NAIS to be Scrapped!!!!!

haypoint · #81 02/10/10, 01:44 PM

"I can't find anywhere, except the propaganda on noNAIS, that states anything about a RFID for chickens.

It took less than 2 minutes on Google to find this GOVT site:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getf...TELPRDC5068314

The FIRST section talks about using "840" (RFID) tags on CHICKENS

I dont think you looked very hard "

OK, I went to the Agriculural Marketing Service site you listed. I read everything there. It discusses the methods AMS is using to encourage participation in NAIS.

NAIS means National Animal Identification System.
RFID means Radio Frequency Identification.
PVP means Process Verification Program.

Here is what that first part of the web site you quoted says:

Initiative: Coordinate Agency Efforts through USDA Process Verified Programs and Quality Management Systems

Description: Animal identification is a common requirement in many of the verification programs administered by the USDA’s AMS. Many producers participating in the USDA Process Verified Programs and USDA Quality System Assessment Programs currently have programs in place that verify the age of animals and provide traceability to place of birth. For Livestock species, AMS “Program Compliant” ear tags may be chosen by producers to meet program requirements. Like NAIS Compliant AIN devices, an AMS “Program Compliant” ear tags is a one time use, tamper evident tag, which contains a non-repeatable , unique number. APHIS and AMS will coordinate definitions of identification requirements to provide solutions for both agencies. AMS will actively encourage the use of NAIS premise registration as the means to establish where the livestock and poultry are born and managed.

Action Items: 2008 Poultry Programs will include an NAIS recommendation in each new applicable PVP’s that encourage flock identification and control. Livestock and Seed Program will provide information to all current and new applicants for PVPs and QSA Programs, actively encouraging programs to use premise registration and 840 tags for source and animal ID.

Status: Poultry Programs included a recommendation for NAIS in their PVP applications. Livestock and Seed Program continues to provide information to all applicants and to encourage them to use premise registration and 840 tags for source and animal ID.

I did not see anything about 840 tags or RFID tags on chickens. The information in this site is about how NAIS meshes with existing industry programs. It mentions both livestock and poultry. Currently, in the Status Catagory, it mentions both Poultry Programs and Livestock Programs. It suggests "Poultry Programs included a recommendation for NAIS in their PVP applications." then it went on to state what is being done with LIVESTOCK " Livestock and Seed Program continues to provide information to all applicants and to encourage them to use premise registration and 840 tags for source and animal ID". If you read this as a USDA mandate to place radio frequency identification tags in the ears of chickens, you are reading it differently than I am.

The states could run an animal ID system. However, each system would have to be easily converted to other state's systems. Sounds like herding cats, to me.

There seems to be the belief that there is a working system already in place, not true. There seems to be the belief that there are laws that somehow provide a method to limit movement of diseased livestock and a way to locate exposed herds. Not possible.

If we don't get informed and continue to believe the fear mongers and use NAIS as a way to protest big government and "stick it to the man", the free market will take care of it. Us small operations will wake up and find Agri Biz has locked us out of the market.
For those of you that raise your own, fine, but those that try to pay our property taxes with the sale of crops and animals off-farm, may be out of business. You thought the USDA was unfair, wait until Smithfield, ConAgra and Tysons runs the AID database. Thanks.

sammyd · #82 02/10/10, 03:18 PM

an 840 tag isn't just rfid. It's just a tag that complies with the 840 system. they can be rfid or they can be visual or they can even be injectable transponders.

"have to program each vet service", Now that's a new one.....

MaineFarmMom · #83 02/10/10, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rambler

Then the plan is worthless.

Your goal is to destroy regular farmers, and help yourself, hiding behind govt regulations.

Seems counter-productive.

You don't want a better system; you want a system that favors you, and hurts others.

Let's at least be honest about it.

--->Paul

You are a seriously disturbed person.

(These comments are directed at me but don't show up in the quote.)

rambler · #84 02/10/10, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaineFarmMom

You are a seriously disturbed person.

