Vote on NAIS at Beefmagazine.com

we already have mandatory ID in colorado-----its called a brand !!!!

Well, arabian knight, looks like ksfarmer just blew your theory out of the water.

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~Carla~

Why not? How do my dozen chickens, 3 rabbits, 2 donkeys, & 5 cats affect the cattle industry? Why should premises ID be mandatory for me? THAT is what doesn't make sense.

I don't have cows. I don't sell eggs or meat - it's all for home consumption. I do give away eggs to friends. How does this endanger the cattle industry? How does this endanger the chicken industry? How does this endanger the rabbit industry? How does this endanger the donkey industry? Whoops! There isn't any! So why do my pet donkeys need to be a part of NAIS? The cats are, for now, exempt.

It should be voluntary for the little "farms" - those who, like me, have only a few animals. The huge cattle ranches, the chicken factories - those should be regulated by NAIS. After all, it was the big cattle people who started feeding cows to cows & brought on the big mad cow scare. The people who had their cows in the pasture & fed hay had healthy cows.

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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

NAIS, started by the USDA for tracking animals is in actuality, a way not only of tracking animals, but one more insidious way of eliminating the small farm/er through raising their costs.

Do you realize a large herd production facility does not have to register (pay a fee/tax) on each animal, only one in the herd? That means a heavier cost burden to the small rancher, farmer, egg producer that sells to their neighbors or at a farmers market.

When beef is processed or ground into hamburger and you buy it, you aren't buying part of one cow, but many from different areas. So why isn't the USDA going after the processors or making every cow be tagged (actually they do ear tag each one), but this is not in their spin?

I really don't believe that NAIS is necessary and I am so thankful that Arizona had an elightened congresswoman and started a grass roots group over this issue. We now have an opt out policy.

Maybe everyone should start with their state congressperson.

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

Politicians have proven that they don't know how to run anything without losing money. What I see happening is the government forcing NAIS on farmers and then saying there's not enough revenuse to cover the cost of maintaining the program so they will have to raise taxes to keep our food safe. You want safe food buy from a small farmer and pass on the big producers.

If the recent food poisioning outbreaks were able to slip by government inspectors then how are we to believe that the government would be able to keep track of every farm and farm animal in the country? It is not about food safety, it is about getting more money from the people. First they will want money to register and tag then the will want yearly payment and when that isn't enough they'll send their troops out to find the criminal farmer and make more revenus with fines. NAIS is nothing more than OSHA and EPA spelled differently; a pretend way to keep things safe and a real way to make money.

Another example of misinformation.

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* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

So your neighbor gets some fowl that contracts one of the bad bird flues.

His birds & your birds come in contact with each other.

As well as 3 other neighbors in your area.

They figure out your neighbor has an outbreak. And 2 of the neighbors are registered, so they can trace those 3 flocks of birds, and prevent the spread of this bad disease to others.

But, you and another person don't care about anyone else, and you opted out of the program.

So, your birds are infected, and it takes an extra week to find your flocks.

In that week, the disease gets spread to another 5 flocks from your birds.......

And so it mushrooms. And grows. It becomes an epidemic across the country.

I don't know if nais would actually work as smoothly as the govt thinks.

But if you get to opt out of it, the whole thing is totally worthless. You will be sitting there, spreading diseases that move from small flock to small flock.

Cats are not included. I'm not real sure on rabbits, or donkeys either? It's for typical meat livestock plus horses. No, I don't know why horses were included either.....

A little education on this & though on it would clear up a lot of misunderstanding.

You still can be opposed to it, and want nothing to do with it. And be opposed to it. That's cool.

But at least understand it, before telling others how it should be run. It makes no sense at all to have it optional. It's an all or nothing type of program. It does not work at all if only 'some' are in it. That would be stupid.

--->Paul

i prefer less government

Who's gonna tag and register the wild birds?

haypoint - Thanks for the answer.
My concern was that for the one or two "big" animals raised, where I prefer a slaughterhouse to do the butchering, that I was going to have to register if'n I wanted to or not.

And there, of course, is a crack in the whole deal. Deer can carry some things for bigger livestock as well.

Here is where the 'big farms' might have an advantage, esp with fowl. Many of those birds are housed in a building their whole life, and will have little exposure to any other animals - wildlife or other flocks.

That is the reson those types of operations don't need to tag each bird; but only have to identify each _group_ of birds. Those of you with free range birds, and showing birds at fairs, and comingling birds - it's a problem.

As far as the intent of this program goes - the object was to be able to track animal interactions. If you have a flock of birds that don't ever contact any other birds, not much reason to identify the individuals. If you have a free range flock, or take them to multiple shows - really ups the exposure & possibility for cross contamination.

