The National Animal Identification System, or NAIS, is a controversial program that would require every farm animal in the country to have Radio Frequency IDs implanted, and every animal owner’s property registered with the government. The USDA’s justification for the program is that it will “protect the health of U.S. livestock and poultry and the economic well-being of those industries” by enabling quick and effective tracing of an animal disease to its source. However, the program was developed by industrial agriculture, and it is not necessarily in the best interest of small farmers and livestock owners.
The National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) is an industry-led group that counts among its members some of the biggest corporate players in U.S. meat production (for example, the National Pork Producers, Monsanto, and Cargill Meat) and (surprise, surprise) the manufacturers and marketers of high-tech animal ID equipment (such as Digital Angel Inc.; EZ-ID/AVID ID Systems; and Micro Beef Technologies Ltd.). Beginning in 2002, the NIAA used 9/11 and subsequently the BSE scares to lobby the USDA for a nationwide, all-livestock registration and tracking system. The result is the USDA’s proposed NAIS, set forth in a Draft Strategic Plan (Plan) and Draft Program Standards (Standards) released on April 25, 2005.
When the program is fully implemented, the USDA says it will be able to identify all premises on which animals and poultry are located, and all animals that have had contact with a disease of concern, within 48 hours of discovery. Yet no one has conducted any scientific peer-reviewed studies or epidemiological models to analyze the effectiveness of the NAIS, nor has the agency performed a cost-benefit analysis, which it would normally do when implementing a new program.
Initially USDA said that the program is “voluntary” at the federal level, yet it has issued grants to the states to make it enforceable at the state level. It has said its goal is 100 percent participation by January 2009 (and by that date it was nowhere near meeting this goal). In fact, 4 years into the program, “participation” is below its expectations (with only about 35 percent of livestock producers registering), so in March of 2009, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack said that the USDA may pursue making it mandatory at the federal level. As that discussion and regulatory process moves forward, the USDA is trying to use other tools to push participation in the program. In my view, a goal of “100 percent participation” implies that the program was not voluntary at all. Last year in my county, kids taking animals to the county fair had to be enrolled in NAIS to participate at the fair. This is not voluntary.
If you are an industrial producer of livestock, you can take advantage of loopholes in the program large enough to drive a Hummer through: this group will not have to ID each animal. Someone with a single sheep in the backyard, however, will have to have the premises registered with the government, have that single sheep tagged with a Radio Frequency ID, and report any movements of that lone sheep to the government. NAIS applies to all farm animals, including horses and poultry, and the cost of the program is prohibitive for small-scale farmers and ranchers. In other countries where such tracking has been implemented, there have been more problems than solutions. And the program does nothing to provide traceback for meat that has been infected with disease organisms, such as E. coli, nor for providing a traceback mechanism for animals imported into the country from overseas.
I am personally against NAIS as currently set out. So are many people within the agriculture community whom I greatly respect. But it is very important to learn more about the program yourself, and to make decisions based on what you learn. Visit the USDA Web site, or the Web sites of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance and the “No NAIS” group (Resources) for opposition opinions. And as the debate and regulatory process continues on, get involved and make your voice heard. The idea of being able to respond to animal-disease outbreaks in timely fashion is good, but as a friend of mine said about NAIS, the devil is in the details, and as laid out today, those details place an unfair burden on small farmers and backyard livestock owners, without necessarily meeting the stated goal of protecting our food supply.