Big Brother Alive And Well

I attended the meeting too. One thing I found disturbing was a lack of media at the event. All three of the local network stations were notifed by me, and at least one other person but did not attend. AFAIK, the only coverage at all was from Lancaster Farming.

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Goat's Milk Soap, Lip Balm & Gardener's Hand Balm
www.brushwoodfarm.com

I reckon I'm an outlaw! We transported goats from Missouri to Texas, without any paperwork...

...please folks, send me an email in the "Big House"... hopefully I won't get the 'needle'.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

It's not just gonna be animals....

http://foodquality.com/mag/04012009/fq_04012009_FE1.htm

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Not just animals and plants. Unless they are imported from mexico or china. You and your children are gonna be next!!!

I was not able to attend the Pasco meeting - didn't find out until too late - & have yet to hear anything about it. Anyone here go or know who reported on it?

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God bless,
Bonnie
Opportunity Farm
Northeast Washington

"While we have the opportunity, let us do good to all." Galatians 6:10

The "listening" sessions times and locations can be found here:

http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/feedback.shtml

There is also a link (very small letters in blue) where you can provide feedback and suggestions directly, incase you can't make one of the listening sessions.

"no big deal just a extra set of papers to fill out"

Have we been beaten down so badly that we just shrug our shoulders at the additional burdens that the state requires of us?

It's just another form, it's just another number, it's just another small fee, it's just another line to stand in, it's just another.....

Until we take a stand, until we choose to become truly responsible, we will continue to be covered in an avalanch of red tape, paperwork, monitoring, ID'ing.....until we are unable to do nothing without the state sanctioning it. They will strip us of our freedoms one form at a time.

NAIS will only lead to the destruction of small farming. Oh, maybe not right away, but wait until there is just "one too many forms" to fill out & it's just enough to put that farmer over the edge & out of business.

I find it odd that one cannot see that programs like this eventually become money-sucking, corporation-favoring, anti-freedom beheamouths. Oh wait, it's like that already. Imagine what it will be like down the road.

Food safety is not their main concern. Control is. Money is.

I would be less concerned about the animals that I bought from a local farmer than what products a NAIS-compliant corporation slopped onto the grocery store shelves. Seems that if nothing is done to stop NAIS, I may have to buy my hog, 1/2 steer & chickens from a "felon" on the black market.

If seeing the writing on the wall is going to have me labled as a "tin foil hat" wearing person, then I shall gladly go to my pantry & break out the Renyolds foil. Anybody else want me to make you one?

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I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. - Thomas Jefferson

And hence the future taxation of your registered animals to cover those expenses...There are almost 100,000 IRS employees!! They run Microsoft in the US with about half that. s . And like someone else said.....after they jail and fine a few thousand cases how many people will risk it and hang in there under the radar. As soon as your one bad neighbor gives in........don't think your name won't mysteriously appear on a call list.

Very seldom are rights taken from people, they are usually given up freely to avoid a much bigger fear. Let a few hundred school kids die off from a disease that is found in suzyhomesteaders animals and its done. As long as the grocery stores are open people could care less if suzy can supply her own milk or eggs...they just see the risk...........but what about if the stores are empty.......

Same with guns.........as long as the police are answering 911 calls and the lights are on......the guns in the citizens hands are a risk.......but what if...........

Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security. ..... Benjamin Franklin

Oh and IMO it will be the local county extension offices that will be the labor force for the Federal NAIS program. All of you that work for a county extension offices please chime in.

Most of my states extension offices are fading fast with little money being appropriated to them do to less and less large agribusiness. Wonder what your state would say if the government was willing to send Federal money to fund the county extension offices if they adopted and oversaw NAIS. Is this how it will be .... anyone know?

That is possible.

The FSA offices might make more sense - Extension is for education, FSA is for administrating programs. So my guess would be FSA office?

I believe there really would not be much local personel needed for Nais.

It's just a database. All the 'govt work' can be done from any old office 'someplace'.

For the most part, the data will sit there in a computer & rot.

Only if some animal disease breaks out someplace in the USA, does any action take place - the database would be searched for animals that passed near the outbreak; and for animals that went to locations where those animals went....

Really, not much need for a local office at all.

Farmers grumble the most about going to the FSA or the NRCS offices. They are a _major_ part of any type of farming these days. Including the small scale stuff on 5-10 acres. No one likes the paperwork. But if you are in the business of selling something, you are in business, and the govt will regulate & control & tax business activities. Both big Walmart & the tiny damaged/outdated food store in an out-building one fella on here started a few years ago - all are regulated.

The mega farms that use one of the 48 row planters John Deere just introduced; or the little 2 acre pickle farm - all are regulated by the government.

How society is.

--->Paul

Until the PTB figure out that there is a lot of money to be made fining small farms for discrepensies in reporting.


.

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I understand your fears. I don't like big govt either. No govt jobs are ever lost, just expanded bigger & bigger.....

You must have no idea of how much paperwork & govt filing is going on already in farming. There is no cross checking & beating people down with a stick at this time. Most govt ag programs are actually started out with good intentions, and come with a set of local people that are helpful & trying to keep farming working. Before a farm gets fined for making an error, there are years of trying to help & correct the issue without any fines or issues.

The only time you get quick fines if if your neighbor complians about manure running onto his property, or proven spray drift, or things like that which cause someone else damage. Then there is little choice but to come after a person.

The ag programs just don't work the way you are imagining.

They _are_ a paperwork pain in the rear, and they do grow larger and larger. I understand concern about that - I really do.

