Farmer & Consumer Groups Praise USDA for Dropping NAIS

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Feb 09, 2010 at 16:24:14 PM PST

Furthermore, Food & Water Watch said that NAIS did not address the root cause of our food safety and animal disease problems:

"Now that the USDA has realized that the proposed NAIS was unworkable, it's time for the agency to turn its attention to an effort that would actually protect consumers," said Patty Lovera, assistant director for Food & Water Watch.  "USDA should start improving the testing of meat in slaughterhouses where many of our food safety problems occur, and fix their inspection policies to make sure that contaminated meat is traced back to the slaughterhouses were it was produced."

Hey NYT: WTF?

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Feb 05, 2010 at 14:12:05 PM PST

"It was just overwhelming in the country that people didn't like it, and I think they took that feedback to heart," said Mary Kay Thatcher, public policy director of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which had opposed the identification system. "I think it's good they've at least said we're going to do something different."

Umm... no. The American Farm Bureau helped develop NAIS and originally supported making the program mandatory for anyone who owned any of a long list of animals, even if the animal was just a pet (like a pot-bellied pig or a horse). The defeat of NAIS is entirely thanks to grassroots outrage, opposition, and plain old refusal to comply NO MATTER WHAT. That opposition stalled the USDA long enough that Congress eventually yanked some of NAIS's funding because the USDA was essentially just wasting all of its NAIS funding, trying to get the program in place and utterly failing. When Vilsack came into office, he set up "listening sessions" about NAIS all over the country. The attendance at those listening sessions was overwhelmingly anti-NAIS.

The listening session transcripts are no longer up on the USDA's site (as best I can tell) but fortunately, Google never forgets anything :) Below, I've posted a quote by the Farm Bureau at one of the listening sessions, followed by a quote by a farmer that is more typical of what was heard at these listening sessions.  

Details on NAIS and Animal Traceability

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Feb 05, 2010 at 08:48:51 AM PST

In short, there will be a new system but it will ONLY cover animals moving across state lines. NAIS would have covered ALL animals (even pets) even if they were born and died on the same farm. The new system will be "minimally intrusive" but it remains to be seen what that actually means. NAIS was extremely intrusive as all animal movements and life events (births, deaths, etc) had to be reported within a brief timeframe after it happened. Also, the new system will use "lower cost technology"... that part is vague, but it implies that microchipping will not be a mandatory part of this program.

The end result will be a meeting in March of this year, followed by a proposed rule this fall. We will be able to comment on the proposed rule when it is published in the federal register.

Below, I've included some of the Q&A's from the APHIS document.

The Truth About HR 875 "The Bill That Will Kill All Farms and Eat Your Babies"

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT