National Animal Identification System - Has anyone heard of this?

[EurekaSouth]

It's a program proposed by the government that might be of interest to independent caretakers of chickens (and other animals). Check out http://www.amerpoultryassn.com/savehobby.htm and click on the second link you see.

 

[Henriettahen]

yep..I'v heard about this!! ..regarding horses tho.

just as bad...it anoys me so much

 

[Picco]

The system is to keep track of livestock so US farms are more biosecure. It came about after the mad cow disease scare in Canada, the bird flu outbeak in east Asia and the hoof and mouth disease outbreak in the UK. I personally think its a good idea so if an outbreak occurs here it can be contained. This really only affects large commercial farms so don't worry too much. Some hatcheries may be affected but I like to get birds from other hobbyists - they're more healthy and better quality.

 

[Llysse]

From http://nonais.org



Consumers will face higher meat prices under NAIS because the cost of producing meat will go up with the addition of fees to the government to support the NAIS program. The cost of other foods, like vegetables, will likely also go up as well since the manure from meat animals is used to fertilize the soil to grow better crops. Most importantly, NAIS will result in many small farms going out of business. The consolidation of the meat industry into fewer, big, agri-biz producers means they will have more control of the market and be able to charge higher prices for the same product.

Pet owners will be forced to register their family horse, pet sheep, llamas and other ‘livestock’ that aren’t part of the food chain. This will cost them money and be a hassle with paperwork and premise ID fees each year. Furthermore, every time you want to take your pet to the vet, on a trail ride or even just cross the road you’ll have to submit paperwork with the government and probably pay a fee. Every time. In time, they plan to do the same for pet dogs and cats. See PAWS legislation and the Vermont Pet Merchant bill that requires you to register as a pet dealer if you cat has kittens or your dog has puppies.

Children who are in 4-H or Future Farmers of America will have to register their parents house as a farm and get a Premise ID as well as paying the annual fees and doing paper work every time an animal is bought, sold, shown or moved. This will also stifle county fairs which are already on fragile footing. Figure you’ll not be seeing livestock at fairs of the future - there will just be the midway and amusement rides that are poorly inspected, but no animals.

Homesteaders, people who grow some of their own food, will have to register with the government as a farm and obtain a Premise ID. They’ll also have to pay the annual fees associated with that and fill out the paperwork on all of their livestock. Every time you have chicks, goats, piglets or other animals born you’ll need to register it with the government. Every time an animal dies you’ll have to register it with the government. Got a predator problem? Expect to fill out a lot of paperwork. Have an animal escape the fence and cross the road or go onto a neighbor’s property? Fill out more forms and the neighbor may have to fill out forms, too. Animals come on to your property uninvited? More forms. And no, there are no exceptions. Every livestock animal must be registered, tagged and tracked from birth to death.

Small Farmers who sell direct to their customers will be devastated. Small farmers already work at higher costs than the big factory farms. Under NAIS they’ll have to identify each and every animal at a high cost because they can’t use the group identification techniques of the big Agri-Biz corporations. The big guys do all-in/all-out animal management. Each mass group of animals are of one gene stock and the same age. The factory farms need only apply for one ID to cover the entire group of thousands of animals. Small, traditional-style farmers have many, genetically diverse animals of different ages on their farms. Each individual animal will be required to have an ID. The result is that the cost of farming will go up greatly for small farmers.

 

[lively Bee's]

I already have to do this with my bee keeping.

But I have a freind that runs a cow farm and he says it is going to cost him between 50k - 60k just to get set up and have his cows implanted

 

[SpottedCrow]

Big Brother is watching!!!
So if you want to takeone chicken to the drive up at McDonald's you have to call up the folks that have your bird registered and tell them where you're going, how long you're gonna be and whether it will be bought or sold or if you're gonna get any other animals while you're gone...
After you've bought your meal with extra fries for your chicken, and brought it home, you have to call them back up and tell them that you had no contact with any other animals or birds and that your chicken is safely back on the premises and didn't leave the car...
silly isn't it?

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

USDA crushing Americans' freedoms

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created a program called the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) which will soon require anyone who owns even one of any of the following animals - horses, cows, goats, sheep, poultry, swine, lamas, alpacas, bison, elk and deer - to identify their animals with a 15-character tag, microchip, or RFID, ostensibly for the purpose of tracking disease.

NAIS is not a bill but a regulation.

Even though Maine has put its similar system on hold, it is only waiting for the USDA to implement the program to force small farmers to comply with the directives.

The impact of the NAIS on the local small farmers would be devastating. Every horse, cow, chicken, goat, sheep, alpaca, duck or any other farm animal in the country would be chipped, tracked with a satellite through Global Positioning System registration of your home, and accounted for, at your expense.

If your goat dies, you must report it to the government within 48 hours or face a $500 fine. If you have a few lambs to sell, they must all be chipped, reported, and tracked. Every single 4-H and FFA members would have to file a report every time they took an animal to a show.

If you ride your horse off your own property, it must be reported. NAIS will effectively cost you the freedom to take your horses to ride with your friends on a simple trail ride. It would curtail traveling across the state to enter competitive events with animals. This issue affects friends, neighbors, family and every livestock owner in the entire state - the entire nation, if this invasive regulation is not stopped dead in its tracks.

I am concerned that the national animal ID system is too invasive into people's lives. If the real purpose of NAIS is to track the food supply for instances like mad cow disease then:

(1) NAIS is not necessary for horses, donkeys, guardian animals or other nonfood animals - these animals are not going to enter the human good chain in our country and should not be tracked by the government.

(2) NAIS is not necessary for sales direct to the consumer from the farm. In these cases there is already far better tracking of the food chain. If a small farmer breeds and raises his own pigs and sheep and sells directly to the consumer, then the consumer, his customer, knows exactly where their food came from.

3 NAIS should not be at all involved with people who are raising livestock for their own family consumption. They know exactly where the food came from - they raised it. There is no need to have any government involved in our kitchens and back yard food-raising.

It appears that the huge agri-business producers wish to force the backyard livestock grower completely out of the picture so they can profit from having a monopoly on the food supply.

NAIS is being implemented too broadly. To include the above three groups suggests the government has ulterior motives and is trying to invade people's privacy. If this system is ever implemented at all, there should be permanent exemptions for the above three groups.

Why is the USDA pushing a system that is going to kill off small producers? Why would they push a system that will make it so homesteaders won't even be able to legally and affordably raise their own meat? Who will benefit from these regulations?

The only entities which seem somewhat spared by this new plan are the largest multinational confinement livestock operations who will be required only to register the holding facility and not individual animals. And those electronically sensitive microchips? They are being built and sold by several of the co-authors of this NAIS plan.

Why would Monsanto and Cargill and the other corporate farming interest be so insistent on ramming their animal ID program through, one state at a time, until this hits the federal level? Follow the money trail.

I urge readers to take action against the horrible invasion of privacy which will devastate our rural states and our small farmers and homesteaders.

Visit http://nonais.org to find out more information and how you can take further action to prevent this massive invasion of privacy.