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Vilsack Will 'Listen' to NAIS Comments
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The fight over NAIS (the National Animal Identification System) continues to boil (over), both in Washington, D.C. and out in the states. (See Yonder articles on NAIS here and here.) NAIS would require livestock owners (chickens, hogs, cattle, horses) to tag every animal so that they can be traced. The US Department of Agriculture would like to make this program mandatory, so that sick animals can be easily traced. NAIS has been less than warmly received in rural communities — an understatement if there ever was one.
USDA has had a voluntary NAIS system in place that has had less than overwhelming response from livestock owners, especially among cattlemen and women. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill has written Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack saying that as the "number two calf-cow state in the nation, Missouri cannot afford for USDA to go forward with an unproven program." McCaskill points out that it would cost $16 a head for small cattle raisers to join the NAIS program. In mid-April, Vilsack held a roundtable to discuss NAIS.
The criticism continues. R-CALF USA has urged "Congress and USDA to immediately and completely abandon the flawed National Animal Identification System." R-CALF (a cattle raisers group) has produced a long list of alternatives to NAIS. Vilsack says he will conduct "listening" session across the country. He's going to get an earful.
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Comments
substantial support
and we all know how the USDA listened (insert fingers into ears) their official report was that they heard "substantial support" for this program...i think they were counting support as in the number of $$$$$$$$$ given to them by corporate ag, which by the way, is our tax dollars!!!
the most important thing to remember about tracing animal disease/global market is that it has already been done and cost the lives of millions of people.
disease ---1938 Nazi Germany made a law that kept required a certain segment of society considered undesireable and a possible cause of disease, the Jews, by having them register every piece of property they owned. The gestapo knew whose homes to raid by the value of art and jewelry and we all know how that turned out...the holocaust.
global market -- In the early 1930's, Stalin declared the collectivization of all farms, no more private ownership, all belonged to the govt, that way they could assure their place in the world grain market. When the independent farmers said no, troops moved in, all grain was declared owned by the govt and 11 million citizens were starved to death, executed or died in concentration camps for eating even one blade of grain grown on their own farms. The goal was reached because Russian grain was sold on the world market, but at what cost?