Mark's NAIS Odyssey

Read the countryside magazine articles. I for one don't trust what this NAIS is saying.
tnborn

Have not gotten to it yet. Do they reference something in the NAIS proposal that talks about being able to come onto property unannounced? Or is this just specualtion and paranoia?

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

Yes. If you don't have this issue, you need to buy it. There are several articles in it. I trust homesteaders more than the govt. BTW have a happy holiday.
tnborn

PaPaw,

Most every program and law the the government has is driven by private individuals or companies. Cattlemen have been working on an ID system for many years and they can't even agree how to do it. At least the government is giving them a starting point and it will develop from there. There will be a comment period when the final draft is developed. I just think people are reading more into this than there is. I would like to know where everything I eat comes from and that it is OK. This is a democracy yet and if enough individuals/groups speak up and would like to see certain exemptions for NAIS they'll most likely get it.

Bobg

Before I read the rest of the posts, I need to state that in order to sell to grocery stores or restaurants you must already go through USDA channels and be USDA certified, along with your processor or your processing facility. you can sell to individuals without USDA cert but MUST have it to sell to the general public. True, rabbits are not YET covered by NAIS, it is being planned to include meat rabbits. Pet rabbits and all other rabbits for the time being are covered under PAWS legislation that requires chipping of rabbits if you produce, sell, breed, or handle $25 or more worth of rabbits per year. PAWS even requres vet checks if rabbits are sold for meat.

One merely has to read the ENTIRE draft proposal of the NAIS in order to see what is in store for the future. "Non-producers" will be registered..these are identified as vets, feedlots, livestock auctions and fairs (selling livestock)..if all breeders of livestock are registered with the government, and all other sources of livestock are registered, where will the homesteaders who raise livestock for their own use OBTAIN a single new goat or chicken without playing the government's game?
Initial participation is voluntary..and then as clearly stated, will become mandatory.
What does this mean in reality? It means that for the homesteader, you WILL have to allow some form of local inspection of YOUR property by some individual representative of government who will decide if YOUR property is "adequate" for the care of whatever poultry and livestock you have.

The reason for this? The reason given by the NAIS website is to ensure the safety of the US food supply, domestic and foreign. Their stated goal is to be able to locate, within a 48 hour period, the source of a disease outbreak in the food chain.
It is stated that premise inspection WILL be mandatory.
It is stated that "individual animal identification" will be mandatory EXCEPT for commercial operations which may opt for "group identification".

My personal thoughts:

Over the years, citizens of this country have permitted local, state and the Federal government to enact legislation "for our own good" which has gradually eroded any concept of self-sufficiency or common sense. We have no one to blame but ourselves in permitting this to happen. Comparing this issue with the requirement to obtain a driver's license in order to operate an automobile on public roads is like comparing apples with a football. You can toss both into the air but that's about it..
Families who choose to raise their own livestock on their own property, for their own use should not be subject to government interference..period. There are already a myriad of laws on the books in every state protecting the consumer who purchases the end product of commercial livestock.

Try setting up a small goat dairy and see what laws are in place. It's easier to establish a day care center for human children. (cheaper too).

The concept of "this will tell the world our animal products are safe" is so bogus. How does that work? THINK for a minute. Commercial ventures are ALREADY inspected. Slaughter houses are ALREADY inspected. "Safety" isn't gained by requiring non-commercial holders of livestock and poultry to be identified. Their animals DON'T go into the commercial market!

I'm not an anti-government person. I AM an anti-foolishness person. I AM a person who believes with all my heart that this NAIS thing is absolutely ridiculous and intrusive and to be equated with nationwide "zoning" as a concept.

YOU PEOPLE ARE NOT READING INTO THE NAIS TIMELINE FAR ENOUGH!!!!!! The timeline calls for EVERY LIVESTOCK ANIMAL to be registered by 2008. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!! THAT IS 2 YEARS AWAY!!!! Also it states the program is FREE FOR NOW! It also goes on to say that once the program is implemented it WILL COST THE PRODUCER/HOLDER OF THE PREMISE ID.

That being said I will restate what I stated in another thread. You DON'T know where your store bought meat actually came from, or what was done to it before and after slaughter. Big commercial slaughterhouses are inspected by their own employees !!!! The USDA decided it was too much trouble to conduct their own inspections.