(These comments are directed at me but don't show up in the quote.)

'You' and 'your' are also plural pronouns, and of course how I was using them.

I'm sorry if I offended you, I was in no way trying to single you (MFM) out, nor directing my comments solely at you (MFM).

My comments were generic aimed at the plural group of folks who never have understood Nais, and don't seem to care too much about others. In a general, plural, many people way.

Your comments fit the bill of what I was discussing but again, sorry if you took my comments personally. I did not intend to single you out as the sole cause of the failure of human society.

(Just a little joke, intended to help us all smile a bit...)

All of this is just winter conversation, I poke & prod now & then to try to understand 'your side' of this issue. It is one that will not go away; it will ultimately come to be one way or another. The 'Nonais' type of mentality will someday get us a system that will be less than it could be, harmful to most all, but the 'nonais' types seem to have a goal of exempting themselves only from regulations, and putting more of a burden on other farmers.

I don't particularly care for that sort of elitism. It is there, it is obvious in their words, if you sit back & look at things from afar. Perhaps you see that perhaps you don't - it is a given, it is there.

I have a little bitty tiny farm, pretty much a joke in my farming community, I certainly don't fall into the big corporate farm that many of you (plural) have in your minds. I think the big outfits saw Nais coming, and worked to make it a workable thing with their business. Govt reached out to all and asked for help, and the big outfits did so. It was advertised & mentioned in many, many ag papers, ag gatherings, broadcast to the masses.

The little tiny outfits hid from Nais, didn't bother to listen, and now are all up in arms about it. Got it killed off as it was.

Ok, now what? The govt, the world, the consumers in downtown Chicago will want something else in it's place, and so we will, ultimately, have something else.

Excluding small tiny farms from the regulations means it will end up like raw milk sales - you'll just be brushed under the wheels and regulated out of doing any business at all.

Bad for you (plural). Gonna put you out of buisness entirely since you (plural) refuse to care about anyone else.

The big outfits will have a more costly system to do the same thing they could have done with Nais - so food is going to cost more, or we will end up importing meat instead of growing it here.

In any case, farms like mine - too small to be considered a 'real farm' in today's world, and too big for folks like you (plural) to accept are the one's that will cease to exist first.

Thanks so much for your (you MFM) concern for the well being of all people! Yea, a little sarcasm here at the end, but - I care about little micro farms, and people in downtown Chicago, and farms my size, and even people in Japan who depend on meat from the USA to live on.

From what I read here, some of you (plural, but including you MFM) don't seem to care about anyone else but yourselves.

Where do we go from here? Something will be regulating us. I think now, after the efforts of Nonais & it's supporters - it will be a worse something for _all_ of us. You (MFM) included.

Nonais and it's followers seem to have a 'leave _me_ alone & I don't care about anyone else in the world' attitude.

I can't live that way. I was brought up to care about others.

Just me I guess.

--->Paul

arabian knight · #85 02/10/10, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rambler

-Nonais and it's followers seem to have a 'leave _me_ alone & I don't care about anyone else in the world' attitude.

I can't live that way. I was brought up to care about others.

Just me I guess.

--->Paul

And I agree with you as long as a person lives in the USA,, that is the way it should be.
Just like filling out the census, IF you live in the USA and use Anything from the government, which even includes driving on Any road, it is your constitutional Duty to fill out at the very least how many in household.
But nope just like the naysayers of nais no I won't do it. Not good. if people think this way, as that is not how this country was set up.
Heck even the very first census had More Questions on it then the 7 it does now. yes that is the truth, it had less questions, then the first one many many years ago.

texican · #86 02/10/10, 07:05 PM

If your selling your produce directly to the general public... I'd recommend a very good insurance policy. NAIS may be 'dead'... but we still have a legal system in place, set up to separate you from your assets. Big businesses already have a system similar to NAIS... to track the food down the chain... and correct problems.

