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The Chairwoman of the House Ag Committee has introduced a bill to fund NAIS with $15 billion in the 2009 Ag Bill. She also is pushing that the School Lunch Program only by meat from NAIS registered farms.

NAIS is not dead - just changing it's face.

6/26/2008 1:59:52 PM

12 posts

http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/DeLauroSubMarkup06-19-08.pdf

A No NAIS advertising campaign at public schools is needed. Consumers should know the truth about NAIS. The NAIS will not make school lunches safe.

Parents, teachers and administrators should read the truth about the NAIS. A traceback system will not guarantee safe food.

Below is a letter campaign to the Chairwoman of the House Ag Committee. It is date sensitive. Signatures due by July 7.

The previous deadline for the initial letter campaign expired June 25th.

First the press release announcing the bill is at

Below is a sign-on letter opposing this provision.

Below is a sign-on letter opposing this provision. If your organization is willing to sign on, please email

Judith@farmandranchfreedom.org or Irene@nffc.net by WEDNESDAY, JUNE

25 -- tomorrow -- by 2 pm ET.

If the Appropriations Committee does not remove the provision, we will continue to collect signatories after that deadline, through Monday, July 7. The letter with the full list of signatories will then be delivered to the full House and Senate.

Text of the sign-on letter and accompanying background piece: (please

ignore any formatting issues related to the footnotes)

The Members of the House Appropriations Committee

Dear Representatives:

We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to remove the provision

from the House Agriculture Appropriations bill that requires USDA to

purchase for the School Lunch Program meat products that are derived

from farms (premises) registered with the National Animal

Identification System (NAIS). This provision undermines the School

Lunch Program and promotes a flawed policy.

The subcommittee provided two reasons for this including provision.

The first reason is to address public health concerns, specifically

related to meat recalls. The second reason is to increase

participation in the NAIS. Both reasons are fundamentally flawed.

NAIS is a three-step program that calls for every person who owns even

one livestock or poultry animal to register their property, tag each

animal when it leaves it birthplace, and report a long list of

movements to a database within 24 hours. The listed species include

chickens, horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs, llamas, alpacas, elk,

deer, bison, turkeys, and more, whether or not the animal is used for

food. Group or lot identification would only be allowed where animals

are managed as a group from birth to death and never commingled with

animals outside of their production system. In practice, group

identification would apply mainly, if not entirely, to confinement

operations (CAFOs) and vertically integrated operations. The stated

goal of NAIS is to provide 48-hour traceback of all live animal

movements.

NAIS will harm independent farmers and increase the consolidation of

our food supply into the hands of a few large corporations. The school

lunch provision in particular will favor the most vertically

integrated farms that can easily prove that all their meat is from a

NAIS-registered farm, as well as confinement operations that will be

able to use group identification under NAIS. By creating incentives

for CAFOs, the provision will harm both the public health and the

environment. [1] Americans who are increasingly seeking out local and

sustainable foods will find their ability to obtain these foods limited.

Linking NAIS to the School Lunch Program will also harm the growing

movement of farm-to-school programs, while benefiting only

large-scale, confinement operations where food safety problems are

more likely to occur. The farm-to-school programs help improve

children’s nutrition while providing family farms with a reliable

market. They also promote the local economy and environmentally

sustainable agriculture, and re-connect children with the source of

their food. But many of the small, local farmers who are participating

in these programs, or who want to participate, are opposed to NAIS.

Whether for philosophical reasons or the costs and burdens imposed by

NAIS, these farmers are unlikely to be able to comply with the

provision in the appropriations bill.

In the recent Hallmark/Westland beef recall, the fault lies with the

packing plant for violating existing regulations and with the USDA for

failing to properly inspect the plant. “Downer” cows were slaughtered

and the meat then provided to the School Lunch Program. In the video

from the Humane Society, every time there was a clear shot of a cow’s

left ear, one can see a tag. [2] Changing the type of tag to an NAIS

electronic tag would do nothing to address the problem.

