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NAIS 
Wed May 06, 2009 at 19:30:31 PM PDT
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( - promoted by JayinPortland)
Many people involved in the local foods movements are aware of NAIS, the National Animal ID System, which, if implemented in full as a mandatory program, will require anyone, large or small, commercial, homesteader, or hobbyist, to register with their state, ID their animals either by group or individually, and report all animal movements to privately or publicly held databases. Large producers will get to ID and report by lot, small producers, hobbyists and homesteader will get to ID and report individual animals and their movements. It's all going to cost, both in money and in time. There will be mistakes made and it isn't going to be the magic bullet in the event that a foreign animal disease (FAD) is found in the USA, especially not if that FAD happens to be something as potentially devestating as foot and mouth disease (FMD), the boogeyman dujour. Now don't get me wrong, FMD is a very, very bad thing, especially if it ever gets back into this country. It hasn't been here since 1929, Harold knew somone, when he was still in California, who lost his whole herd during that outbreak. If FMD ever gets back into this country we're going to have problems like no body's business, especially if animal movements are still allowed during an outbreak. Which brings me to the topic I'd like to discuss today.
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Sat May 02, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT
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Thu Apr 09, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT
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I was only a toddler back when Reagan proposed Star Wars, but I can imagine how great it sounded at the time. To our country, still gripped by the Cold War and the fear of instant annihilation at the hands of a distant government, it must have sounded great. Even now, people STILL talk about a "missile defense shield" that would protect us from any incoming nuclear strikes, even though most people know the whole plan is bogus. And, bogus or not, it didn't stop us from spending a whole lot of money on it all. So now we are STILL vulnerable to incoming nuclear attacks, protected only by our own diplomatic and intelligence abilities to prevent them. Scary - but what can you do? Throw more money into a bullshit missile defense shield that doesn't work?
It seems to be that NAIS (the National Animal ID System) is the ag equivalent of Star Wars. Here's why...
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Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 13:09:21 PM PDT
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(Soooo cool! - promoted by Jill Richardson)
Yesterday I traveled fifty miles down Highway Seventeen and spent part of my day with Joe Morris and his grass fed cows in Watsonville, California. It was gorgeous, and such a refreshing experience! In golf we have a saying, Keep It Simple Stupid. Joe Morris and Morris Grassfed Beef keep it simple.
Though that doesn't seem novel on first glance, in today's industrial-fed America, it is. But, don't confuse simple with easy. Corn-fed beef is easy, profit is their only concern.
Simple is raising cows the way it's sustainably been done for centuries. Morris uses a holistic approach that considers more than profit. They're focused on what's best for: the cows, the environment, community, the health of the consumer, and the grass.
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Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 09:00:00 AM PDT
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Vilsack was interviewed about NAIS (the National Animal ID System), saying:
"There is very serious dissatisfaction with the current system" among lawmakers who are convinced the voluntary process is not working as well as it should be, Vilsack said in an interview with Reuters.
"What I'm hoping to do is get a system, whether it's voluntary or mandatory ... that works," he said.
"It may very well be that you need a mandatory system, but in order for it to work you have to have people understand why you are doing it and understand that they have the opportunity to have their concerns voiced and listened to."
It's not great news but it could be a whole lot worse. And I wonder what it means about the current USDA rule that's under consideration - the rule basically makes NAIS mandatory for anyone who wants to get their animals vaccinated against disease. At the bottom of the article, it says that 35% of livestock producers are currently participating under the "voluntary" program (which is a myth because it's mandatory in some states). Hat tip to AnnN for finding this story.
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Mon Mar 16, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM PDT
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Today is the LAST DAY to comment on NAIS, the National Animal ID System. Organic Consumers Association has an excellent action alert you can use to just fill in your name and click submit.
Below, I've pasted the National Sustainable Ag Coalition's newsletter blurb about the NAIS hearing held in the House Ag Committee last week. It did NOT go well, sadly. You can find instructions to send them a piece of your mind here (do this by the end of today as well).
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Sun Mar 15, 2009 at 09:14:12 AM PDT
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Everyone knows that Food gets attention. In looking at the rush of food safety proposals and this weekend's speech by President Obama, I think we need to find a way to point out that farming isn't a "one size fits all," thing.
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Sat Mar 14, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT
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I just sent the following email to Jamie.Mitchell at mail.house dot gov. Please send your own letters BY March 16 (aka MONDAY) with the subject line "March 11 Hearing - Animal Identification Programs." (Don't change the subject line.)
Hello,
I am a consumer of sustainable foods and friend to many small farmers who fear that NAIS will put them out of business. After reading all of the hearing testimony, it seems to me that the primary motivation behind NAIS is for our export markets.
It seems that NAIS is detracting from attention on prevention, inspection, and testing for animal disease, and instead using our resources for tracking, which is only good AFTER we have disease already here. I'd prefer to see us prioritize on prevention FIRST (for example, keeping all downer cows out of livestock feed) and then work on testing (like testing > 0.1% of cows for BSE). Without doing those two things first, in the case of BSE, it seems like we would be allowing a problem to form and grow for a long time before we would discover it and then use an animal ID system to track down the sick animals.
If a national animal ID system IS in fact necessary for our export markets, why can't we make it mandatory for farmers who export live animals or animal products but truly voluntary for all others. The problem is that there are two food systems in this country - the industrialized, mainstream one, and the small, sustainable local one - but we are making policy that only works for the mainstream system. Those of us who are trying to improve our health and our safety (not to mention our environment and our communities) by opting out of the industrialized system and buying from local farmers should not be punished with one-size-fits-all laws. It seems to me that if NAIS is to benefit an export market, then we are putting the needs of the international community above the needs of U.S. citizens and I find that unacceptable.
Sincerely,
Jill
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Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 16:18:58 PM PDT
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Yesterday I posted about the first three to testify at the NAIS hearing in the House Ag Committee - the USDA, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and R-CALF. Here's the next bunch: the National Milk Producers Federation, the American Veterinary Medicine Association, and representatives from Australia and Canada speaking about their versions of NAIS. Unfortunately, the House Ag Committee site does not offer anything that was said by the National Pork Producers Council.
If you are unfamiliar with NAIS, I recommend you start by checking out the New York Times op ed published on it this week. And go here to send the government a piece of your mind. (I'd follow that up with an email to your representative in the House too!)
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Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PDT
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Yesterday the House Ag Committee held a hearing about the National Animal ID System. In a very timely move, the New York Times published a fantastic op ed on the subject called "Tag, We're It".
The author gets right to the point:
...the National Animal Identification System... would end up rewarding the factory farms whose practices encourage disease while crippling small farms and the local food movement.
She goes on to say:
For factory farms, the costs of following the procedures for the system would be negligible. These operations already use computer technology, and under the system, swine and poultry that move through a production chain at the same time could be given a single number. On small, traditional farms like my family's, each animal would require its own number. That means the cost of tracking 1,000 animals moving together through a factory system would be roughly equal to the expense that a small farmer would incur for tracking one animal.
She details the costs to a small farmer and estimates her own cost at $10,000 per year - or 10% of her gross receipts. Then she goes into the type of hassle it would entail... imagine your record-keeping nightmare when 200 lambs are born at once, or 300 chickens arrive. And you face a penalty if a coyote steals a chicken and you don't report it to the government.
She also mentions trying to tag her guineas, which isn't easy. A friend of mine keeps guineas because they eat a lot of pest insects. But the guineas aren't easy to catch. It seemed to me like the guineas were more or less just wild birds that stay on the property for the free food.
So all in all, what do we get from NAIS? Factory farms get an extra PR boost because they can say their food is registered in this big, fancy, expensive "food safety" system. But small farmers will get a huge burden when in reality their farming methods prevent disease to begin with. She says "when small farms are full participants in a local food system, tracking a diseased animal doesn't require an exorbitantly expensive national database." Yes! Exactly!
The big ending of the piece is that we could better use our money (over $200 million per year according to government estimates) for PREVENTION. Hell yeah!!!