NAIS is dead. Long live freedom. But beware sick consumers.

lonelyfarmgirl · #87 02/10/10, 07:59 PM

premises registration has not been taken out. the article in the farm paper that came today specifically said that the halt of nais does not include the stopping of premesis registration. it is already law here and apparently will remain so, although alot of people dont comply. this is a huge dairy state and there are alot of mega farms. nais was only to benefit them anyway.
I am frightened, becasue I think something worse is coming, and I want no part of it. I dont feel its the govt place to know my animal business. we are small time, with a dedicated customer base. they see what we do and choose to purchase from us. If we were diseased, I am sure they would choose to purchase else where.

arabian knight · #88 02/10/10, 09:34 PM

And why are people saying it is dead? No way is it dead.
Just went to the STATES now to decide what works best for them.....
So here it is from our Farm Paper in WI.

Quote:

The USDA said its role in the new program will be to support states to ensure standards are defined. States will determine what methods work best for them. The new approach aims to trace disease without overly burdening producers, encourage lower-cost technology and ensure that information is managed at the discretion of states, according to the USDA.

USDA officials will meet with state veterinarians in March to discuss the new framework. A proposed rule could be published by next winter, with a 90-day public comment period to follow, the agency said.

http://www.thecountrytoday.com/story...id=BMIC2I5P10J

Rockytopsis · #89 02/10/10, 11:51 PM

I don't understand why a new system is needed in the first place. When I sell a goat at auction a number is glued on his butt, my farm tag is in his ear. Those numbers stay on that goat till it is slaughtered somewhere up north. They know where that animal comes from. Cattle is the same way. So why is a new tracking system needed????

The only reason I can see is to put more money in someone's pocket besides mine.

sammyd · #90 02/11/10, 12:32 AM

the numbers do not always stay on. You get a potload of steers and ship them somewhere and say 5% of the tags fall off.....
Steers don't have a farm number in their ear, they aren't tattooed, glue has a way of not staying sticky.
Even if everything went well, what happens if something is discovered on a fri and let's say mon is a holiday...you have 3 days lost. With an online database accessible by all agencies and not relying on a private sales barn to turn over info during regular business hours you have shaved 3 days off the time needed to track back a problem.

Rockytopsis · #91 02/11/10, 12:54 AM

My favorite answer to "what if" is, "if a monkey had wings it would fly"

salmonslayer · #92 02/11/10, 01:30 AM

Quote:

I don't particularly care for that sort of elitism. It is there, it is obvious in their words, if you sit back & look at things from afar. Perhaps you see that perhaps you don't - it is a given, it is there.

Your part of the 36% of producers that bothered to sign up for NAIS and you want the other 64% of us to bend to your will and you call us elitist...hmmm.

Quote:

It was advertised & mentioned in many, many ag papers, ag gatherings, broadcast to the masses.

Yes it was and that is why its dead, the masses spoke or do you think it was just a couple of us hayseed homesteaders that killed it?

Quote:

I can't live that way. I was brought up to care about others.

Sounds to me your just the opposite so just be honest.

Quote:

But nope just like the naysayers of nais no I won't do it. Not good. if people think this way, as that is not how this country was set up.

Democratic action where the citizens speak up and the government goes with the majority isnt how this country was set up? Good grief this is a poster child for exactly how this country was set up to function..

Quote:

And why are people saying it is dead? No way is it dead.
Just went to the STATES now to decide what works best for them.....

Now you finally get it. Its a state issue unless it involves interstate commerce and the USDA presented a very poor program and promoted it even worse but this is the same program you want the government to run.

Stop acting like the majority lost to a small vocal few, you are in the minority on NAIS and it just seems incredible you think a few small homesteaders killed NAIS.

haypoint · #93 02/11/10, 07:11 AM

“I dont feel its the govt place to know my animal business. we are small time, with a dedicated customer base. they see what we do and choose to purchase from us. If we were diseased, I am sure they would choose to purchase else where.”

You didn’t mention what you sell, milk, calves, feeders or mature cows. Good people in northern Michigan would never intend to sell TB infected cows to their neighbors and at auction. But they did. It want on for awhile, until a deer hunter dressed out a deer and saw signs of advanced TB. There were no records of who sold what to whom. It took over a year for the USDA and MDA to TB test every cow, captive, deer, bison and elk, in the state.

You cannot expect to know when you have picked up a disease. Anyone that sells you animals could have infected your herd.

The gov isn’t interested in knowing your business. The USDA is in place to improve animal health. Quickly tracking disease is a way to limit its spread.

“I don't understand why a new system is needed in the first place. When I sell a goat at auction a number is glued on his butt, my farm tag is in his ear. Those numbers stay on that goat till it is slaughtered somewhere up north. They know where that animal comes from. Cattle is the same way. So why is a new tracking system needed????”

I believe you when you say you don’t understand. When I buy a goat you’ve sold at the auction, all I have is a paper tag with a three digit number. That same number will be issued at that auction barn in the following week. That number is useful to the auction barn only. The ear tag can be traced to the Vet that installed it. If my farm is infected with a serious disease and I sell the goat to someone else, at another auction, how will anyone know I have disease at my place? After tracking down your Vet and him going through his records, the USDA might track that goat back to your barn. But I could continue to sell, knowingly or unknowingly, diseased livestock.
In situations where you are selling directly to slaughter, it isn’t such a factor. But most livestock get sold a couple times in their lives.

”The only reason I can see is to put more money in someone's pocket besides mine.”

Think about what you’ve said. Who is getting rich here? The company that makes the RFID and sells this electronic tag for about a buck, wholesale. The store that sells the tags for $2.00 isn’t getting rich. The database costs you nothing. No one is getting rich off this plan.

Rockytopsis · #94 02/11/10, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

“

”The only reason I can see is to put more money in someone's pocket besides mine.”

Think about what you’ve said. Who is getting rich here? The company that makes the RFID and sells this electronic tag for about a buck, wholesale. The store that sells the tags for $2.00 isn’t getting rich. The database costs you nothing. No one is getting rich off this plan.

Excuse me but, when I got into goats I was told that I had to have a ear tag in order to sell at auction. After I applied for free tags and a gun from the state to be applied by me not a Vet, I found out that by doing so I had a premis ID. I was not told before hand that applying for those free tags from the state would gain me a farm ID.
Of course after I got the farm Id I found out from the auction house that I did not have to go through all that.
I also looked up the price of those electronic tags and the gun to apply them and it was way way way more than a "buck". We are retired and a "buck" is a lot of money here. If you have 100 animals to sell that is $200.00, something we would have to budget for.

I would like to know how many animals those of you who are Pro NAIS sell each year.

Nancy

Allen W · #95 02/11/10, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

Think about what you’ve said. Who is getting rich here? The company that makes the RFID and sells this electronic tag for about a buck, wholesale. The store that sells the tags for $2.00 isn’t getting rich. The database costs you nothing. No one is getting rich off this plan.

Ear tag companies spent a lot of money developing the technology of these ear tags. They then found they had a very limited market for these tags. So yes they are looking at making a lot of money off these tags. Just think about how many millions of tags would be sold every year, required by law if this had went through.

Bearfootfarm · #96 02/11/10, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Status: Poultry Programs included a recommendation for NAIS in their PVP applications. Livestock and Seed Program continues to provide information to all applicants and to encourage them to use premise registration and 840 tags for source and animal ID.

Quote:

I did not see anything about 840 tags or RFID tags on chickens.

So you "didn't see it", but it's quoted in your own post?

Danaus29 · #97 02/11/10, 11:41 AM

sammyd, even with RFID tags let's say 5% of them fall off. Then you still have no way of back tracking those 5%.

We can debate this all we want but those who believe the govt is out to protect us will always believe that and those who believe the govt just wants to repeat history and screw us all because we don't have the $$$$ to play their game will still believe that.

