I’ve been reading reports that the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is in trouble. Its funding from Congress has been cut. The listening sessions around the country sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture were nearly unanimous in opposition. Is there truth to such conjecture?
Doreen Hannes, a Missouri farmer, has been an outspoken critic of NAIS for several years. She attended an agriculture conference last weekend that provided hints about the future of the program that envisions RFID tags being attached to each of hundreds of millions of farm animals across the country. The report makes for fascinating reading. Unfortunately, it isn’t encouraging.
by Doreen Hannes
How will the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) finally come to fruition?
I gleaned some answers to that tantalizing question this past weekend, when I had the dubious pleasure of speaking at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture ID Expo (the NGO pusher of NAIS) in Kansas City, Missouri, as the small producers representative on a panel, “Opportunities for Animal Identification.”
Having been to two other NIAA ID Expos, the most glaring change was the attendance being way down. As a staunch opponent of NAIS and one who has been working full time to stop it for years now, I found this a very pleasing sign.
I was allowed to speak on the condition that I not speak about NAIS. With the help of the question-and-answer segment of the panel discussion, I was able to say nearly all I wanted about NAIS based on my being a representative of small producers engaged in direct sales. I differentiated the philosophies and operations of small growers from those of industrialized ag, and drew the distinction between agribusiness and agriculture, explaining that we are not interested in the corporate agribusiness model.
What I gleaned from this panel, and other information coming from the NIAA ID Expo, is that NAIS may look dead, but really isn’t. As in any good horror movie, the monster has super-psycho strength and, just when it seems to be defeated, it rises up and attacks again.
Remember, NAIS began as the National Food Animal Identification Plan, then became the United States Animal Identification Plan, and finally the National Animal Identification System. It will not continue to be called NAIS, but instead dubbed ‘animal identification’, as part of ‘food safety’, ‘social responsibility’ and ‘farm to fork’ initiatives.
The hammers for enforcement will be big ones and constrain small producers’ ability to market and sell their products– attached to indemnity payments, subsidies, conservation programs and access to movement certificates, or health papers.
In other words, “market forces” will force compliance on those who wish to stay out of this onerous system. There will still be ‘premises id’, but it may be changed to ‘unique location identifier.’ There will still be electronic and group ID consisting of 15-character numbers, but it won’t be to ‘NAIS’ standards, (ahem), and there will still be tracking, but it will be referenced as the ‘historical pedigree’ or some similar nonsense. It won’t be called NAIS anymore, but it will be NAIS by a different name. Be prepared for a chorus from the disinformationalists proclaiming the death of the dreaded NAIS. A little twist on what Mark Twain said is appropriate, “Rumors of NAIS’ death have been greatly exaggerated”.
Those who wish to keep NAIS at bay must realize that all of the food safety bills in Congress, and particularly HR 2749, which passed the House by an overwhelming margin, will codify ‘international standards’ under obligations to ‘international agreements’, and that means NAIS for everything. It will do nothing to improve food safety and everything to put the kabosh on the fastest growing segment of agriculture, the local food movement. We must assail the Senate and the House with the message that real food safety lies in decentralized, unconsolidated and diverse food production and distribution.
As I told the attendees of the NIAA ID Expo, “There are two kinds of people, those who want to be left alone and those who won’t leave them alone. Small producers and their customers definitely want to be left alone.”
In CA it appears that no one cares one little bit about NAIS. The state does not care the farmers do not care and no body cares.
When the state vet came to OPDC to do the TB test last year they offered to place the RFID transitters, ourcows ears but said it was not mandatory just a way to save us all one heck of alot of work and keeprecords straight. The state vet did not care if a cow died or what we did with ear tags when the cows died.
In CA this NAIS issue is much ado about literally nothing. Now….for other states it appears to be a real issue and handled differently…
So the way is see it…it appears to be a state enforcement issue not a USDA or FDA issue.
This is a mirror image of the raw milk issue. It appears to be a state by state issue. So my gut says each citizen needs to get their states departments of ag into order. Stop letting them run wild over their rights when the feds are not requiring and enforcing anything.
It is the states…NAIS is a local political issue. There is no money to enforce anything.
In my book mid western farmers need to get far more militant…Monsanto and Tyson are out of control and the farmers are letting them ruin them….the farmers need to grow more that crops…they need to grow some guts and stick together.
Mark
You may not feel the need to be concerned about NAIS because of the political climate here in CA. OP and Claravale may also be somewhat insulated because they are state-regulated dairies and that may make the CDFA sufficiently confident that it can jerk the reins whenever they want. Also, since there are so many real milk drinkers here who can be mobilized by OP and CREMA, it may not be so politically feasible to come down hard on raw milk.
However, I think NAIS is a threat to any UNregulated milk source as well as to many other locally produced and non-bigAG-produced foods. Some large corporations find NAIS useful as a way to control their business terrain and profits.
