Please come to a meeting, become informed, and let your voice be heard. This is a topic that will impact us all, whether or not we have livestock and/or poultry.
5:00pm - 7:00pm, July 1, 2006
Ozark Electric Community Room
3641 Wedington Dr. (just west of 540, on Hwy 16)
Fayetteville, AR
Feel free to pass this on to others.
NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM (NAIS)
According to USDA, the ultimate goal of the program is to create a uniform national tracking system that will help maintain the health of the U.S. heads and flocks. It applies to cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, poultry, bison, deer, elk, llamas and alpacas. Every person who owns even one animal will be forced to register their premise and animals.
In short, every premise is to be registered and every animal is to have a tag, likely a micro-chip, that can be read from a distance. The owner will be required to report when an animal is born, when it leaves the property, when it loses a tag, when a tag is replaced, when it is slaughtered or dies, and when it is missing. Such events must be reported within 24 hours.
If USDA, the States and those supporting this issue are interested in promoting animal health, they should keep toxins out of the animals, promote good nutrition, give the animals fresh air and exercise, and provide clean and uncrowded living conditions. The same applies to wellness in humans and there is a closely similar model for growing healthy plants. Obviously there must be other objectives or agendas.(?)
Why should one oppose this NAIS Program?
1. This program will be costly to the owners. It will be record keeping nightmare. It could drive small producers out of the market. It will make people abandon raising animals for their own food. Even animals not destined for food (e.g. draft horses and pets) must be registered. It will be the most unfair to those who can least afford it, the already poor farmer.
2. It will invade Americans personal privacy to a degree never before tolerated. The NAIS would actually subject the owner of a chicken to far more surveillance than the owner of a gun.
3. It will violate the religious freedom of Americans whose beliefs make it impossible for them to comply, i.e. the Amish.
In Arkansas, the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission are now involved in what they call a Volunteer Farm ID Program. It is the first step to what will become a mandatory animal identification program.
Hopefully, there is still time to get changes made in this program, at the Federal and State levels.
Calvin and Doris Bey
Harmony Gardens
13361 Forest Hills Dr.
Fayetteville, AR 72704
cfbey1936@aol.com