Another point about knowing your food, if you know animals can have a certain disease, you either can have the potential purchase tested yourself or have the seller test the animal. Pollorum in poultry is an example. Cheap test, easily done, state inspectors available to do the test. It is already required at shows and most auctions. That and isolation of a new purchase are good and standard practices. After a show I isolate the ducks for 2 to 3 weeks. If one shows signs of being sick I have the option of treatment or culling. I know who I buy my birds from, my buyers know how my birds have been treated and where they came from. My grandpa used to attend lots of livestock auction. I'll tell you what he said about Bob Evans restaurants, they would buy good looking, healthy animals using the Bob Evans name. If an animal was sick and could be purchased at a rock bottom price, Bob Evans purchasers used a number. My mom has been taken and bought sick birds at auction. Because she practiced strict isolation guidelines the rest of her flock was not affected. The big feedlots and slaughterhouses just bring several different animals in and dump them all together. Then they are assigned lot numbers. If one is sick it affects the entire lot. You have no idea what store bought chickens have been exposed to, but all the salt-water they inject into the chickens might kill some bad bugs. You really don't know what all gets mixed into sausage or hamburger. You don't know how long the meat was setting in a truck with the fridge not working, or even in the store laying around. You just don't know the history. It used to be a common Kroger practice that if packages of beef were found in unattended carts and they were room temp, the meat just got thrown into the next hamburger grind. I have purchased Kroger ground beef that was GREEN the next day! I trust my butcher shop to keep my beef the proper temp. When Meijer had a ground beef recall a couple years back they published the recall 3 WEEKS after I bought the meat. If I hadn't froze it it would have already been eaten. In fact one package was eaten. We didn't get sick but thousands of pounds of meat from hundreds of stores were contaminated by salmonella. Never would have happened if the slaughterhouse had practiced better sanitation. It was able to be tracked because producers for the public already are required to keep animal history records!!! Yet the USDA can't track what is already in place. If they implement NAIS you WILL be required to submit to unannounced inspections and then PAY for the honor.

In Wisconsin, this is taking affect the first of the year which is 2007.
tnborn

But this is not changed by NAIS.

Q. If a Person Raises Animals for His or Her Own Use and the Animals Never Leave the Owner's Property, Do They Need to be Identified?
A. Under the current plan, animals that never leave a premises do not need to be identified.

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

No, it simply means your choice of words to google with was poor.
I have no problem coming up with hits.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with this program - in order to control this disease, the state of Florida determined that ANY citrus tree within 1900 feet (?) of a diseased tree will be destroyed.
You don't need to get a FALSE Positive. You just need to be near a positive -
whether false or not.

1900 feet was a random number, not based upon any proof that the disease would/could spread this far. It was a GUESS. (A Dade county judge upheld a moratorium against cutting based on proof that this guess was flakey.)

If your prize blood orange variety citrus, full grown, heavily bearing trees were cut down by the government, you received a $100 gift certificate for Walmart.

Walmart does not carry full grown trees. Walmart does not carry many varieties - like blood oranges.

Walmart is making money from the canker. Why??

Florida inspectors routinely "invade" private property to inspect trees. There have been cases where it is believed the inspectors themselves have spread the disease via their hands and shoes.

Just an example of a similar program run amok...

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Hut on the Hill Farm
http://www.hutonthehill.org

Okay, I've been rereading all the NAIS docusments and I am just not seeing this in there anywhere. Nothing about property inspection or determinations of whether property is adequate for care of animals. Where are you getting this from? Please show me where in the NAIS documents this subject is mentioned cause I might just be missing it.

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

Current plan but read on this site:
http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/...Plan_42505.pdf

It says ALL livestock animals will be tagged and tracked "REGARDLESS of livestock movements" and "all premises registered with enforcement". Top of page 17. Also says in there that producers will be required to contribut financially and the PUBLIC (read, Joe Shmuck, Mark, Jill, Rhonda, every one of us) will fund the MAJOR portion of the project. IMO, adding this to the other regulations the USDA has but refuses to enforce is reason enough to fight this money sucker. And when the govt has eliminated all the little guys (costs too high for us to keep going, read my earlier post about the costs) do you honestly think they will lower taxes????? And do you NOW realize that all our meat will be bought ONLY from big producers??? This is outright DANGEROUS legislation.

