Mar 09 2009
ALERT for self reliance focused small livestock owners!
I haven’t spoken about the National Animal Identification System on this blog, though I’ve been quite vocal about it elsewhere. Producing our own food is a corner stone of our right to self reliance, no matter how small a scale we pursue it on—and implementation of the NAIS would so severely impinge upon that ability as to curtail it. The bottom line is that it is a bad idea. It was a bad idea when big agribiz and RFID chip makers cooked it up, it has been a bad idea the whole time that citizens have been working on blocking it, and it continues to be a bad idea as it is currently structured. The fact that other countries have animal tracking systems does not justify the overreaching, invasive, insupportable, UNCONSTITUTIONAL approach of the NAIS.
This hasn’t stopped corporate interests from continuing to try to push the scheme through Congress…and they’re at it again. There is a limited time for you to respond—please, do feel free to send this post to anyone you can think of!
Public Comment Deadline:
National Animal Identification System (NAIS) Proposed RuleMarch 16
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is seeking public comment on its proposed rule to amend its domestic livestock regulations. These proposed changes would create greater standardization and uniformity of official numbering systems and eartags used in both animal disease programs and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). They would also mandate NAIS premises registration and animal identification for several key animal disease programs.
The proposed rule was published in the January 13, 2009, Federal Register, and can be viewed at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-353.htm.
Consideration will be given to comments received on or before March 16. If you wish to submit a comment using the Internet, go to the Federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=APHIS-2007-0096. (Click on the “Add Comments” icon at the far right end of the first line.)
Or, send two copies of postal mail or commercial delivery comments to Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road, Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.
Comments are posted on the Reglations.gov Web site and may also be reviewed at USDA, Room 1141, South Building, 14th St. and Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C., between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. To facilitate entry into the comment reading room, please call 202.690.2817.
Courtesy of The Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture
Understand that this is not an issue only for farmers. It affects everyone who so much as keeps on horse as pet, or three chickens in their suburban back yard. It affects everyone who eats; not only because of the increased costs associated with involvement with the National Animal Identification System, but also because it will drive small farmers (like those you see at your local Farmer’s Market) out of business and hand control of the entire food system over to the tender mercies of the likes of Cargill, Tyson and Monsanto. Further considerations are listed at Can NAIS affect me?Another unsettling development is the reference to the National Animal Identification System in HR 875 as an existing law—which it is NOT. In addition, there would appear to be an end-around being put in place with HR 814 “Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009″ or TRACE which is the NAIS Redux, pure and simple.
People, please….read and comment on OpenCongress, on blogs, on letters to the editor; contact your representatives on federal and state levels. Print out fliers and put them everywhere—your library, your laudromat, your dentist’s office if you are still affording dental care. Use this flier to hang at feed stores, food co-ops and farmer’s markets. Here’s an 18″x24″ small poster which you can put in your window or have laminated and use as a sign. Educate yourself and others, and do not let this legislation slide through. There must be a way to meet the concerns without destroying the average citizen’s right to produce their own food.
This is important.
