Monday, March 2, 2009

Save the Farmer! Stop National Animal Identification System

Passing HR 1105 is not ensuring economic opportunity for family farmers.

Passing HR 1105 is not supporting rural economic development.

Passing HR 1105 is not improving rural quality of life.

What is HR 1105 and how does it affect you?

National Animal Identification System will be implemented if this is passed. That means you will be forced to microchip your horses, donkeys, baby chicks and chickens, goat, cows, or whatever you have and if you do not, then vets will not be allowed to treat your animals. Your animals' records will be owned by the government, not you. It is said that vets can turn you in if you have not complied. It is also said that vets will not be allowed to treat your animal if you have not complied.

NAIS was designed by Big Agriculture with no input from any single farmer or hobbyist, period.

The average person probably knows nothing about what the USDA is beginning to implement. If you do not own animals, this will increase the price of your food. The program is called the National Animal Identification System or NAIS. The program is being touted as a way to identify stolen animals, a way to protect our food animals from disease or a way to "assist" farmers with better services and governmental assistance. There is a great deal of controversy over the program and each person should fully investigate the plan and decide for themselves what their position is on the program. NAIS was created by USDA/APHIS/NIAA, the latter is a consortium of mega-agribusinesses who began planning this system since well before 1996. It was developed and pitched by large agri-businesses like Tyson, Cargill, Monsanto, National Pork Producers, and others with the sole purpose of gaining, expanding and ensuring the foreign meat export business. There is nothing within the NAIS program that will return stolen animals to their owners. The program is designed to track disease outbreaks and to gather info on all animals within the vicinity of the outbreak to eradicate any possibility of diseases spreading. At this time there is no database of individual animals not intended to enter the food chain or for personal use. The USDA's contention is that such a database is needed. Why then do they need to include non meat animals?

Under NAIS, any property that houses even a single livestock or exotic animal, including horses, backyard trout ponds or parrot owners, will need to obtain a premises registration number. Each animal will need an individual identification number in the form of an radio frequency identification chip. In horses it will be inserted in the muscle of the neck near the 4 - 5 vertebrae. The exception to this mandate are large corporate farms and feedlots, that only need to register the lot as one and these animals do not require the chip. So anyone with 3 horses, one pet parrot, pet rabbit and 5 laying hens will need 10 individual tags. The USDA cannot or won't say how much it's going to cost any owner. In fact, they haven't done a cost benefit analysis.In addition to the cost of the chips, it will also cost to report the movement of each animal. Each time an owner goes on a trail ride, takes a mare to get bred or rides down the road they must file with the database and pay a fee. If you fail to do so within 24 hours, you will face a fine. To ride your horse off your property you will be required to write down the premises registration number of each property crossed and the individual animal id number of each horse you commingle with.

There are no exemptions. Even if you have a single horse you must register your premises and id your animal. The NAIS plans provide no exemptions whatever.

Please email your senators that you are against funding for HR 1105 and that you do not agree with NAIS. Do it now, time is wasting! There was a huge fax blast from Kansas this morning to the senators.

For your senators' email addresses please click on http://www.senate.gov/

Another thing to consider...isn't there a controversy of microchips causing cancer? Something to think about...act now and be heard!


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