Pretty much every acre is accounted for to the govt every year; most every livestock operation over 10 head is filed & registered by county as it is. You are very, very much in the minority if you can have livestock or farm acres which are for sale to others and _not_ have to report your activities to someone. About everyone else already is.

This is why no one shows up for Nais meetings, no media covers them, and the strong resistance to such a program is a surprise to many elected officials. It is very rare and isolated to not be reporting your business already. Walmart has to, the farm down th road has to, most all business is layered in govt paperwork.

I understand you just don't want that. I can understand that.

If you sell stuff, you are in business, and from the smallest business to the biggest business, if there is regulation there will be regulation on all.

I don't have any answer for you. But, if you want to see regulations piled on Walmart & Monsanto (an idea I see favored here a whole lot) some regulations will also be piled onto _anyone_ sellingh something, including selling a few veggies from a roadside stand. Once you regulate business, you end up regulating _all_ business.

If you don't want any rules, you have to consider maybe loosening the regulations on that 10,000 acre farm down the road too?

--->Paul

Paul, I think you are underestimating the paperwork burden NAIS would require. Not so much on the farmer's end (though that would be a pain in the neck), but for the government. If every horse owner (or pack llama or pack goat owner) has to report every time they take their animal off their property for a trail ride; every animal taken to shows of any kind has to be reported, both before leaving and upon their return; every chicken, lamb, or goat kid sold locally has to be reported (on both ends of the transaction)....It seems to me that someone is going to be busy full-time just taking phone calls in most rural communities. It might not be an issue in urban areas because they don't have the livestock population, but in an area like where I live, where half the people (outside of town) own horses, not to mention all those other kinds of livestock, I'm quite certain that there would be enough business to bog any existing local office down in just the phone calls.

Kathleen

Why do people think the NAIS is only about a *safe* food supply?

Me being forced to tag MY chicken who I feed and lays eggs only I'm going to eat (or the chicken itself), or my horse, which cannot be butchered in the US anyhow, has NOTHING to do with a *safe* food supply.

The USDA declares many diseased animals in the stockyard *safe* to eat, diseases I don't want on my farm.

This is about more control and what comes after NAIS.

Until corporations, etc. are banned from running the show, PUBLICLY ELECTED OFFICIALS do not inhabit governments.

Need to frame this and remember it for the undeniable truth it speaks.

Under the Nais plan that was looking like the final program, you would only have to tag your animal if it left your property; or if you brought in a vet or some such. Your example of having your own animals, and never moving them or bringing in & moving out others would have only required a premis id - no other record keeping.

Some states added in other stuff, I can't speakk for what your state was doing, if anything.

Just heard of another stockyard closing in my state. Basically EPA regulations and local city zoning shut them down - each end wanted different regulations to follow, and so they just quit.

Soon there will not be any places to sell livestock any more. These are the small stockyards I'm talking about, bring in a small truckload, or single head of cattle, run it through the pen.

I think such regulations - as the other stuff I mentioned long ago in this thread - are a much bigger threat to your few chickens and my small herd of cattle. Nais is a bit of paperwork. The dust regulations, the EPA manure regulations, the beating stockyards & bucher shops are taking - those are the things that will really hurt all of us.

It's fine if you don't like Nais; I think it is a pimple compared to the other stuff that is going on.

Just me.

--->Paul

As I read this thread, I think to myself how naive, or in denial, these NAIS proponents really are. They just don't have a clue, thinking the data will "sit and rot" and implying it will not be used (that data is very valuable, in the right hands). With their soothing approach by saying, "I understand how afraid you must be, but it's not that bad", I just laugh. The world is a much more pleasant place if it were all flowers, such as that. That's all they can see. So, that's what it must be.

"I can understand" that those that grew up in the '50s that have a blind believe about the benevolent U.S government, which is there to protect and defend the interests of each and every American. The near-Socialist states of MN, VT, etc. have a citizenry who march lock step to this. But, my believe is that American is the greatest country on Earth, but the government is there to protect the interests of the rich. Those that are not rich must be ever vigilant to protect our interests and way of life, by keeping watch on the government through checks and balances.

NAIS is a system to track movements of U.S. citizen's livestock property. This is fundamentally contrary to the principals of the U.S. Constitution, primarily the due process and search and seizure laws. These laws were put there by the framers to protect the citizenry (the masses) from the interests of the very rich and powerful. U.S. citizens, those not under criminal rulings, cannot be compelled to report to the government the day to day locations of their property. This is fundamental, and is especially egregious when compelling citizens to report the locations of it's food, which is so crucial to human existence.

To those that say, "Well, it's the best solution to a tough problem", I say, "It's not the only solution to the tough problem. And furthermore, it creates a precedent to circumvent some fundamental, civil right protections." We have a system of laws that are based on precedent. You start down the slippery slope and you'll see that it doesn't end there.

To those NAIS proponents that say it is here to stay and there is nothing to do about it. Well I say let's look at another example. The sub-prime mortgage debacle and our current economic mess was perfectly foreseeable and predicted. There were many that said don't worry about it. We understand it and it is fine. They were also naive, or in denial, or lying.


added: Why do you think that NAIS requires that private companies keep the data rather than the federal government. Do you really believe that efficency is the reason, assuming that private companies are more efficient? No, that's not the reason at all. By law, the federal government is not allowed to collect such information. So, when the NAIS people ask you for the information just remember that they are circumventing the intent of federal law.

That isn't how it's worked out for the Beef Checkoff fight...

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop