I think everyone here on BYC should start e-mailing the FDA and telling them what we think. Here's what I wrote:
I just wanted to voice my opinion of the National Animal Identification System that is being proposed. Personally, I think it might be a good idea for larger, more commercial businesses, major businesses that supply products for many different areas, if not the entire country. However, I think that smaller, more isolated businesses, like a small business operating in just one town, city, or even a few towns and cities, should not be subjected to this system. If the concern is traceability of biohazards and diseases, you're going to run into a lot of trouble trying to trace the livestock of large, commercially operated businesses, but if there is a problem with a small business that only serves a tiny portion of people it won't be hard to trace without using NAIS due to the business and their body of customers being so small. It seems to me that it would be an unnecessary cost/effort, not only for those who own/operate small livestock farms, but for the USDA as well. There should be a reasonable regulation of livestock; rather than require EVERYONE to register their animals it would be better to have everyone who owns more than a certain number of that particular animal. For example, a person who only owns 50-100 cows isn't going to ship meat products all over the country. If he/she buchers a cow and sells/gives some of the beef to a friend or neighbor and they get sick, it won't be hard to trace. Now, if a business owns 100,000 head and sells all over the nation and someone gets sick, good luck trying to figure that out. There should be allowances for people who only want to keep a small number of livestock, whether as a hobby or a source of food, or even to start a small business.
NAIS should focus ONLY on the large, commercial livestock industry, and allow small businesses and farms to operate without needed to register their livestock.
Thank you.
- Christina