It doesn't seem fair, and lots of folks here think it is some sort of anti-homesteading plan by big govt & big agrobusiness.

Really not the intent. The intent is to be able to stop the spread of contageous diseases quickly if there is an outbreak; and one needs to watch the herds & flocks that have the most cross-exposure the most.

If that is too intrusive or too unfair, then maybe there should be no nais at all.

But the 1/2 way, only if you want to join, thing would not be a valid option. It's an all or nothing type of program.

--->Paul

The real reason for the single grouping, as in huge poultry houses is the "all in, all out" way that they operate. Goes the same way for cattle. If you raise your cows in a single group, from birth to butchering, all together for life, they just require to be listed once. While it is also true that closed operations are less at risk than free range, it is the all in all out that is the key factor. If the small operation kept their 4 cows from birth to butcher, no other cows brought in, sold off, etc, then they get the same treatment. Most of the NAIS stuff makes sense when you think it thru.
Total compliance is the only sure way for it to work, but I think that if half of the folks went along with it, USDA would be able to track disease more often than it now can and once people see how easy it is and how effective it can be, the unfounded fears melt away and there will be less resistance to it.
I see how it works in Michigan. I've seen it used to track TB and I've seen it used to track Chronic Wasting Disease.

You know I am getting a little tired of you constantly hurling out this accusation that we are somehow selfish and don't care about anybody else. That is a load of horse manure. I happen to know my neighbors and they know me. If one of us had an outbreak of something we would let each other know. I don't need a law to make me do the right thing and sure as heck don't need to be bothered with a whole bunch of paperwork when all I have to do is walk over to my fence and say Hey this is what I have going on.

I’ll explain how, “do my dozen chickens, 3 rabbits, 2 donkeys, & 5 cats affect the cattle industry? Why should premises ID be mandatory for me? THAT is what doesn't make sense.” We’ve been thru a dozen explainations about how Avian Influenza has continued to spread alonf trade routes, that is at farmers markets and the like. There is still a concern that wild, migratory birds could spread it to the local free range domestic fowl. When there is an outbreak, what would you have the USDA do? You want them to pin a notice on the bullitan board at the grocery store? Should they fly over and drop informational fliers across the area? Should they bring in a bus load of employees to knock on every door, making rounds every 6 hours until they catch someone home? If the USDA has your premise number, that coraspondss with a global location, they can see in an instant who is within the range of a known infected bird. That gives them a place to start looking. If they don’t know you have chickens, they might not inform you and you may, unknowingly, be hosting a dangerous disease.
You mention your sweet donkey. Ever heard of Equine Inffluenza Anemia? When you get your Coggins test, that is what it is checking for. It can be spread by flies. If there is an outbreak within a mile, your little donkey is at risk. If your donkey is in the database, you’d be informed. It is also likely that the USDA would provide free testing and quarantine any infected equine.
It isn’t just the big operations that are susceptible to disease. There are plenty of other serious diseases than Mad Cow. Besides, you are wrong that it was the big operations that were feeding cows to cows. When I bought my Purina Horse Feed for my 6 horses, it had animal fat in it. It was the feed industry that was grinding up animals to put in animal feed. They still do for pet foods. Very few cattle are raised without any grain supplements. Those that were never given any processed feed wouldn’t have been at risk of Mad Cow, but there are plenty of other cattle diseases that they’d still be at risk for.
I like the idea of lots of green grass and fresh air for my cows. It may be a small point, but since we are all engaged in beating this dead horse already, “The people who had their cows in the pasture & fed hay had healthy cows” isn’t exactly true. They didn’t have Mad Cow, as far as we now know, but pasture and hay is no assurance of total health. A disease related to Mad Cow, shows up in deer as chronic wasting disease, can remain in the soil for years and doesn’t have to be spread in feed, just close contact is enough.
It is easy to think that as a small farm we are immune to animal disease and it is the big operations that have the animal disease. I wish it were so. I hate to admit it but those huge hog or chicken operations don’t have much of a disease problem and the small free range flocks are the source of the spread of Avian Influenza worldwide. Since wild pigs carry psudorabies, and other pork diseases, the pastured hogs are way more likely to contract it than thos confined factory hog operations.
NAIS isn’t a tax plan, “Do you realize a large herd production facility does not have to register (pay a fee/tax) on each animal, only one in the herd?” Nobody is paying a tax or fee. The database is cheap to operate and the general public funds it like we fund everything run by the Federal Government, income taxes. This “loophole” you site for the big operations exists for us little operations, too. Any operation that raises livestock in a group, birth to slaughter can just list the herd, doesn’t matter if you have 5 or 5,000.
I have to shake my head when I hear, “NAIS, started by the USDA for tracking animals is in actuality, a way not only of tracking animals, but one more insidious way of eliminating the small farm/er through raising their costs.” There is no way that NAIS has anything to do with putting the little guy out of business, Actually, I see NAIS as a government traceback program that allows the little guy to stay in business. As more of the slaughterhouses require a traceback system, if the government plan isn’t there, they’ll do one of their own. Membership is a likely requirement and I doubt us little guys could afford to join. Right now the tags are cheap and the database is free.
The beef recalls so far have been because of E coli in the processing, not diseased livestock and the hamburger is processed in huge lots, thousands of pounds get contaminated at a time. This requires the recall of millions of pounds of ground beef. If there were one diseased cow that got into the food chain, by the time it was discovered, they wouldn’t know what cow it was or where it came from. But the USDA would know what group of cows it came from and where those few hundred cows came from. I guess they could do a traceback from there, but since they haven’t had any contamination from diseased livestock, I can’t speculate how that would work. Each situation has different risks and methods of traceback. Mostly, NAIS is for animal health, tracking down disease before it can spread to other farms, etc.