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Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 17:08:39 PM PDT
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The House Ag Committee has posted the written testimony from today's NAIS hearing. Here's what was said by the first three speakers - one from the USDA, one from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and one from R-CALF.
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Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT
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The other day I posted about HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act, a bill by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). I didn't give details on the bill, and I also didn't mention that YES, the bill has some flaws. So here's a little bit more info on the bill. Overall, it's not so awful. Consumers Union, Food and Water Watch, and Organic Consumers Association all either support it or see a flaw or two in it but basically aren't panicked.
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Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 05:00:00 AM PDT
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Today the House Ag Committee is having a hearing on NAIS - the National Animal ID System. NAIS itself is very bad, and the panel line-up of those testifying is also very bad. The only bright spot on the agenda is R-CALF (the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, and a group that staunchly opposes NAIS).
From the Ag Committee website:
Wednesday, March 11th - 10:00 a.m.
1300 Longworth House Office Building
Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry-Public Hearing.
RE: To review animal identification systems.
Panel I
* Dr. John R. Clifford, D.V.M., Deputy Administrator, Veterinary Services, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
Panel II
* Mr. Bill Nutt, President-Elect, Georgia Cattlemen's Association, on behalf of National Cattleman's Beef Association Cattle Health and Well-Being Committee, Cedartown, Georgia
* Dr. R.M. (Max) Thornsberry, D.V.M., President of the Board, R-CALF USA, Richland, Missouri
* Mr. Donald P. Butler, President, National Pork Producers Council, Clinton, North Carolina
* Dr. Karen Jordan, D.V.M., Owner, Large Animal Veterinary Services, Co-owner, Brush Creek Swiss Farms, on behalf of National Milk Producers Federation, Siler City, North Carolina
* Dr. W. Ron DeHaven, D.V.M., MBA, Chief Executive Officer, American Veterinary Medical Association, Schaumburg, Illinois
Panel III
* Dr. Rob Williams, Counsellor (Agriculture), Embassy of Australia, Washington, D.C.
o Accompanied by Mr. Dean Merrilees, Minister Counsellor (Agriculture), Embassy of Australia, Washington, D.C.
* Mr. Kerry St. Cyr, Executive Director, Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA), Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I'll do my best to cover this hearing on this site, but if anyone here wants to take a stab at it please do. There will be live streaming video on the web but I can't watch it due to my disability. The link is the same one I included above. I think someone I know will actually be there and if so, I'll get all the dirt from her if I can.
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Sun Mar 01, 2009 at 20:59:01 PM PST
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- Natasha Chart writes about a really innovative online CSA program. If I lived near this farm, I would SO sign up!
- Civil Eats talks to a few urban hen owners. Are they pets or food? Well, if I owned some they would be egg-laying pets. But my friend Jamie? His are food. He told me as a kid he'd own turkeys and name them "Thanksgiving" and "Christmas"... you can guess why he chose those names.
- Civil Eats also says that supporting farms is everyone's business. I quite agree.
- Obama Foodorama takes on the anti-Obama Tea Parties (Here's a 2nd write-up on them, also by ObFo. This one tells how the tea parties were planned - and planned to look spontaneous.). Ugh, why does the right wing even exist (other than for me to laugh at)?
- Marion Nestle takes on osteoblast milk, a new stupid food industry idea to make a kind of super-milk. They add "OMP" (osteoblast milk protein, whatever that is) to make milk extra-milky. Or something.
- Tom Laskawy wonders if the USDA fudged the numbers in the 2007 Ag Census. Remember all the excitement over the growth of small farms? Well... for the past several years, the USDA has been padding its numbers to account for farms who didn't respond to the census survey.
- Organic Consumers provides a write-up of Brooklyn's new culinary movement, which appeared to be alive and well when I visited last October.
- The USDA is tightening oversight of organic fertilizer. I assume this is in response to an incident in California in the past year in which organic farms were sold fertilizer that was labeled as organic but actually prohibited by organic standards.
- A new blog called Organic on the Green helps college cafeterias move to a more sustainable system.
- Check out this video on the National Animal ID System and why it should be rejected. We may be in the clear on some issues now that the Dems are in power, but NAIS is something several Dems actually support.
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