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Boar war: Pig slaughter raises questions

Published October 5, 2006 in issue 0540 of the HooK.
By LISA PROVENCE
The government calls it "depopulation," an effort to stop a potentially deadly livestock disease. But to the Henshaws and some independent farmers, what happened was a horror, an overreaction, and-- with nearly 80 hogs taken by 12-gauge shotguns-- overkill. And now the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating whether its own procedures were followed in the depopulation.
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Area ranchers find National Animal ID System ‘oppressive'

Friday September 1, 2006
By BUD CHAMBERSStaff Reporter
More than 200 persons attended a Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance meeting Thursday night, its lead operative Judith McGeary suggesting the U.S. Department of Agriculture will develop a program that she considers “oppressive to the small farmer/rancher” in putting together a National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
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Animal ID system rapped

Area farmers oppose plan
Friday September 1, 2006
By Jean Laquidara Hill TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
The USDA has asked that animals wear the numbers, without specifying the means. The proposal was drafted in concert with big meat agribusinesses and high-tech companies, Ben T. Grosscup of NOFA Mass told the audience.
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State surveillance plan for animals goes public

August 6, 2006 Gun owners don't have to do it. Pedophiles don't have to do it. AIDS carriers don't have to do it. But, apparently, my chickens and sheep are dangerous and will be subject to constant surveillance once the National Animal Identification System becomes mandatory.
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Texas Independent Candidate for Governor Carole Keeton Strayhorn

STRAYHORN Calls for A Halt to the National Animal Identification System and Perry’s Mandated Participation of this New Fee—or as most Texans call it a Tax STRAYHORN WANTS IT ADDED TO SPECIAL SESSION
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THE REAL REASON FOR ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION

Derry Brownfield July 6, 2006 NewsWithViews.com

The players involved in the National Identification System (NAIS) are varied. The world Trade Organization (WTO) reached an agreement among participating countries several years ago in Uruguay called the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreements. The SPS agrees that each member country can make regulations that must be met by other member countries in order to TRADE IN AGRICULTURAL GOODS with each other.
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Livestock Producers Under Attack

Letter to the Editor----By Jason Page Vice President, International Texas Longhorn Assn. Kingwood, Texas Ph. 281 852 8869

A group of intercity teenagers were touring a rural farm and the owner was providing some facts of life with real on-site demonstrations. An old milk cow was used to demonstrate the origin of milk. As the farmer squeezed one of the four vertical appendages a huge white stream of milk squirted in a rainbow arc to the ground, right in front of the big eyed viewers’ feet. In shocked amazement, one boy turned ash white and fainted straight forward, flat on the ground. This young man demonstrated the early signs of becoming a Senator and creating legislation to govern rural livestock producers.
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Stop the National Animal ID System

Ron Paul, May 29, 2006

NAIS means more government, more regulations, more fees, more federal spending, less privacy, and diminished property rights. It’s exactly the kind of federal program every conservative, civil libertarian, animal lover, businessman, farmer, and rancher should oppose. The House has already acted, but there’s still time to tell the Senate to dump NAIS. Please call your Senators and tell them you oppose spending even one dime on the NAIS program in the 2007 agriculture appropriations bill. Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican, represents the 14th Congressional District of Texas, which encompasses the Gulf Coast region south and west of Houston.

The Very Few vs. Freedom

Nancy Levant May 25, 2006

I don’t know about you, but I won’t fair well under the dictates and mastership of the super-rich and pathologically arrogant. How do you think you, your children, parents, and grandparents will do in a chipped dictatorship?
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Get government out of NAIS

Henry Lamb Friday, May 26, 2006

Moreover, proponents claim that Wal Mart and McDonalds, the largest domestic markets, are demanding an identification program. If this is, indeed, the case, then let the market develop a program, but not one imposed by government on every farm, and farm animal, in the nation.
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Premises registration faces hoops before rules committee

Written by Jedd Kettler Wednesday, 03 May 2006

MONTPELIER: Following a well-attended public hearing in April, Senate and House Agriculture Committee members continued to look at a proposal to make livestock premises registration mandatory in Vermont.
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Organization forms to fight NAIS

Friday, May 19, 2006

A national animal identification program has some small farmers and ranchers worried about their future. "It would probably end up putting me out of business," Burnet County farmer Michael McEvoy said.
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Talking turkey

MAY 17, 2006

It is a basic point that is being totally missed by the United States Department of Agriculture and large producers. The National Animal Identification System does not fit small producers. Even worse, NAIS is a total disaster for homesteaders.
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Resistance Mounts To National Animal Identification System