I’m with Samm, I want smaller government. How we get there is different for different people. I can see smaller government by not needing crews of inspectors combing the countryside looking at every farm to warn about an outbreak of psudorabies like they had to do in Wisconsin last year. It takes less government to punch in the area and get the data of where the livestock are within the area around the known diseased farm. That is less government. That is more efficiency. That is faster.
The majority of the owners of most of the livestock in this country are in favor of NAIS. Most consumers are in favor of a traceback system. McDonalds requires traceback ability of all its meats.

When Pat wrote, "You know I am getting a little tired of you constantly hurling out this accusation that we are somehow selfish and don't care about anybody else. That is a load of horse manure. I happen to know my neighbors and they know me. If one of us had an outbreak of something we would let each other know. I don't need a law to make me do the right thing and sure as heck don't need to be bothered with a whole bunch of paperwork when all I have to do is walk over to my fence and say Hey this is what I have going on." I felt I should reply.

It is a pleasant thought that we love in our own little community and that we all would know if our animals were sick and that our friends would warn us if there were a problem.
Let me tell you about a couple real life situations here in Michigan’s recent history. Thirty years ago, a supplement company was supplying Farm Bureau Feeds with mineral supplements. This company also supplied other companies. They stocked FireStarter that was a mineral supplement that increased milk production. They also stocked FireMaster that was a fire suppressant for some chemical company. FireMaster and FireStarter came in brown 50 pound bags with a red star on the front. The fire suppressant contained PPB. It got into the feed, then into the milk. It caused calves to be born dead, lower milk production, loss of hair and a host of other troubles. While many farmers searched for answers, tests were run, they did everything they could, but they didn’t share their troubles with their neighbors. This went on for months, even years, until it was accidently discovered. Bottom line, we can have problems and not know that it may effect our neighbors or the products we sell.
Fifteen years ago, a deer hunter discovered something strange on the lungs of a deer he shot. It tested out as TB. Cattle farms around where that deer was shot were tested. Several herds had TB and no one knew it. There hadn’t been TB in Michigan in 60 years. No one needed to test for it, it had been eliminated. Farmers were selling diseased cattle weekly, but no one knew that they were spreading TB around the state.
There is a difference between thinking we are doing the right thing and actually being able to do the right thing. There is no “bunch of paperwork” and jawing across the fence is no substitute to disease testing, immunization and a traceback database.

People are people. Good ones and bad ones. 'Your side' of this issue likes to portray small homesteaders as all pure as snow, wonderful people, would _never_, not one, ever do anything below the radar.

'Your side' also likes to portray large farms as messy, polluting, uncaring, and rude.

I've been a little tired of that sort of thing for some time too, if we want to get things out in the open.

People are people. Youll find good and bad farmers, _whatever_ size farm they have.

If there is some sort of problem with large farms not doing things right; there is an equal problem with small farms also not doing things right.

We can't make artifical lines and think we are better than you.

That doesn't work. It's not true.

My comments are not an attack on any person here. It is a generic, plural, 'you' as in small farmers. I pretty much fit that catagory myself, I have one of the smallest farms in my county here in corn & soybean country.

When this topic was discussed a couple years ago here on this web site, one person suggested rather than work with the govt if a livestock disease broke out near him, he would load up his animals and take them to another state, to keep the govt away. Several people here on this web site agreed with that. All gave the impression they were homesteader, couple of animal types.

