Consumers vs. NAIS
We encourage everybody to contact their representatives in Congress (House and Senate), as well as your state Department of Agriculture, to show your opposition to the National Animal Identification System. This is a significant threat, and Kim's essay is an important commentary about this proposal. Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would be interested.
Bob Waldrop, president
Oklahoma Food Cooperative
www.oklahomafood.coop <http://www.oklahomafood.coop>
Oklahoma City
The National Animal Identification System (NAIS):
A Threat to Local Food Production and Economics
NAIS is being billed as a necessary tool in tracking disease among animals. It consists of assigning a costly number to every location in the United States that has any type of animals, and applying a computer chip either by ear tag or implant to every animal. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company and the National Cattlemans Beef Association, USDA and others support this idea. Over 80% of livestock producers oppose it.
Sounds good, lets look a little deeper. Anytime the interests of USDA and Wall Street computer chip makers agree, it's time to follow the money. The money trail is leaving the family farm.
NAIS did not begin in the animal health sector, or even USDA. It began in the back rooms of computer chip makers who were interested in selling more computer chips. Someone noticed there where hundreds of millions of animals in the U.S. so the idea was born to stick one in every animal. First a few ranchers were sold the idea of tracking individual animal
performance such as weaning weights, yearling weights, etc. by computer, then instead of having to write things down and put them in the computer later, the idea of using a chip to record it directly into the computer was born. But at best this led to sales of a few thousand chips a year. So, the question of how to sell more was not answered yet. Then the computer chip makers hit upon the idea of making it mandatory.
How does a computer chip maker get the clout to make a chip in every animal mandatory? They sell it as an animal health issue, following a mad cow scare. Major pen manufacturors provided sales people to brief leading Congress people and Senators. All breifings were highly optimistic to encourage support for a mandatory numbering system. Original nefarious plans were designed to charge livestock owners to enroll properties, then the USDA would fungibly license properties and receive a new tax income from farmers.
USDA could not create a new tax without a quasi valid cause, so an over exagerted hypothetical potential disease problem became the basis. They announce to the Wall Street investors that there are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made with animal ID systems. The greed and gullibility of Farm Bureau kicked in and they immediately invested in this technology, then they proceeded to sell it to their members.
Farm Bureau (originally organized as a farm organization) holds county meetings every year to find out how their members feel about the hot issues in Washington and state capitols.
Sounds like a great model, except at every county meeting are members from the state offices making sure the right issues come up and that the vote goes the right way, so it can come to the state meetings with enough support to silence the opposition.
It is important to remember that Farm Bureau's insurance investments are the focus of their lobbying efforts, not the needs of their less than 23% farmer members. If they happen to coincide that is great, they at least have something to take home and show the members what a good job they are doing. Their lobbying efforts that are not good for the folks back home, are never brought up back home, of course.
National Cattlemens Beef Association, which used to be a ranchers organization is now an association of feedlot owners and packers which would love to have a way to kick all their problems back to the rancher. It is no surprise they support NAIS. But they are not speaking for anyone but themselves and do not have the best interest of ranchers in mind at all. Their large membership contributions do not come from the farm.
USDA support for this is important for the purpose of getting it pushed through congress. The leadership of USDA is appointed by the President. Since every decision made by this president is about turning the country over to Wall Street, the people at USDA were all ready in place to support NAIS.
Wall Street advisors have been telling their clients that there are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made with animal ID
systems. Where will those hundreds of millions of dollars come from? It will come directly from the farmers and ranchers. Can the farmers and ranchers spare the billions of dollars it will take to generate hundreds of millions in profits to Wall Street investors?
If it costs 10 billion dollars to generate hundreds of millions in profits, and if half of the 2 million farmers and ranchers in the U.S. own livestock, that means the average cost per livestock farm is $5,000 in cash. How many hours of paper work and labor will it take to satisfy NAIS? Probably another $5,000. The average farm in the United States has 18 cows. Divide that into $10,000 additional cost and it comes to about $555 per head.
Suppose this is wrong, suppose its wrong by 90%, that is still $55 per head. It is still a recipe for the bankrupting of agriculture. So even if those hundreds of millions in profits come from hogs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, dogs, geese, goats, and every other domestic animal imaginable, who can afford it and what is the point? Where is the benefit? What terrible diseases do we have here that are costing farmers billions of dollars? With NAIS the bankrupting of agriculture is a sure thing. Does it make sense to give bureaucracy more power?
Where are the people charged with protecting the health of our food? There is evidence that implanted computer chips cause tumors in animals. Why is a system that promotes the growth of tumors in food animals even being considered? Again the answer lies with who is in charge of the government. Food safety takes a back seat to industry profits.
This is evidenced by the fact that most of the animal disease problems in the U.S. are directly related to production practices. E-coli, BSE (mad cow), salmonella, listeria, and many others are the result of the industrial agriculture system that exists, and is promoted by USDA, Universities, and corporate America. These problems occur over and over and no one does anything to stop it, even though the causes are obvious. We do not need NAIS to stop or track disease, we all ready know where it is and where it comes from.
Selling NAIS as having anything to do with animal disease is a sham, a con game that takes billions of dollars from the farm. If a con artist were caught stealing money from a little old lady, he would go to prison. If the con artists at work on NAIS succeed, they get rich, the American farmer disappears, and our food will come from China, with the same oversight as Chinese dog food.
NAIS requires that if an animal is moved or gets out, goes to the vet, or leaves the property for any reason, it must be reported within 24 hours or the fines start adding up. Ireland has a similar program to NAIS. At least it started the same way. Now in Ireland they cannot take an animal to be butchered for the farmers own use or for sale without
prior permission. Think about what that means for us in the U.S. who want to eat local. Suppose the bureaucrats say "No, you can't take that animal to slaughter." So, the local butcher goes out of business and I have no choices and the customer has no choices.
Todays corporate industrial food system is geared toward the customer not being able to find out where their food comes from, or what has been done to it. You simply cannot find out. The only real food freedom left is to opt out of the corporate system. Buy farm fresh food. NAIS will make that impossible.
NAIS began as a plot by computer chip and pen makers to make millions from the farm. It has evolved into a sinister plot to give total control of animal agriculture to world corporate agriculture. Corporate agriculture all ready controls the grain farmers because they write the farm bills that provide the subsidies that get farmers lining up to do whatever they have to do to get paid. Corporate agriculture all ready controls the chicken and pork industries. They have been trying to get
control of the cattle business for decades, but it takes too much money to gain control. NAIS is the club that will destroy the livestock industry; with it the last freedom we have in choosing our food.
There is not one good reason for livestock producers to have NAIS. Not one.
Kim Barker
Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO 80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com
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