to go, right now, and read every word that Ms. Valois has to say in her article, "NAIS: Get the government out of my barnyard!" She distills the issue into sensible and concise points.
The same government pleading bureaucratic incompetence [at finding and tracking terrorists] on this point is currently on the brink of assigning a fifteen-digit identifying number to every horse, cow, llama, goat, sheep, duck, goose, chicken, alpaca, fish.... The exact definition of what constitutes a "livestock animal" varies... Nevertheless, NAIS proposes tracking them all, and demands that owners notify the government within twenty-four hours of any such creature being moved on or off of a registered premise (we'll get to what that is supposed to mean in a minute).
And:
During the "voluntary" stage, NAIS has been sugar-coated and downplayed so that people will not see the full extent of the rights they are surrendering until it is too late.
I am not, at this moment, one of the Bush-bashers she mentions in her longer piece. The evil (yes, evil) culprits in this case seem to be, cut and dried, the factory-farming, environment-destroying big agri-businesses that have been working on their strategy for over forty years.
In my research about NAIS, I found thoughtful and passionate arguments from people who clearly are educated on the implications. Lisa, 39, in New Jersey, had information that I hadn't seen on other sites, articulated in her article called "Family Farmers and Agri-Business":
Multi-national agri-business corporations set out almost forty years ago to exterminate family farmers and take control of food production in the United States. That chilling proposition, which has been asserted by farming communities across the Country over the past decade, gained support with the release of documents authored by several agri-business corporations.
The 1962 strategy memorandum, entitled "An Adaptive Program for Agriculture", was drafted by a group of multinational corporations called the "Committee for Economic Development" and it lays out a detailed plan for the decidedly un-American corporate takeover of an American institution - the family farm.
Lisa reiterates what you will see on site after site dedicated to exposing NAIS for what it is: big business's attempt at putting small farms out of business—out of competition with them. The full impact of achieving this goal is simply too horrifying to comprehend: the practice of domesticating animals—for food and milk—as it's been known for over ten thousand years, will simply cease to exist. Your child can't raise a chicken in the backyard for a 4-H program, not without registering and monitoring the animal as vigilantly as one would monitor Osama Bin Laden. No exaggeration—the government has satellites in place to achieve these "goals."
At the center of the bill is a system that involves registering each site and putting some kind of a tag or the equivalent of a Lo-Jack, at great expense, onto sheep, cows, goats, chickens, and more. The expense, however, falls disproportionately heavily onto the small farmer. (Naturally. Can you say "lobbyists for agri-business"?)
A very articulate summation exists at WeHateGringos.com's "NAIS: More Big Brother" post:
Larger livestock operations will be able to tag whole groups of animals with one ID device. Smaller ranchers and farmers, however, will be forced to tag each individual animal, at a cost of anywhere from $3 to $20 per head. And NAIS applies to anyone with a single horse, pig, chicken, or goat in the backyard—no exceptions. NAIS applies to children in 4-H or FFA. Once NAIS becomes mandatory, any failure to report and tag an animal subjects the owner to $1,000 per day fines.
And:
Agribusiness giants support NAIS, because they want the federal government to create a livestock database and provide free industry data. But small and independent livestock owners face a costly mandate if NAIS becomes law.
NAIS also forces livestock owners to comply with new paperwork and monitoring regulations. These farmers and ranchers literally will be paying for an assault on their property and privacy rights, as NAIS empowers federal agents to enter and seize property without a warrant—a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment.
Pictured above, the baby male lamb that arrived at Deep Roots Ranch, part of Rebecca King's new flock of sheep, which came Friday. More about them soon. Wonderful news.
I called Jean Harrah out at Deep Roots Ranch. She summed up the bill for me: "It's skewed to Big Ag. They can get one ID# for one flock of 20,000 chicken who will live in one cramped, airless location for their entire, miserable six-week lives. But small farmers like Bob and me will have to have one ID# for each animal on our farm. Everyone for this bill is a huge business. Everyone against it promotes local and diverse [animal management.] If you have two chickens in your backyard, you will have to register with a Premise ID."
Of all places, Cattlenetwork.com, who at first thought might automatically be assumed to represent big cattle interests, shines the light into a corner the federal government might prefer kept dark. (Emphasis mine):
The Handbook demands uniformity and strict adherence to four “key messages” that staff are to present to audiences of farmers when promoting NAIS. As described by the USDA, these “key messages” “are organized into topic categories and supported with concise sentences. They are designed for an audience reading at the sixth grade level.” (Handbook, p. 41.)
