Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Groups Urge Congress to Immediately Halt Any Further Advancement of NAIS;

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Groups Urge Congress to Immediately Halt Any Further Advancement of NAIS;
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:57:19 -0600


July 23, 2008 at 18:49:19

Groups Urge Congress to Immediately Halt Any Further Advancement of NAIS;
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Groups-Urge-Congress-to-Im-by-R-CALF-United-Stoc-080723-479.html
by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America (Posted by Linn Cohen-Cole)

For liberals who have a familiar list of issues they consider politically
urgent, it's time to look at farming issues in that light.

Farming issues reveal a worldwide movement by multinationals to control all
food, animals, water, land. NAIS is a totalitarian plan to oversee every
farm animal in the country under the guise of food safety (though it
contributes nothing to that safety and skirts the need to investigate and
clean up the corporate feedlots, animal factories and slaughterhouses), with
a data bank of global tracking information on small farmer and ranchers's to
be run by and stored with corporations, and intolerable costs borne by
farmers and ranchers, along with loss of all privacy and independence, and
including penalties that are massive and destructive.

The sustainable agriculture movement, the independence of our farming and
ranching communities, and our democracy itself are at stake with NAIS, which
is, incidentally being pushed by Monsanto (and the big meat packers).

It is time to treat farming issues with the enormous seriousness they entail.
Our lives all depend on independent farmers and ranchers having freedom to
operate without crushing government controls (that favor multinationals), and
to be able to sell directly to customers with government interference, or to
compete fairly in a national and international marketplace against
multinationals.

Also Request Oversight Hearing to Investigate NAIS Activities

Washington, D.C. – In formal correspondence sent today to the leaders of the
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, two national groups and nine
others – all from different states – requested that Congress immediately halt
any further advancement of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)
and to conduct an oversight hearing on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
(USDA’s) NAIS activities to carefully and deliberately investigate the full
ramifications of USDA’s NAIS-related actions and proposals.

“USDA’s procedures for advancing and implementing NAIS are improper, if not
outright unlawful, and yet, Congress continues to appropriate funding for
NAIS, subjecting U.S. farmers and ranchers to extraordinary pressure from
USDA to assist the agency in its implementation of an unproven, questionable
and potentially cost-prohibitive program that Congress itself has not seen
fit to authorize,” said R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max
Thornsberry.

The groups – R-CALF USA, South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, Independent
Cattlemen of Nebraska, Independent Cattlemen of Iowa, Independent Cattlemen
of Wyoming, Buckeye Quality Beef Association, Oregon Livestock Producers
Association, Colorado Independent CattleGrowers (sic) Association, Kansas
Cattlemen’s Association, Independent Beef Association of North Dakota and the
Cornucopia Institute – assert that:

* USDA has misrepresented Privacy Act protections to U.S. livestock producers
when as early as August 2006, former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns
assured producers their information was protected under the Privacy Act and
could not and would not be released, which was false. USDA did not attempt to
secure NAIS data under the Privacy Act system of records until April 30,
2008. Additionally, it remains uncertain as to whether such records are
entitled to Privacy Act protections.

* USDA has improperly acquired premises registrations by registering premises
without farmer or rancher consent.Evidence shows there are likely thousands
of citizens whose premises were registered in the NAIS directory against
their will or without their knowledge. In Idaho, for example, citizens’
information was obtained by tapping into the state’s brand database and
summarily assigning numbers to brand owners. Also, improper tactics have been
directed at minors involved in 4-H to secure NAIS registrations. Therefore,
USDA cannot claim that NAIS is voluntary when its own cooperators and
contractors are mandating NAIS participation.

* Several states have found it necessary to pass legislation to protect
citizens from USDA’s NAIS-related advances that promote government-sanctioned
animal identification systems. Nebraska passed a law that provides a
formalized procedure for citizens to withdraw their premises registrations
should the state establish an NAIS-type animal identification system.
Kentuckypassed a law to prevent release of its citizens’ confidential
information for the purposes of NAIS. Arizona passed a law to prohibit the
state from mandating, or otherwise forcing, participation in NAIS. Missouri
passed a law to prohibit the state from mandating, or otherwise forcing,
citizens to comply with NAIS premises registration and to authorize citizens
to withdraw from NAIS at any time.

* USDA is proceeding without regard to stakeholder cost, liability and
confidentiality concerns. Livestock producers already operate on extremely
tight profit margins and there have been no studies to determine if NAIS is
economically feasible for family farmers and ranchers. The Food and
Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) predicts economic returns to
producers will remain negative and could hit -$51.87 per cow by 2012. USDA
also claims the sole purpose of NAIS is to have the information to trace an
animal disease incident within 48 hours. However, in its Business Plan to
Advance NAIS, USDA states it intends to assist meatpackers in transferring
NAIS information to carcasses.

“This new purpose for NAIS bears the unmitigated potential to expose
individual producers to liability for problems that occur after an animal
leaves the farm, which could prove financially devastating to producers
should meatpackers or others attempt to share fault along the entire chain of
custody for problems they have created themselves,” Thornsberry warned.

* USDA’s ongoing NAIS activities usurp congressional authority and
potentially violate Administrative Procedures Act rules.

“Though numerous bills have been introduced in Congress to authorize USDA to
establish some sort of animal identification system, Congress has not acted
to delegate any such authorization to USDA,” Thornsberry concluded. “R-CALF
and many other groups have repeatedly appealed to Congress to cease any
further advancement of NAIS, but our requests have gone unheeded. Now we are
respectfully, but strongly, urging Congress to immediately halt further
advancement of NAIS and to conduct an oversight hearing on USDA’s NAIS
activities so that the full ramifications of USDA’s NAIS-related actions can
be carefully and deliberately investigated.”






  • [Livingontheland] Groups Urge Congress to Immediately Halt Any Further Advancement of NAIS;, Tradingpost, 07/26/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page