For these reasons, we strongly urge you to remove the provision that

requires School Lunch Programs to purchase meat products from

NAIS-registered premises. Additional background information on why

NAIS is a flawed system to address food safety is attached.

We thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

---------------------------------------------------------

FN:

[1] See Doug Gurian Sherman, CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of

Confined Animal Feeding Operations, Union of Concerned Scientists

(April 2008).

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaM7Hpu47FY

BACKGROUND: Why the National Animal Identification System Will Not

Address Food Safety

Livestock producers, who bear the burden under NAIS, are not the

source of most food-borne illnesses. These illnesses are from bacteria

such as salmonella, e. coli, and campylobacter, or the Norwalk

viruses, which contaminate food due to poor practices at

slaughterhouses or in food handling. [1] The NAIS would do nothing to

prevent these problems from occurring. Moreover, because the tracking

would end at the time of slaughter, the NAIS would not improve the

government’s ability to trace contaminated meats once they leave the

slaughterhouse and enter the food chain.

NAIS is also not an effective control for BSE, or “Mad Cow Disease,”

even though it affects live animals. BSE is believed to be caused by

feeding infected animal material to cattle. So the key to addressing

it is prevention through a strong feed ban. The second key to

addressing Mad Cow disease is testing all or a significant percentage

of the animals that enter the food supply, as is done in Japan and

Europe. The USDA currently tests only about one out of every thousand

slaughtered cattle, [2] and has opposed increased testing, whether

government or private.

Although Congress has devoted over $100 million in appropriations

towards the program since 2004, Congress has never mandated NAIS, nor

even mentioned NAIS in authorizing legislation. NAIS will impact

millions of animal owners, including people raising food for

themselves, hobby farmers, recreational horse owners, and those who

own livestock as pets. Congress needs to hold hearings with a full and

open debate on the validity of NAIS, not implement it via the back

door through appropriations.

The concept of tracking every movement of every livestock animal in

massive databases may sound impressive, but it is not founded in sound

science, economics, or practicality. USDA has not provided any studies

showing why 48-hour traceback is “optimal” nor why 100% of animals

must be included. The susceptibility of animals to disease and the

likelihood of transmission differ greatly depending on the species of

animal, the exact disease, and the conditions under which the animals

are kept. Therefore, it is obvious that a “one size fits all” solution

cannot be based on science. USDA as yet has failed to complete a

cost-benefit analysis, despite four years of implementing the program.

Moreover, the experience of Australia, the only other country to

implement mandatory electronic tracking of cattle so far, indicates

that the databases are unwieldy and unworkable. The GAO’s 2005 report

on agroterrorism and livestock disease made it clear that parts of the

U.S. animal health system needed improvement, but did not identify a

need for increased tracking of live animals. [3]

FN:

[1] See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/

foodborneinfections_g.htm#mostcommon. Campylobacter, salmonella, and

e. coli are all found in the intestines of animals, so that

contamination occurs during the slaughter process. The Norwalk viruses

are believed to spread primarily from one infected person to another,

through handling of food by infected kitchen workers or fishermen.

[2] During a period of “heightened” testing in a two year period from

2004 to 2006, the USDA tested fewer than 700,000, or approximately 1%

of the cattle slaughtered. See News Release, Statement by USDA Chief

Veterinary Officer John Clifford (DVM) Regarding Positive BSE Test

Results (Mar. 13, 2006). In contrast, the European Union countries

tested more than 8 ½ million cows just in 2003, and tested over 6

million in just the first 9 months of 2004. See U.K. Food Standards

Agency, Results of BSE testing in the EU,

http://www.food.gov.uk/bse/facts/cattletest. In 2006, the USDA

announced that it was reducing testing by 90%.

[3] United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-05-214,

Homeland Security: Much is being done to protect agriculture from a

terrorist attack, but important challenges remain (Mar. 2005)

(hereinafter “GAO Report on Agriculture”).