Although the USDA studiously avoids naming its NAIS opponents, in fact they include: a growing list of groups such as the Northeast Organic Farming Association, R-CALF, the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, the National Family Farm Coalition, Family Farm Defenders, Community Farm Alliance of Kentucky, Rural Vermont, Cattle Producers of Washington, South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association. Some of these groups have sponsored the introduction of anti-NAIS legislation in at least 9 states in the 2007 legislative session. Similarly, the unspecified “individuals” opposed to the USDA’s implementation of NAIS in fact include medical doctors, information-technology professionals, financial planners, entrepreneurs, lawyers, public-interest lobbyists, and former government employees.
So, after several years and multiple millions of dollars’ worth of pro-NAIS propaganda, farmers still want no part of NAIS. Perhaps the USDA should begin to entertain the notion that farmers might not be so “misinformed” after all. Maybe farmers are simply justifiably mistrustful of a government agency that insists on treating the very people it is supposed to serve like children.
This was not the only instance I uncovered that specifically mentioned the buzzwords and language of the brochures passed around by the USDA, placed in feed stores by people who haven't even read them.
The Somervell County Salon wrote an article called "How INSULTING! USDA Manual pushing NAIS Tells Staff to address Farmers at 'Sixth Grade Level.' "
More reading produced an article by Mr. Jim Hightower, a man whose common sense is undeniable, and who might well be called the Will Rogers of our time. In STOP NAIS!, Hightower writes:
Holy George Orwell! Forced surveillance of livestock and pets—who came up with this? The National Institute of Animal Agriculture—a lobbying front for the likes of Cargill, Monsanto, Schering-Plough, and other agribusiness giants, as well as for the makers of the billions of electronic tags that Americans will be forced to buy. Since 2002, this tiny group has quietly pushed the Bush Ag department to impose this mandatory program on all livestock owners, literally invading our homes and farms, while trampling our privacy and property rights.
It was the first I'd heard of Schering-Plough, but my spidey senses started tingling soon after, when I encountered this languagizing (a word I can easily imagine coming out of the mouth of our Orwellian administration) on Drovers.com.
“The new, electronic ear-tags have been put together with the data system to create a completely integrated, fully approved cohesive package that’s easy for the producer to use. All a producer has to say is 'yes' and our system handles the rest for him,” says Jim Heinle, president, Global Animal Management.
All a producer has to do is drink the Kool-Aid, says the blatantly sexist Jim Heinle.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Deeply suspicious by the unlikely possibility that "global animal management" is anything other than big big bigbigbigbigbig business, I struck paydirt when Googling "Jim Heinle, president, Global Animal Management." Global Animal Management is (and I quote): "a "worldwide, research-based pharmaceutical company" (that's from their own website). Pharmaceuticals and meat? Bad combo, but maybe that's just me.
It should be no surprise to anyone that Jim Heinle's company stands to make a gajillion dollars scaring people and selling them the tags that are government-mandated.
There were lots of pieces with a personal standpoint: I always enjoy the anecdote and the vignette. The aptly named Lori Goat wrote in an Oklahoma newspaper an article called " Proposed Animal ID Program Alarms Livestock Owners."
Karla Welsh owns Turtle Mound Farm, a once-prosperous goat dairy farm near Sparks. Welsh has sold her goats due to economics and the threat of NAIS.
“I have been passing out flyers and notifying everyone I can think of about this (NAIS) program. It's ridiculous to expect livestock owners to comply, especially the smaller, independent farmers and ranchers. How can we be expected to report even the smallest of movements of our livestock? A chicken goes onto someone's property and we have to contact the government? We don't have the time or the money,” Welsh said. “People need to stand up and scream ‘no' to their representatives before ‘voluntary' becomes mandatory.”
Welsh believes NAIS muddies the line between religion and state, too.
“I can't imagine the impact of something like this would have on the Amish. Their independence from government is their religious belief,” Welsh said.
A Georgia farmer named Kelly wrote passionately about this issue in her blog, "The Chicken Chronicles," in a piece called "Where Did the Warm Go?"
I went to a feed store about thirty minutes from here and bought two fifty-pound bags. As I was standing at the counter, I saw that nasty red and white flyer that is spreading like a disease. The NAIS flyer, that includes a sign-up sheet to register your premises. I asked the man behind the counter if they supported the NAIS. He didn't even know what it was and he had the flyers sitting out on a shelf behind him. He didn't seem to care what it was. I tried to tell him, but he would walk off or interrupt me. I did manage to squeeze in enough to hopefully at least get him curious. People are being led around by the nose to the slaughter. Just because it is distributed by the USDA no one seems to question it. The flyer is very misleading. It does not include the sordid details of how this program will drive small farms out of business. How big brother will be watching every move you and your animals may make. It makes me so mad I could just spit. These days everyone just wants to go about their little lives and let the government slowly take over our lives bit by bit. Lambs to the slaughter. I can't talk about it too much, it just makes me boil over.