Im suspecting that there is an even larger agenda that is not so obvious. It has to do with people needing to survive specifically the elites who control most of our economics and much else.
Growth is the fundamental premise of our economy. It cannot be maintained much longer as oil (the driving force of first-world efficiency) becomes increasingly less affordable. Without growth, populations cannot be maintained either. A 2000- or 10,000-year population chart looks like a hockey stick. A 150-year oil production chart also looks like a hockey stick. The direction of all economic hockey stick charts is absolutely unsustainable. Go to **Crash Course** http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse. It makes this and much other important stuff very clear. — Unfortunately, youll have to register and login.
When a hockey stick curve tops out, there is almost always a RAPID falling back from the peak. A swift decrease in population (for whatever reason) is likely to bring with it lots of social turmoil and unrest as people try to cope. If you, an elite, wanted to stay in the drivers seat, wouldnt you want to retain as much control as possible? Intimidate or otherwise weaken the resolve and effectiveness of any potential threat? Dont we, in our daily lives devise ways to neutralize energies that might threaten OUR experience of control? Sure we all do. The elites must and will protect their own self interests. They will attempt to maintain control over everyone else at all costs. CONTROL is the name of the game. No less than a very astute strategist, Henry Kissinger is on record as saying, "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people." The elites are in a position to control both.
Commenters seem to have little to say when the post is about discouraging stuff. Notice that this is only the second comment to this post since it was put up two days ago and I feel discouraged too. But I find it easier to rally when I am clear about what my opponents game plan is. Multinational corporations are everywhere and nowhere. NAIS (it negatively affects only an unorganized segment of the agricultural economy) and Codex Alimentarius are pieces of their plan. People will mount a truly effective counter action when they become consciously aware that their ability to function is based on being able to control what happens to them. I look forward to the time when *the people*, acting individually and in small groups, in their own self-interest and being everywhere and (organizationally) nowhere trump the elites game. Wont happen without a lot more pain to sharpen our collective awareness.
But it will not work. There is in the heart of western farmers and ranchers a fire that cannot be quenched. They will be free.
I’m not sure what to say. Not knowing what they are planning leaves fear of a back-door entry. Walk silently and carry a big stick.
Id say it another way. Keep a low profile and do what you have to do.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/five-horsemen/26258
This article has spurred my planning process and helped me act.
Martenson is an astute financial historian and observer. He writes straightforwardly and well.
Google and Download his free **Crash Course**
Martenson provides information and little What-To-Do guidance. Each of our situations is different and I think with good information, each of us can figure out what we need to do.
Each political microecosystem has its own devices to create fear and maintain control.
Each of us must rebel in our own ways and against the threats that hit us where we live….
NAIS is something in CA that has not been a big deal….that does not mean that elsewhere it is not a huge part of a corporate control system.
Mark
I agree….why fight with us….I will take your advice and watch the bush closer for the inevitable ambush. They lay in wait…..cause they are smart cowards. At least the almond board has not hassled us in over a year. They are rookies on the whole raw verses pastuerization thing. They have no clue how screwed up they are and how badly they bruised their integrity with the consumers who now feel lied too by the USDA and the Almond board about Raw Almonds ( that are really pastuerized and sold as raw ). Truly raw organic almonds are quite a market now in CA.
Telling the truth to the consumer is a great marketing tool…..fancy that. I told Tom Vilsack this two weeks ago at a town meeting and he agreed to take the message back to Washington.
We will see. He was out trying to create better markets for farmers….I reminded him that the USDA had just destroyed the CA almond growers raw almond markets. He said…I get it. I also reminded him that it was a scare tactic to use fear of food safety as the issue…becuase foreign raw almonds can be sold in North America and they are not pastuerized.
He hung his head as I spoke….my comments spoke to the conflict between his current "value added market creation actions" and his previous USDA administrations destructive actions.
Government is really screwed up.
Mark
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has food and shelter high on the list. Many national revolutions have started with food. Does anyone here really think the NAIS in any form is going to stop people from raising their own food the way they want to raise it? Is any government regulation going to stop the neighborhood from drinking milk from the neighborhood goat herd? You all need to watch the movie, "Heidi" again.
I said in the beginning, and I’ll say it again, why bother with the government? I know, David, that you think transparency is worthwhile, but under Stalin and Mussolini, where did transparency get their subjects? Silence is golden.
During its seventy years in power the Soviet Union often retaliated violently against those caught working outside the system. Still, black markets thrived. (Reasonable estimates suggest that up to 85% of Soviets purchased goods through underground channels.) Why? Self interest, undoubtedly. People could not get what they wanted through government channels, so developed other means. The will to control one’s own destiny is irrepressible.
The US is moving closer and closer to complete, centralized control of business, and as long as we ignore the base principle that every man owns himself, and commits no crime as long as he does not violate another individual’s property rights in himself, we will feel the noose tighten. But people will always work to get what they want and need. They will do what they can to carve out a little bit of justice, especially when it comes to food.
Des Moines Personal Trainer