KANSAS CITY (Dow Jones)

Those opposed to a U.S. national animal identification system are beginning to make more noise about a plan they see as intrusive and unnecessarily costly at best and unconstitutional at worst. The animal ID system is designed to identify and allow government veterinary officials to trace animals or poultry in the event of an illness. The idea is to have a system in place so the lifetime movements of animals or birds that turn up sick or dead can be discovered to aid in disease eradication.
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Albert Lipscomb running for agriculture commissioner

PHILLIP RAWLS Associated Press

"I am opposed to mandatory animal identification with no flexibility," Lipscomb said. The candidate said he's concerned the requirements and the costs will damage small farmers. In Lipscomb's view, the federal government should being doing more to make sure diseased animals don't enter the United States from other countries.
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Lawmaker opposes electronic cattle tracking

2006-04-02 by Darren Dunlap of The Daily Times Staff

Rep. Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains), the measure's sponsor, said Tuesday that electronic tracking is too expensive and that tags containing microchips could be manipulated for fraudulent purposes. He supports no-tech metal tags that are "cheap, dependable (and) can't be monkeyed with,'' according to The Associated Press.
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Senator Leahy Doesn't Get Animal ID

By: pubwvj · Section: Diaries

Yesterday I got a reply from Senator Leahy. It is aways hard to tell with him if it is just a canned response, a form letter or perhaps a real live personal letter. I did note a change in attitude, a little softening of his previously hard stance supporting the National Animal Identification System
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End of news flash
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Form Letters

Feel free to use any of the following form letters intact or modified as needed when you contact your government officials. Copy/paste a form mail into an email or click the accompanying link for a printable page to fax or mail.

Letter #1

This form requires adding the represenative's title and name at the beginning, and your name and contact information at the end.

Click HERE for a printable version

Dear      :
                                Agribusiness, specifically The National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA), lobbied the USDA (after 9/11 and subsequent BSE scares) to create the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) supposedly to protect U.S. citizens and their animals from diseases.  The NIAA is composed primarily to two groups – (1) large corporate producers and (2) the makers and producers of animal ID equipment.  In April 2002 a task force composed of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and over 30 livestock organizations provided leadership in creating the animal identification system.  Small-scale farmers involved in animal husbandry, homesteaders, and animal hobbyists were not represented.  Language quoted from the Draft Strategic Plan proves this, “APHIS then established the National Identification Development Team (NIDT), a joint, State, Federal, and industry group to further advance this effort.  Throughout 2003, the NIDT, consisting of approximately 100 animal and livestock industry professionals representing more than 70 associations, organizations, and government agencies, expanded upon the work plan to produce the initial draft of the U.S. Animal Identification Plan (USAIP).” (Plan, p. 4)  While associations, organizations, etc. may be backing the NAIS, they did not inform their members of this proposed legislation.  Chances are the members still have no idea that their freedoms are being given away.
                                I am writing in opposition of the National Animal Identification System because:
                                (1)   Should the NAIS become law, we will be forced to pay fees to register our farms and animals.  “Even with public funding, there will be costs to producers.” (Plan, p. 11)
                                (2)   We will be forced to report to the national animal records repository within a short-term specified timeframe the birth, death, loss of identification device, sale, or movement of any animal in our possession.
                                (3)   We will be required to report to the national animal records repository when an animal we own attends a livestock show, participates in a trail ride, is transported to another farm for stud service, or takes part in a community parade, etc.
                                (4)   Our personal information collected through NAIS could be disclosed – “…the USDA cannot assure the confidentiality of all the information at the present time.”  (Plan, p. 15)  Financial institutions were not able to keep this information confidential, so it is no surprise that USDA cannot guarantee confidentiality.
                                (5)   The NAIS will violate the religious beliefs of minority faith communities by requiring them to become part of this computerized, technology-dependent system or abandon the livestock ownership necessary for their way of life.  (Many adherents raise their own food animals and use animals in farming and for transportation.  Some, by scriptural teaching, would refuse to take the “mark” of such a numbering system.)
                                (6)   Our livestock would become part of the “national herd.” (Plan, p. 8)
                                Not only would small farm operators be negatively affected by the NAIS, but this legislation will do serious damage to feed store owners, farm supply houses, hatcheries that sell and ship day-old poultry, and other businesses frequented by farmers.
                                The most common types of meat contamination in the U.S. are the occurrences of pathogens such as listeria or E.coli in processed meat.  When meat becomes contaminated at a large packing plant, millions of consumers in all 50 states are exposed to the dangerous product.  Government should enact a law to closer scrutinize the large commercial food sources such as the giant broiler operations, the feed yards that produce beef, the large commercial turkey operations, and laying houses, etc.  Because of over-crowded conditions and the general biological by-products of animal production, these are the places most likely to contribute in the spreading of infectious disease, not on the premises of small producers.  If our government is indeed concerned with BSE, why does it not test every slaughtered animal?
                                Because small-scale farmers were not informed of this proposed legislation, it appears that they are willing to enter a ‘voluntary’ program as a justification of making the NAIS mandatory.  We are not.  Please protect the rights of those who have had no representation and, ironically, the very ones that have the most to lose – our very way of life.
                                Sincerely,

