National Animal Identification System Requires Livestock and Poultry Owners to Tag Animals with a Radio Frequency Identification Chips

Big Brother Is Watching You (and Your Livestock)

May 5, 2009

The Marieta Register - The "land of the free" is becoming more and more restrictive for farmers and ranchers across the nation with the National Animal Identification System being pushed by federal and state governments.

"I'm totally, thoroughly convinced this will ring the death knell of small, individual farmers across the nation," said Donna Betts. A resident of Washington County, Betts raises chickens, goats, cattle and, until recently, sheep.

"I sold off the herd [of sheep] because I couldn't afford to keep them if I had to do everything NAIS and the state wanted me to."

The NAIS consists of two parts; premise identification and animal identification and animal movement tracing systems.

The premise identification portion of the system consists of livestock and poultry owners registering their facilities online, listing contact information and exactly what animals are present at the location.

The identification and movement tracing systems are a bit more complex and involve animals being "tagged" with a radio frequency identification chip, entered into a system and scanned.

While farmers across the nation are calling the NAIS a gross invasion of privacy, the United States Department of Agriculture insists that all information will be kept confidential.

According to an informational pamphlet put out by the USDA, "NAIS is a modern, streamlined information system that helps producers and animal health officials respond quickly and effectively to animal disease events in the United States."

While the stated aim of the NAIS is to prevent and respond to disease outbreaks in the U.S., some farmers, such as Betts believe the bigger problem is animals from outside the country.

"We've been pushing for 'country of origin labels' for years now," Betts said. "More than 60% of our food comes from outside of the country. The only reported case of 'mad-cow' came from a cow that was brought in from Canada."

However, many farmers like Darol Dickinson feel that there is no need for such a system and it would only force smaller farmers out of business.

"Take Ohio for example," Dickinson said. "We haven't had a 'reportable' disease in 19 years. That means something that could affect a large portion of stock or humans. They say we are not concerned about food safety when we don't want to comply, but we are."

Dickinson said he also feels "country of origin labels" would do more good for disease control than chipping and tracking American animals ...

The RFID portion of the system is estimated to cost farmers roughly $2,500 to get one animal chipped and have all the necessary scanning and reporting equipment, Dickinson said. The owner of NAISStinks.com, Dickinson raises about 1,200 head of Texas Longhorns, Dutch Buelingo and African Watusi cattle in Washington County and owns nearly 5,000 acres of land.

"We make a lot of our money from individual 'starter' sales," Dickinson said. "Someone comes in and wants just one animal, to get them started. If we have to chip and scan each animal we sell, and the buyer does too, less and less 'hobby farmers' will want to start."

The scanning Dickinson refers to is required for anyone participating in the animal identification and movement tracing portion of NAIS.

"Animal tracing involves the reporting of certain movements of an officially identified animal that present a higher risk for disease transmission," according to official literature on the USDA's NAIS website. "Reportable movements include: moving an animal through a public market or auction, private sale of an animal that involves moving it off its birth premises and participation of an animal in regional or national exhibitions or sporting events."

While the program is not mandatory in Ohio, it is mandatory in Michigan and Wisconsin and has received only tepid support from farmers.

"I contacted my congressman, Charlie Wilson (D-OH6), but he doesn't seem to care," Betts said. "It's an idiotic and asinine proposal and I won't have time to do anything but comply. It's absolutely to the benefit of agricultural business. They're getting tons of money to manufacture the chips and equipment, and they're forcing us to use it."

In states with Amish populations, mandatory participation is strongly opposed both for religious reasons as well as ideological ones."

Amish are opposed to electronic registration of any kind," wrote Brenda Murphy, managing editor of Agri-View, an agricultural newspaper for Wisconsin. "They believe the current system of tattoos, branding, back tags at the time of slaughter and metal vaccination clips are an efficient and workable system."

Dave Mathes, president of R-Calf USA-Wisconsin, also feels the NAIS is unnecessary. At a meeting in 2005 in Cashton, Wis., he agreed with the Amish view of the current system being enough.

"This is a system which has been in place for 30 years or more and has been proven to be effective," Mathes said. "We can trace back animals. It may take 72 hours, but it's effective and efficient. We've proven it works by how we handled the BSE [Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or "mad cow"] infected cow in Washington State. It worked then."

According to a June 2008 poll conducted by Western Horseman Magazine, more than 91% of animal owners would refuse to comply with NAIS if given a choice. According to circulation numbers, Western Horseman Magazine has the world's largest circulation of any livestock publication.

"When this was originally proposed, the government got a major lack of interest [from farmers]," Dickinson said. "But they wanted it (well, the computer and tagging corporations wanted it) and they entered into 'cooperative agreements' with the different states. Basically they bribed states to get farmers to do what they don't want to. It's like Payola but for farmers."

In mandatory states farmers who refuse to participate in NAIS can face $4,000 - $5,000 fines.

"If you control the food supply, you control everything, and the government is trying to control the food," Betts said.