No Mandatory Animal ID

I see that the USDA now has a User Guide out for the NAIS program. It supersedes the earlier Draft that made NAIS mandatory. It can be found here,

NAIS-User Guide

I read it quickly looking it over for the key concepts that were important. There were two words that jumped out at me throughout the document. "Federal level." Here's an example.

When producers consider participating in NAIS, there are three key points to remember in understanding
how this program works:
1) Participation in NAIS is voluntary at the Federal level. There is no Federal requirement for
producers to participate in any aspect of the program.
2) Federal law protects individuals’ private information and confidential business information from
disclosure. USDA will continue using its authority to protect individuals’ private information and
confidential business information provided by NAIS participants.
3) NAIS is a State-Federal-industry partnership that continues to evolve to meet producer demands.
NAIS works best if there is active involvement and feedback from the States, industry, and
producers.

You see they are very careful to say that NAIS is "voluntary at the Federal level." Such key words. They couldn't stand the heat from producers on the voluntary mandatory issue so what are they doing? Passing it off to the states.

BEWARE, THE FEDS ARE GOING TO PRESSURE THE STATES TO MAKE NAIS MANDATORY.

You see my prediction. we need to work now at the state level to ensure that NAIS does not become mandatory at the state level. Heed my warning, the feds will press so we need to press back harder. Contact your state representatives, Governor and State Veterinary. Express your opposition to mandatory NAIS. Together we can defeat this.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, but together we are stopping the Feds.

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Government Propaganda at 04:19 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Knight vows NAIS will never become mandatory

According to Dow Jones, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bruce Knight promised Wednesday to keep the national animal identification system (NAIS) a permanently voluntary system. The Dow Jones article said Knight wants to end debate over whether or not the NAIS will ever become mandatory, because that worry is only impeding progress on implementing a voluntary system.

The Dow Jones report comes as USDA issued a 65-guide to the NAIS Wednesday. In an interview with Brownfield late last month, Knight also assured producers the NAIS would remain voluntary.

So, we have assurances and promises from Bruce Knight that NAIS will remain voluntary. What good is this promise? How can I be sure the next administration won't decide to make it mandatory? Hell, how can I be sure Johanns won't disavow Knight and decide to make it mandatory?

A government official's promise has absoultely no value in the real world and means nothing. Even if Congress were to pass the Emerson/Talent bill to make sure it stays voluntary it means nothig, the law could be changed down the line.

Knight's promise is really so much hot air since incoming House Agriculture Leader Collin Peterson has stated that he will work to ensure NAIS is mandatory which would blow Knight's promise to shreds.

We need to keep working on our Representatives on this issue with all the new members coming in. We can stop this if we try hard enough.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, but if we work hard enough we can make sure the ear tag remains voluntary.

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Government Propaganda at 05:59 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

NPPC firmly behind mandatory animal ID

Incoming House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson told farm broadcasters at their national convention again on Friday he backs mandatory national animal identification, because USDA is "screwing up" in implementing a voluntary system. Just two days earlier, U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns said he thought mandatory national animal ID would result in "open revolt" among cattle producers.

But that clearly wouldn't be the case among pork producers. National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) President Joy Philippi told Brownfield Thursday the pork industry has always thought mandatory animal ID is the best approach, and still does.

The Large pork producers are ready to sacrifice themselves on the alter of big government. I feel sorry for them. Benjamin Franklin said "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." The Pork Producers fall into this saying and they will be the big losers in the end.

Then there is the cattle producers. Johanns says there will "open revolt" if mandatory NAIS is foisted on them. Hey, Johanns has finally got the hint, cattle producers don't want this.

The problem is Collin Peterson. He wants Mandatory NAIS at all costs. With him being chairman on the House Ag Committee we that are fighting NAIS are going to have to double our efforts to stop this from happening. Write, call your congressmen. Let them know our opposition to this program. working together, hopefully we can stop this even if the pork industry wants it. They will thank us in the long run when we stop it.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, but it sure fooled the pork producers into thinking it can.

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Politics at 17:47 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Stockmen don’t cotton to livestock registration

The government’s drive to register places that house livestock to guard against disease and bioterrorism is meeting resistance from stockmen.

The Department of Agriculture is pushing everyone from farmers to veterinarians to register. Officials say the information would help them slow or halt the spread of mad cow disease, avian flu or another killer infection.

It’s the first step toward individual animal identification and tracking, which the government says will speed a response to disease or bioterrorism targeting food supplies.

More Ranchers just like me opposed to NAIS and for the same reasons.