What seems to be clear is how unified PEOPLE are in opposing the unnatural, inefficient, intrusive, unnecessary, and invasive bill that is NAIS.
What can you do? Read more if you like, at Walter Jeffries' site, NoNAIS.org.
He has a list of contacts and all the information you will need to come to your own conclusion.
You can sign the petition. You can blog. You can write your newspapers. You can raise holy hell, like Peter Finch's character in "Network." Never in my life has there been a more appropriate time to scream from the rooftops: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!"
YOU CAN DO THIS.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito." — African proverb
Thanks for visiting, and now GET BUSY!!
Try to connect with others in your state to see what you can do. There are links on NONAIS.ORG to help you. Many of us have been on the battle field and behind the scenes fighting hard to prevent this scourge now that the USDA has turned it over to the States. It isn't easy, but it can be done.
We shall overcome!
Posted by: Podchef | 08 April 2007 at 06:49 PM
Thanks, Tana, for bringing more of your reasoned clarity to the NAIS situation -- what it is, what it means, why it's being put forward.
A suggestion for other readers: maybe I'm the last one who cares about food to read Michael Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" but if there are any others in that category, read it now. It is an excellent resource for understanding the relationships between all the disparate parts of this discussion - the feed lots, the monoculture corn fields, the chicken and pork factories, the family farms, etc...and if you read it you'll certainly be motivated, if you aren't already, to saddle up and ride in the anti-NAIS calvary...
Posted by: stephen | 09 April 2007 at 09:11 AM
What an intelligent, eye-opening article. Thank you so much for writing it, Tana.
Posted by: farmgirl | 09 April 2007 at 11:17 AM
Right on Tana!! Thanks for letting people know about the USDA/Monsanto /ADM/ Cargill's most recent attempt to rid the country of small farmers. I'm not going to wax on about this, because it's not my style and I've got to get back to my 6:30am to 8pm workday, but let me just say that if the USDA wants to come to enforce NAIS protocols on my ranch (including putting chips in all my pigs), then they had better bring guns. Lots of guns. It reminds me of the lyrics to a favorite Clash song -"when they kick in your front door, how ya gonna go -Shot down on the pavement or waiting in death row." Make mine "shot down on the pavement," please. I know ranchers in Montana who buy guns with the money that they should (by law) pay in income tax. They've known for a long time that the war was coming to the countryside. Does the government really want to pick a fight with America's farmers and ranchers? It seems so. So I'll take a rare chance to quote my President, "bring it on." If they think that a war on the other side of the world is a mess, then they are really not going to like the hornets nest they stir up with this NAIS scam. By the way, avian flu is another scam. There is no limit to what the government will do in order to fleece Americans out of their hard-earned dollars. Do you go to bed at night worrying about bird flu? If you want to worry, worry about something real, like the plain old flu for example. Well, here I am waxing on—when what I really need to do is check and make sure the pigs aren't uncomfortable. Jim Dunlop (pig luva, farmer,soil builder and combat veteran of mother green's killing machine)
Posted by: Jim Dunlop | 14 April 2007 at 01:45 PM
Hi Tana, As always your writing inspires and motivates positive action. It is always a pleasure to visit here. I have a small farm with heirloom cattle, 2 rescued horses that were meant for slaughter, and a nanny goat meant for some good cheese. Thanks again for what you do and give to our community. Jenny
Posted by: Jenny | 15 April 2007 at 07:36 AM
Thank you for the eyes you'll open!
Posted by: Walter Jeffries | 24 April 2007 at 10:58 AM
Since the USDA has removed the Draft Strategic Plan and the Draft program Standards, they can be downloaded from www.naisinfocentral.net Please read the home page for explaination on why you should read these documents that the USDA state that they no longer apply but instead the New User Guide replaced the Draft Strategic plan and Program standards.
thank you for the Great post on getting the word out.
Posted by: Gisela Swift | 25 April 2007 at 11:19 AM
Alas, Wisconsin is the first state to mandate compliance. No one is being fined (that I know of) and I'm still going to the swap this weekend for a feeder pig or two, but I sure as hell won't be registering, my farm or my animals.
... I think I'm starting to get the "when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" gun argument.
FYI, if you're geekish, you can set up google news to email you daily articles on NAIS. Hideous, frightening stuff. Everyone I've talked to about it here seems to think that it's just like licensing a dog, no big deal, and hey! it's the law! Driving at or below the speed limit is a law too but people have no problem breaking that one.