Truth is, and this was stated in the original pre-NAIS documents, that the big companies wanted a way to save money. RFID tags and RFID checkpoints would eliminate a person having to check in each animal and register their info. Sure this eliminates human error, it also eliminates many jobs and trusts the computer and RFID system to accurately record the info. The only way it could work is if the everything and every one was on board with the universal system. So the big ag producers and representatives went to the govt with this half baked story about using taxpayer dollars to track back disease (HA, like the USDA ever requires testing of most feed lot animals before slaughter) for public safety. The govt saw the big $$$$ the ag producers flashed before their eyes and said, "sure, we can do that. And the taxpayers can pay for it for you. Small producers can pay their own way because they serve so few people". Then the "mad cow" scare happened and things jumped along rather quickly and most of the system was set into place before any public input was requested. It was only after the big ag producers started leaking info that any public input was accepted.

As for those who asked if I offered any suggestions, yes I did. I emailed those in charge with my concerns. But as for getting the info about this happening beforehand, unless you were in with those involved in setting up the system you would not have been aware until after the "public comment period" was long past.

I would pull up those links with all the back history of the NAIS, but it won't change any minds. I did post them before, they are not hard to find. But today I have seeds to plant, critters to care for, and a 4 to midnight job.

sammyd · #98 02/11/10, 12:53 PM

I would say it would be rather rare for 5% of the ear tags to fall out during a semi ride. They are totally different than a glue tag. Do you really expect me to think of them as the same?

haypoint · #99 02/11/10, 03:00 PM

Bearfootfarm: Did you see that little dot after the sentence about poultry, but before the sentence about livestock and Seeds? The sentence: "Poultry Programs included a recommendation for NAIS in their PVP applications." does not contain the words 840 or RFID. The next sentence: "Livestock and Seed Program continues to provide information to all applicants and to encourage them to use premise registration and 840 tags for source and animal ID." has the word LIVESTOCK AND SEED PROGRAM as the subject and the verbs are CONTINUES and ENCOURAGE. There are a couple prepositional phrases in there, too. The word POULTRY does not exist in the same sentence with 840 and/or RFID.
Traceback isn't as as important for animals going to slaughter. I don't know where the " testing to go to slaughter idea came from?

Traceback is critical when animals go to other farms.

Sorry if you missed the two years of open public meetings.

The "check points" that I know about are the livestock auctions. The RFID speeds the process of checking in the livestock, helps the process, as you said, reduces errors. I have been at most of the Livestock Auction Barns in this state, Clare, Gaylord, Marlette, Cass City, Lake Odessa, St. Louis, Wayland, etc. There are two main buyers of cull cows that purchase a hundred cows a day. But, nearly all the rest of the buyers and sellers are small operations. They only buy or sell the number of livestock that their gooseneck trailer will haul. Most farms that raise beef cows own under a hundred. There are a few huge "factory dairies" that have several thousand cows, but their cows don't go to other farms. The few that do go to Livestock Auctions are cull cows that go directly to slaughter. The point of this information is that there are no "big Guys", "Agra Business", "Fat Cats", Factory Farms" that benefit from RFID.

We, you and I, are the ones that benefit. I need to know that the calves I buy don't come from the counties that have, in the recent past, TB in cattle herds. There are restrictions on cattle that are grown in those TB counties. While I won't see the sellers name or address, the USDA database will flag any sales from those areas if the calf hasn't been TB tested.

If one of my cows shows up with TB, the farm where this cow came from should be tested, too. The other cows that that farm sold should also be tested at the farms where they are now at.

Because humans can speak, the Health Departments tries to traceback STDs by speaking with those that have been exposed. While it has not eliminated STDs, traceback/trace forward has been effective in curbing the spread of STDs.
Cows expose other cows to diseases. A lack of recorded identification allows the unknowing spread of diseases.

It is foolish to believe companies create a product, then check out what market there is for it.

dennis60 · #**100** 02/11/10, 03:11 PM

Before we celebrate the demise of NAIS, consider the following link. The new and improved program looks similar to NAIS with a few concessions to make it more palatable.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/traceability/