Posts by Doreen Hannes
Bush's Flips Family Farms The Bird
Published January 17, 2009 @ 11:09AM PT
The outgoing Bush administration has leveled a tremendous blow to small farmers and ranchers and slow food, local food aficionados as a parting shot before vacating the premises. On January 13th, the USDA/APHIS entered a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would effectively mandate the first two stages of NAIS (National Animal Identification System) for livestock owners.
The rule, if it is finalized as they plan, will directly affect cattle and bison, sheep and goats, as well as hogs. Owners of other livestock, such as poultry, fish and equine shouldn't think this won't affect them as there are other things in the offing that will ensure the full entrapment of all animal agriculture into this corporate consolidation scheme.
For those unfamiliar with NAIS, it is a three part program consisting of premise id (PIN) for any location that houses or holds any one of 33 species of animals, followed by either individual or group identification of every single animal, and topped off with 23 'event' reports that will be housed in a database for a fee paid by the livestock owner and accessible to the USDA but held by the likes of the USAIO (a consortium of the Cattlemen and Farm Bureau) in case the USDA wants to trace animal movements or whereabouts.
