NAIS…
I have been reading all over the Internet about this new? government (USDA) program that is being implemented, and boy am I confused!!!
From what I understand NAIS is a voluntary program for farmers, homesteaders, and ranchers to register their property and their livestock so that the animals can be tracked from birth to slaughter. Okay, I understand someone might want to know where an animal has been, but what is wrong with just keeping a log? and this is supposed to combat terrorism by preventing terrorists from doing something to our food sources. Now, this is where I started to get confused. A terrorist is going to give a cow TB or something and kill the country???
Then I read where NAIS is completely voluntary, but in Michigan there is a case where they got a search warrant to tag all of the cows and in Colorado kids were banned from participating in the State fair since their parents ranches were not registered with NAIS, What???
Apparently other “industrialized” countries are doing it so, we need to too, but it is expensive, and jeopardizes farmers privacy and requires them to immunize all animals ( say goodbye to antibiotic and hormone free!!!) . Also all animals any one Might think of ever eating including horses ( come on when was the last time you ate horse???) have to be registered. This is insane. And expensive enough that it could put many small farms out of business.
While I am admitting I don’t know that much about it, and I am very confused, I am against NAIS. I also think this isn’t something we need to leave for the farmers, ranchers, and homesteaders to fight for on their own. Everyone who enjoys freedom, and privacy, and organic, antibiotic free food needs to step up on this one and Just say NO! Apparently it is even being done sneakily some places where it is being hidden inside of a general farm bill.
Anyways, if anyone can give me more information, or help me get un-confused about this please leave me a comment or email me.
You are on the right track! Definitely say NO! to NAIS! I’m a small goat farmer in the state of WA, and my business partner has a very informative web site that you might like to check out – she has done a great deal of research, and everything that she posts comes from the documents that she has unearthed. Take a look at http://www.nonaiswa.org for an education about NAIS. It covers far more than our state, and the sticky web spreads well beyond NAIS. There is a whole lot of redefinition of terms going on – ‘voluntary’ no longer means what it once did, as you have discovered, and that is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
Ask away, I will be more than happy to answer or send you in the right direction for an answer. NAIS is not new. I learned about it a year ago, and even then it was old news, so to speak.
I first learned about it Oct. 2005 from a blog-SIX MONTHS after public commenting had ended on the USDA websites. It was kept as a closely guarded secret so the public and small farmers who have everything to lose and nothing to gain from NAIS would not question the program.
In a nutshell, the reason we are all confused is that the reasons for having the impossibly complicated system has changed many, many times since it was “introduced” to the public. It has been a way to fight terrorism, a way to stop mad cow, a way to export meat…but overall the common theme seems to be a way to track meat producers who are not tied to Big Agribusinesses that are the ones who have funded/designed/supported NAIS (well, except for the millions that us taxpayers are shelling out unknowingly).
nonais.org is another good source for information. Phelan’s blog is good too and I will look at Pat’s suggestion.
have you been over to walters http://nonais.org/ ?