A lot of you are comparing this to registering your car or your gun. Not a realistic comparison. Can I take my rabbit and use it to destroy your house? NO! Can I run over you and kill you with a duck? NO! Plus, you people are forgetting that your car registration helps pay for YOUR ROADS! You drive on them, help pay for them. Now about the gun comparison, yes, when people start using chickens to commit crimes like robbery, rape, murder, etc. Then it might be a comparison. In most areas you do not have to register shotguns or rifles. I have had to submit to a background check to PURCHASE a rifle, and some people SHOULD have to submit to an animal abuse background check before buying a dog. But most livestock owners do not abuse or neglect their animals. Lets keep this in perspective.

Mark, I do applaud you for being a subjective guinea pig for our education. I am already identified as a show breeder for Muscovies with OPBA but I have no intention of registering with the state.

I think it's pitiful that the ONLY producer outcry is about the insecurity of the information. But then, they already have to keep the records, this would just make their job easier. And they will be passing the costs to the consumer. Won't hurt their bottom line unless people quit buying meat.

If producers with over 500 animals are exempt, how exactly are the MAJORITY of food animals going to be tracked???

Why are they exempt? (Rhetorical, we all know WHY and HOW).

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Hut on the Hill Farm
http://www.hutonthehill.org

INSPECTIONS

Page 6 on the site I listed above bold sideline "Organizational Placement", second bullet, "Monitoring and promoting animal health and productivity".

Why do you think they want satellite trackable id tags? Kind of a duh thing. Then they can zero in with a sattelite cam.

This last one is my big concern as a seller of livestock. Cost, not monitoring.

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

In response to the nasty reply about failing to license a poodle:

This was posted for the benefit of those who might be feeling apathetic thinking they will just ignore the law. Of course, most of you recognized that...

We were young, newly-wed and unaware of the license law.
No excuse intended, just a wake up call regarding the potential penalties...

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Hut on the Hill Farm
http://www.hutonthehill.org

They are going to spend thousands of dollars to use a multi-million dollar satellite to zoom in and monitor my goat?

I see the bullet point. I do not see how that equates to satellite trackable ids and property inspections.

"VS is the program within APHIS that protects and improves the health, quality, and marketability of our nation's animals, animal products, and veterinary biologics by preventing, controlling, and eliminating animal diseases and monitoring and promoting animal health and productivity." - This has been the job of the VS since it's establishment. The wording and bullet points come verbatum from the VS website.

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!

"2008:
• Premises registration: January 2008: All premises registered
with enforcement (regardless of livestock movements).
• Animal Identification: January 2008: Animal identification
required with enforcement."

That is cut and paste from the top of page 17. Regardless of livestock movements means wether the animal leaves your property or not. If it is bred there, born there, dies there, consumed there it must be registered.

Even if you are very careful to have several different, unrelated herds, how long do you think you could go without having to introduce new bloodlines?

the site with the satellite id and all that is locking up right now. You can read it for yourself if you can get it to work. The RFID tags can be read at pretty long distances. The county is currently installing water meters with RFID technology so all they have to do is drive by and read the meter. Ours is readable at around 500 feet, through walls even.

http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/...ards_42505.pdf

Monitoring means regular checks = inspections. That's why each premise has GPS coordinates listed.

These are 2 seperate points. The differentiate between the final steps for premises and animals.
1. Premises - All premises mus be registered regardless of whether the animals move. The premesis, not the animals. If you have livestock, you must have a premises id. Don't care for this one, myself.
2. Animals - ID use will be enforced. Meaning if you are supposed to register your animals and you do not, there will be consequences. BUT, as previously stated, if the animals are not leaving the premises, the ANIMALS do not have to be registered, therefore this does not apply to you.

If you bring in a new buck to improve your bloodlines, it will already be registered - it will have to be be transfered legally. However, you do not have to register its kids or the animals you already have.

Trying to look at the satellite info.

Monitoring does not mean onsite visits. It can mean review of data generated by the database. It can mean tracking outbreaks. The CDC monitors the health of the nation, they do not go to random people's houses. THey, like the VA, track trends, outbreaks, etc.

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Ultra Lord is not afraid of chickens!