Call me a scoflaw but I'm not registering the birds that the foxes are most likely going to pick off by fall. That pig I'm eating this winter? Never leaving the farm while it's breathing so there's no need to "track" it.
If you are lucky enough to live in a state that doesn't yet mandate "voluntary" compliance, write, call, hell, *harangue* your representatives. Sooner or later they'll start sending out spotters to nail those of us Badger State refuseniks, and don't go thinking it won't happen in your state, too.
Dude, I have to go out and find a conspiracy to theorize.
Posted by: Northwoods Baby | 25 April 2007 at 07:50 PM
Amendments violated by NAIS
1st--religion (Amish, other Christians, possibly Santeria who practice animal sacrifice)
4th-govt surveillance and illegal search and seizure of private property (tracking, tagging, depopulation)
5th-14th forced registration (that is why the USDA stresses registration. of premises is “voluntary” and “free” but they are pushing for mandatory)
13th involuntary servitude (this one freed the slaves but goes on to state people may not be forced to work without pay...livestock owners are being forced without pay to track animals and file reports on their own animals so the USDA can use that info for disease track back which all the NAIS document allows is depopulation. )
Posted by: stephen | 16 August 2008 at 03:23 PM
The reasons we are told NAIS is needed keeps changing. (Disease
protection, bioterrorism, global market, etc) Yet when Creekstone Beef
wanted to test every cow they process for BSE, the USDA says they
cannot!!! Creekstone had to take the USDA to court to sue for the right to
test for BSE! And what does my reporting to the USDA when I take my horse
off my property have to do with big ag selling beef to Japan?
Actually, NAIS is NOT about protecting us from animal disease...it is a marketing plan for corporate ag. NAIS traceability ends at slaughter which is where many food issues happen. Why does the NAIS document allow only for depopulation?
Posted by: stephen | 16 August 2008 at 03:25 PM
When you read about Stalin and the collective farm push and confiscation and starvation that followed you will see the correlation to NAIS and FIGHT tooth and nail against this plus fill your stocks of ammunition to the hilt!
Yes, there are bills in congress that are near a hearing on March 11th!! UP in action everyone!
Comment on the registry:
http://nonais.org/2009/03/05/federal-registry-on-nais/
Actino alert:
http://nonais.org/category/action-item/page/2/
The U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry will hold a hearing on NAIS on March 11. Bills to put NAIS into law, HR875 and companion Senate S814, are being pushed through Congress, as well as an Appropriations Bill with funding for NAIS. This hearing is critical to blocking mandatory NAIS.
WE need to have people calling this committee!!
AL
R-13
Mike Rogers
202.225.3261
202.226.8485
web site
CA
D-18
Dennis Cardoza
202.225.6131
800-356-6424
(202) 225-0819
web site
CA
D-20
Jim Costa
202-225-3341
(202) 225-9308
web site
CA
D-43
Joe Baca
(202)225-6161
(202)225-8671
web site
CO
D-4
Betsy Markey,
(202) 225-4676
(202) 225-5870
https://forms.house.gov/betsymarkey/contact-form.shtml”>web site
GA
D-13
David Scott (Chair)
(202) 225-2939
(202) 225-4628
web site
IA
D-3
Leonard Boswell
(202) 225-3806
(202) 225-5608
web site
IA
R-5
Steve King
202.225.4426
202.225.3193
web site
ID
D-1
Walt Minnick
(202) 225-6611
(202) 225-3029
web site
MD
D-1
Frank Kratovil, Jr.
(202) 225-5311
(202) 225-0254
web site
NE
R-3
Adrian Smith
(202) 225-6435
(202) 225-0207
web site
TN
R-1
David P. Roe
(202) 225-6356
(202) 225-5714
web site
TX
R-11
K. Michael Conaway
(202) 225-3605
(202) 225-1783
web site
TX
R-19
Randy Neugebauer,
Ranking Minority Member
(202) 225-4005
(888) 763-1611
(202) 225-9615
web site
VA
R-6
Bob Goodlatte,
(202) 225-5431
(202) 225-9681
web site
WI
D-8
Steve Kagen,
(202) 225-5665
(202) 225-5729
web site
For more information, or if you need help in this process, please contact:
Doreen Hannes
[email protected]
(417) 962-0030
Sharon Sabo
[email protected]
(618) 458-7745
Sue Dederich
[email protected]
(847) 873-0251
Sharon Zecchinelli
[email protected]
Posted by: Bonnie | 06 March 2009 at 06:52 AM