6/27/2008 5:15:05 PM

12 posts

Message to the consumer:

The NAIS will not help food safety.
"Some have tried to frame this as a food safety issue, but it's not," [Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent] said in a press release. "Food safety begins with the slaughter of the animal, which is where NAIS ends."

From:

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20080606/NEWS03/751426630
Town hall-style meetings slated on animal identification system
By NANCY MADSEN
TIMES STAFF WRITER
FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2008

7/1/2008 5:54:15 PM

12 posts

Oklahoma producers and consumers united against the NAIS.

Below is an essay by Kim Barker, a Waynoka (Oklahoma) rancher. He is also the Vice President for Producers of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. We encourage everybody to contact their representatives in Congress (House and Senate), as well as the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, to show opposition to the National Animal Identification System. You can even just send them this essay, with your signature and address at the bottom, and a simple "I agree with Kim" note.

This is a significant threat, and Kim's essay is an important commentary about this proposal. Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think would be interested.

Bob Waldrop, president

Oklahoma Food Cooperative

www.oklahomafood.coop

Access to federal representative contact info: www.house.gov , www.senate.gov

Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, http://www.state.ok.us/~okag/ .

+++++++++++

The National Animal Identification System (NAIS):

A Threat to Local Food

NAIS is being billed as a necessary tool in tracking disease among animals. It consists of assigning a number to every location in the United States that has any type of animals, and applying a computer chip either by ear tag or implant to every animal. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company and the National Cattleman's Beef Association, USDA and others support this idea.

Sounds good so far. But let's look a little deeper. Anytime the interests of USDA and Wall Street computer chip makers agree, it's time to follow the money.

NAIS did not begin in the animal health sector, or even USDA. It began in the back rooms of computer chip makers who were interested in selling more computer chips. Someone noticed there where hundreds of millions of animals in the U.S. so the idea was born to stick one in every animal. First a few ranchers were sold the idea of tracking individual animal performance such as weaning weights, yearling weights, etc. by computer, then instead of having to write things down and put them in the computer later, the idea of using a chip to record it directly into the computer was born. But at best this led to sales of a few thousand chips a year. So, the question of how to sell more was not answered yet. Then the computer chip makers hit upon the idea of making it mandatory.

How does a computer chip maker get the clout to make a chip in every animal mandatory? They sell it as an animal health issue, following a mad cow scare.

They talk it up in the rumor mill as being the answer to every animal disease problem. They announce to the Wall Street investors that there are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made with animal ID systems. The greed and gullibility of Farm Bureau kicked in and they immediately invested in this technology, then they proceeded to sell it to their members.

Farm Bureau as a farm organization holds county meetings every year to find out how their members feel about the hot issues in Washington and the state capitols.

Sounds like a great model, except at every county meeting are members from the state offices making sure the right issues come up and that the vote goes the right way, at least in enough counties that it can come to the state meetings with enough support to silence the opposition.

It is important to remember that Farm Bureau's insurance investments are the focus of their lobbying efforts, not the needs of their farmer members. If they happen to coincide that is great, they at least have something to take home and show the members what a good job they are doing. Their lobbying efforts that are not good for the folks back home, are never brought up back home, of course.

National Cattlemen's Beef Association which used to be a ranchers organization is now an association of feedlot owners and packers which would love to have a way to kick all their problems back to the rancher. It is no surprise they support NAIS. But they are not speaking for anyone but themselves and do not have the best interest of ranchers in mind at all.

USDA support for this is important for the purpose of getting it pushed through congress. The leadership of USDA is appointed by the President. Since every decision made by this president is about turning the country over to Wall Street, the people at USDA were all ready in place to support NAIS. Most of them came from Monsanto. Monsanto has been relatively quiet about NAIS, but since they are taking their own customers to court over Genetically Modified seeds, it is no stretch to believe that when they come out with Genetically Modified animals they will take those customers to court too. With NAIS in place it will make their court cases much easier to win. So USDA support was a shoe in.