This is the _reason_ animal diseases spread across the country.

Nais is not the problem. It is people who believe as above. _They_ are the problem.

It doesn't have to be small homesteader people - it _can_ be tho.

When times are tough, when there are few options, people do drastic things, they try to slip by & protect their own. It is easy for you to proclaim what you would do, when there is no real threat.

Lets look at 100 actual cases, when the choice is to lose your herd or to try to slip them through a distant sales barn & get some money for them, feed your family????

Hum. That gets a little tougher to say, if you are honest about it. What would 100 random people do?????

These sorts of regulations are not to catch or help or work with honest people - honest people would already do whatever is being regulated. The regulations are to try & get everyone to be as honest as we can get. If you have critters and are on the national database, a lot harder for you to ship your exposed animals to a different state undetected (as someone on this site stated they would do!!!!!!). It helps us all to be a little more honest when the chips are down to have some regulation.

The problem with several of these devistating animal diseases is how long they take to show up, and how easy they can be to spread.

You may well be the most honest person on the planet, and the best neighbor ever. I'll accept that.

How do you know if your animals have been exposed to a disease or not? Nais has features to communicate those things very rapidly to the people who need to know it as soon as possible.

If you and your neighbors are not in the loop of nais, then you will not get the info as quickly, you will not be as prepared, you will not get your herd of animals cleared of quarentine, and so forth.



When a couple of kids in a classroom get head lice, all the kids in the classroom need to take action, control the problem, get rid of the lice. It does no good to only have those kids who volinteer to use the shampoo use it. Everyone needs to take action, if it's only to scout for the lice.

If 1/2 the class does not, soon the problem spreads to other classrooms, and those who were treated will get re-exposed to lice.

It is an all or nothing sort of deal. Everyone needs to take precautions, or no one will be rid of the things. The louse program did not _prevent_ lice, but it controled the spread of the lice.

Nais is kinda like that. It doesn't prevent something, but it can be a rapid network of communicating with each other; keeping a breakout confined to a smaller area; and getting everyone back up & going again.

Your backyard network of neighbors talking over the fence is very nice.

It doesn't do what mais could do, if everyone understood it and tried to work with it.

On the other hand, if you don't want nais, there is no point in anyone of any size bothering with it at all - it is useless if a signifigant number of people will igbnore it.

--->Paul

The dishonest won't magically become honest just because there is paperwork! They will still run those animals through the sale barn and it will still spread.

Voluntary is the only way that NAIS can work. The reason is it is impossible to get 100% compliance even if they do make it mandatory. The government will not find all premises. Not everyone will cooperate. Premises change too quickly. It doesn’t matter how much the threatened fines are. The reality is the system must be designed to work with <100% participation if it is to succeed. Thus once they design the system to succeed they do not need 100% participation so it is not necessary to make it mandatory. Once it is not necessary to make it mandatory there is no point in upsetting people who don’t want to be in the system so simply make it voluntary. No need for Big Brother.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Voluntary is the only way that NAIS can work. The reason is it is impossible to get 100% compliance even if they do make it mandatory. The government will not find all premises. Not everyone will cooperate. Premises change too quickly. It doesn’t matter how much the threatened fines are. The reality is the system must be designed to work with <100% participation if it is to succeed. Thus once they design the system to succeed they do not need 100% participation so it is not necessary to make it mandatory. Once it is not necessary to make it mandatory there is no point in upsetting people who don’t want to be in the system so simply make it voluntary. No need for Big Brother.

If that arguement had any value, I would hate to live in a world where the politics of can't ruled.

We try and try to prevent drunk driving, but we are not 100% effective.... so lets just give up...

We try and try to stop the terrorist, but they keep trying to kill us.... so lets just convert to their religon....

Can't is a disease, more destructive than any problem caused by NAIS....

the system when implemented would have the immediate reaction of separating the tagged from the not tagged, a surivialist dude living on a hill somewhere could not use the slaughter house, vet, sale barn, fair or even trucking services.... he would be limited to very small geographic area, these black marketers... would be reduced to niche outside of the farming profession, a huge biosecurity success from day one...

so.... 100% compliance will never happen I agree, but can we limit the anti-groups to far away mountains?????

you bet!!!!

Once the salebarns and slaughter houses are free non-tagged animals, the traceback become limited to a very small area, and as the years go by those people will die out or bend.

No NAIS, not now, not tomorrow, NOT EVER! Check out Doreen Hannes speaking to USDA at their "listening session".