Letter #2

This form requires adding your name and contact information at the end.

Click HERE for a printable version

To all of my Elected Representatives,
                                Please don’t take the lack of personal greeting as any kind of slight. I simply want you to know that I am sending the same letter to every single official beginning at the local level and going all the way up to Federal level.
                                The point of this correspondence is to inform you of my extreme objection to the proposed National Animal Identification Plan being touted by the USDA at this present time. This plan is also referred to as the NFAIP, and the NAIS. They are all one in the same.
                                The proposed plan calls for every single animal in the US to be microchipped and entered into a central database to track the movement of animals from the farm of origin and every point in between. If you take a lamb to the vet it will be scanned into the system or you won’t be able to have it vetted; if you desire to take another lamb to the butcher it will be scanned into the system or you won’t be able to have it butchered. The projected estimate for implementation of this plan is 33 billion dollars. Let that sink in for a second. $33,000,000,000.00 to simply implement the plan. That doesn’t include the costs to maintain it once it’s begun. That is $115.78 for every single man, woman and child in the US. It does not include the costs for farmers to microchip their animals either, so those who raise the food get to pay even more for this plan.
                                This plan cannot and will not do anything to make our food supply safer at all. It’s purportedly necessary to protect us from potential bio-terrorism. How? It’s impossible to protect anything through registration. The only thing that can be done is to trace it’s movements from point A to B to C, on and on ad infintum, and destroy the smallholder’s ability to provide for themselves. This plan will create a veritable monopoly by corporate agriculture and thereby seriously endanger our national economy and our food supply. It’s difficult enough to try to make a living wage in agriculture now, this plan will make that nearly impossible.
                                I request that you reply to me with your stand on this issue and that you remember your oath to protect and defend the Constitution of these united States of America against enemies foreign or domestic. In my humble opinion this is the most destructive proposal against personal liberty that I have yet to encounter.
                                I await your reply.
                                Sincerely,

Letter #3

This form requires adding the represenative's title and name at the beginning, and your name and contact information at the end.

Click HERE for a printable version

Subject: National Animal ID System
                                Dear  ,
                                I am concerned that the national animal ID system is too invasive into the lives of ordinary citizens who are not large-scale producers of animals for food, but who farm on a small scale or have one or two animals as pets. If the real purpose of NAIS is to track the food supply for instances like mad cow disease then:
                                1) NAIS is not necessary for horses, donkeys, guardian animals or other non-food animals - these animals are not going to enter the human food chain in our country and should NOT be tracked by the government. There are already safeguards in place for preventing the spread of disease in horses. Regulations that would require implantation of a chip to track movement and registration of premises keyed to Global Positioning System coordinates is an invasion of privacy and makes no sense for a hobby farmer who raises alpacas or a family with a pet pony.
                                2) NAIS is not necessary for sales direct to the consumer from the farm. In these cases there is already far better tracking of the food chain. I buy meat and eggs from small family farms in my area. I am more confident in the safety of food raised on small farms, and I fear I will lose the freedom to select my food in this way if NAIS is forced on individuals who may have to give up farming if they cannot afford expensive RFID readers or cannot keep up with the excessive reporting required by NAIS.
                                3) NAIS should not be at all involved with people who are raising livestock for their own family consumption. They know exactly where the food came from - they raised it. There is no need to have any government involved in our own kitchens and food that we raise in our own backyards. I see raising food for our families as a basic human right that should not be interfered with by government.
                                4) NAIS is a violation of the religious freedoms of Americans whose beliefs make it impossible for them to comply. For example, the Amish choose to farm and live without technology according to their beliefs and this system is a threat to their way of life.
                                NAIS is being implemented too broadly. To include the above groups suggests the government has ulterior motives and is trying to invade people's privacy. There should be exemptions for the above groups.
                                Thank you for your attention in this matter.
                                Sincerely,