Sorry for the long post
NAIS is being added to section 121 of the 2007 farm bill. The vote will be on July 12, 2007. It is to be added to the COOL implementation. COOL is Country of Origin Labeling for meat, poultry, fish..& I can't remember what else right now.
COOL is OK in my opinion, but NAIS should not be added to it.
We have been fighting mandatory NAIS for over a year now. They can't pass it on it's own, so they are attaching it to a something that the people want, & hiding it. I can't even find the actual proposal, only a mention of it. There is a law in effect right now that states that USDA can't make NAIS mandatory in order to implement COOL. It needs to stay that way.
NAIS will put a lot of small farms out of business. Who can afford to tag baby chicks & sell them? If I tag a chick, & it costs anywhere from $2.00 to $3.00 for each chick, & I get $2.00 a chick for them, I've just gone in the hole.
They do not even have a price for this yet. They want to pass this & then figure out the expense to farmers. Right now, they will only tell me that the tagging will be anywhere from $2.00 - $30.00 per animal.
There are RDF scanners for sale right now, & they are $300.00 - $500.00. Then you have to buy the tags for each type of animal you have on top of that. Then you will have to have a computer, Internet, & have to keep records of movement of each animal.
This will not protect anyone from diseases. How will tagging your chickens stop disease?
If you are already following the current guidelines for chickens, for example, you have to have them pullorum/typhoid tested, keep records of what breed, sex, number sold, & to whom sold for 2 years. You also have to have your premise inspected, pay a fee for a certificate (amount of fee depends on how many chickens you own, up to $700.00 depending on what you do with your chickens) if you want to sell them at a sale or a swap meet.
This is just for chickens, there is the same type of stuff pertaining to sheep & goats. We have so many ID numbers right now, it takes a 3 ring binder for every species of animal we have now to keep every thing straight.
The "big" farms get to use 1 ID tag for an entire house of chickens (10,000 or more). I would have to buy a tag for each chicken I own since I sell to backyard chicken owners.
Last year I hatched & sold over 3000 chicks. Even at $2.00 a bird, this would have cost me over $6000.00. And if a tag is lost, I have to pay for a replacement tag, then have to delete the old tag, give a reason for needing a new tag, register the new tag, if they believe me...if they don't, I will be quarantined until the gov. does an inspection.
There is a proposal of fines of $1000.00 a day for non-compliance of NAIS.
This is a money making deal for the government, they already put out the amount of money they expect to make on premise ID alone. I don't have that in front of me at the moment, but it was in the billions of dollars by 2009. If this was to protect us, why would it profitable?
I don't mean to start a big discussion about this, but it is infringing on our civil rights. Please contact your state reps to let them know to strip section 121 from the new farm bill.
After the vote on July 12, we won't have say on it anymore if it passes.
Jean
NAIS is being added to section 121 of the 2007 farm bill. The vote will be on July 12, 2007. It is to be added to the COOL implementation. COOL is Country of Origin Labeling for meat, poultry, fish..& I can't remember what else right now.
COOL is OK in my opinion, but NAIS should not be added to it.
We have been fighting mandatory NAIS for over a year now. They can't pass it on it's own, so they are attaching it to a something that the people want, & hiding it. I can't even find the actual proposal, only a mention of it. There is a law in effect right now that states that USDA can't make NAIS mandatory in order to implement COOL. It needs to stay that way.
NAIS will put a lot of small farms out of business. Who can afford to tag baby chicks & sell them? If I tag a chick, & it costs anywhere from $2.00 to $3.00 for each chick, & I get $2.00 a chick for them, I've just gone in the hole.
They do not even have a price for this yet. They want to pass this & then figure out the expense to farmers. Right now, they will only tell me that the tagging will be anywhere from $2.00 - $30.00 per animal.
There are RDF scanners for sale right now, & they are $300.00 - $500.00. Then you have to buy the tags for each type of animal you have on top of that. Then you will have to have a computer, Internet, & have to keep records of movement of each animal.
This will not protect anyone from diseases. How will tagging your chickens stop disease?
If you are already following the current guidelines for chickens, for example, you have to have them pullorum/typhoid tested, keep records of what breed, sex, number sold, & to whom sold for 2 years. You also have to have your premise inspected, pay a fee for a certificate (amount of fee depends on how many chickens you own, up to $700.00 depending on what you do with your chickens) if you want to sell them at a sale or a swap meet.
This is just for chickens, there is the same type of stuff pertaining to sheep & goats. We have so many ID numbers right now, it takes a 3 ring binder for every species of animal we have now to keep every thing straight.
The "big" farms get to use 1 ID tag for an entire house of chickens (10,000 or more). I would have to buy a tag for each chicken I own since I sell to backyard chicken owners.
Last year I hatched & sold over 3000 chicks. Even at $2.00 a bird, this would have cost me over $6000.00. And if a tag is lost, I have to pay for a replacement tag, then have to delete the old tag, give a reason for needing a new tag, register the new tag, if they believe me...if they don't, I will be quarantined until the gov. does an inspection.
There is a proposal of fines of $1000.00 a day for non-compliance of NAIS.
This is a money making deal for the government, they already put out the amount of money they expect to make on premise ID alone. I don't have that in front of me at the moment, but it was in the billions of dollars by 2009. If this was to protect us, why would it profitable?
I don't mean to start a big discussion about this, but it is infringing on our civil rights. Please contact your state reps to let them know to strip section 121 from the new farm bill.
After the vote on July 12, we won't have say on it anymore if it passes.
Jean