As stated above, Wall Street advisors have been telling their clients that there are hundreds of millions of dollars to be made with animal ID systems. Where will those hundreds of millions of dollars come from? It will come directly from the farmers and ranchers. Can the farmers and ranchers spare the billions of dollars it will take to generate hundreds of millions in profits to Wall Street investors?

If it costs 10 billion dollars to generate hundreds of millions in profits, and if half of the 2 million farmers and ranchers in the U.S. own livestock, that means the average cost per livestock farm is $5,000 in cash. How many hours of paper work and labor will it take to satisfy NAIS? Probably another $5,000. The average farm in the United States has 18 cows. Divide that into $10,000 additional cost and it comes to about $555 per head.

Suppose this is wrong, suppose it's wrong by 90%, that is still $55 per head. It is still a recipe for the bankrupting of agriculture. So even if those hundreds of millions in profits come from hogs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, dogs, geese, goats, and every other domestic animal imaginable, who can afford it and what is the point? Where is the benefit? What terrible diseases do we have here that are costing farmers billions of dollars? With NAIS the bankrupting of agriculture is a sure thing. The only people who have gone bankrupt because of disease are the ones who were caught up in an overzealous bureaucracy. Does it make sense to give bureaucracy more power?

Where are the people charged with protecting the health of our food? There is evidence that implanted computer chips cause tumors in animals. Why is a system that promotes the growth of tumors in food animals even being considered? Again the answer lies with who is in charge of the government. Food safety takes a back seat to profits.

This is evidenced by the fact that most of the animal disease problems in the U.S. are directly related to production practices. E-coli, BSE (mad cow), salmonella, listeria, and many others are the result of the industrial agriculture system that exists, and is promoted by USDA, Universities, and corporate America. These problems occur over and over and no one does anything to stop it, even though the causes are obvious. We do not need NAIS to stop or track disease, we all ready know where it is and where it comes from.

Selling NAIS as having anything to do with animal disease is a sham, a con game that takes billions of dollars from the farm. If a con artist were caught stealing money from a little old lady, he would go to prison. If the con artists at work on NAIS succeed, they get rich, the American farmer disappears, and our food will come from China, with the same oversight as Chinese dog food.

NAIS requires that if an animal is moved or gets out, goes to the vet, or leaves the premises for any reason, it must be reported within 24 hours or the fines start adding up. Ireland has a similar program to NAIS. At least it started the same way. Now in Ireland they cannot take an animal to be butchered for the farmers own use or for sale without prior permission. Think about what that means for us in the U.S. who want to eat local. Suppose the bureaucrats say "No, you can't take that animal to slaughter." It is all ready illegal to do it on my farm. So, the local butcher goes out of business and I have no choices and the customer has no choices.

Today's corporate industrial food system is geared toward the customer not being able to find out where their food comes from, or what has been done to it. You simply cannot find out. The only real food freedom left is to opt out of the corporate system. NAIS will make that impossible.

NAIS began as a plot by computer chip makers to make millions from the farm. It has all ready evolved into a sinister plot to give total control of animal agriculture to corporate agriculture. Corporate agriculture all ready controls the grain farmers because they write the farm bills that provide the subsidies that get farmers lining up to do whatever they have to do to get paid. Corporate agriculture all ready controls the chicken and pork industries because of the unjust way they are structured. They have been trying to get control of the cattle business for decades, but it takes too much money to gain control. NAIS is the club that will destroy the cattle industry and with it the last freedom we have in choosing our food.

There is not one good reason to have NAIS. Not one.

Kim Barker

------------------

Kim Barker is available to speak at your next event regarding sustainable agriculture, grazing issues, food co-ops, and a myriad of other topics.

7/3/2008 3:01:09 PM

12 posts