For Rob Alexander, a cow-calf rancher in Elbert County, the program could be just another drain on his already wafer-thin profit margin.

“I have to buy this new tool to put a tag in the ear, and then I have to buy new software to scan the tags,” he said. “Will it make my life more complicated? Yes. Am I excited about that? No. To the producer who’s on the short end of the stick, this smells like a rat, because most of the burden is going to be on us.”

Yes, cattle ranching is a business for a lot of us and this mandate is a little too much for us. There is no guarantee it will give us any extra profit, in fact the packer my calves go to charges the producer to read the tags, so why should we do it.

With the change in Congress it is more important than ever to let our voices be heard in opposition to NAIS. Write, call, we can stop NAIS.

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Personal at 14:38 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

With yesterday's election I thought I should review where NAIS is going to stand with the Democrats in charge of Congress.

To start with I will point out Sen. Talent of Missouri was defeated. He was the Senator that introduced a bill to mandate that NAIS.html">NAIS be voluntary. Without him in office who knows where this will go and who will take up the fight for him. I have no idea how his opponent stood on the issue and it will be interesting to see.

Of more concern to NAIS is the House being in Democratic hands and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) will now be the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. Rep. Peterson is the driving force behind NAIS and believes that NAIS should be mandatory with every animal in the US tracked from birth to death under all circumstances.

So, now the American people have what they want. Democrats in charge and they believe in controlling us and our animals. The fight to control NAIS just got more important for all of us that care for freedom. The party in control doesn't care for freedom and wants to control animal movement through the US. Write your Congress Critters and your new Congress Critters. Let them know your opposition to NAIS and how it will hurt American agriculture. We can still win if we don't lose heart. It will be much harder but lets try.

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Politics at 04:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

If you have paid any attention to me at all, you know I don't support the governments NAIS efforts. We don't need the government mandating yet another expensive program that us producers can't afford to implement for them.

Yesterday I worked my replacement heifers, heifer calves that I am keeping to make cows out of, and as part of the process I had a veterinarian on hand to bangs (Brucellosis) vaccinate them. Now Bangs vaccination requires a vet to do it. He tattoos the animals ear with his tattoo identifying he done it and then puts a metal tag in their ear with a unique identification number along with giving them their vaccination of course.

I asked the vet why the unique id number on the bangs tag couldn't be used as part of the NAIS system. It is a unique number that is sent into the government identifying an animal to a person and I have personally seen it used to track a critter as mine in less than 24 hours. He informed me that technically it should work just as well if not better than the proposed NAIS if the government just handled the paperwork right. According to him to many states do not file the paperwork right, a lot of it finds file 13, so that it is not useful for tracking purposes.

So, instead of throwing a lot of money away devising a new system, why can't we throw some of it at the existing Bangs system to fix the paperwork problems on the government level to track breeding age cows through the US? One of the main reasons behind NAIS is BSE. Since this disease is not transfered from cow to cow and only occurs in older cattle, usually breeding stock, wouldn't it make since to fix the broken system instead of reinventing the wheel?

Typical government inefficiency. Don't fix the broken, just make a new bureaucracy.

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us. P. J. O'Rourke

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Personal at 04:23 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

USDA's Knight moving forward quickly on NAIS outreach

Last week, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bruce Knight told Brownfield he'd already taken a close look at USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and planned to make it more appealing to individual producers. And on Tuesday, Knight met in Kansas City with state NAIS coordinators, representatives from the offices of state veterinarians and officials with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to roll out an initiative designed to boost producer participation in the NAIS.

Knight told Brownfield today the first fruits of that effort will be coming soon. "We're walking through new pamphlets, a new web site talking about the issues that we've got," Knight said. "We've got a user's guide we're going to be releasing in the next few weeks to more accurately explain many of the recent decisions on animal ID," he added. "This is our first test-run on the re-vamp and on the changes to NAIS."

Full fledged push by the USDA on NAIS. Why is the USDA doing this? The only way to sell something unpalatable is a full fledged propaganda effort and that is what Knight is up to. Instead of using the web, which the opponents of NAIS are using so effectively, they want to do face to face. More money to implement a plan nobody wants.

I find it interesting the article states the program isn't supposed to be implemented in 2010, time line change, and that 100% voluntary participation now seems to be optional which is new. Sounds like propaganda to me. I would never believe a bureaucrats unsubstantiated word for something like this. Snow job in the works.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, but the drive for the ear tag causes the government propaganda machine to go into full gear.

Posted by Sarpy Sam in Government Propaganda at 04:15 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)