If fully implemented, the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) could ruin thousands of small livestock farmers, an “ethnic cleansing” on behalf of real estate developers and corporate agriculture.

And NAIS will be another giant step toward Homeland Security’s vision of the total surveillance society.

Only two legislators came to hear what the farmers had to say.

Representative Robert Rice of Gardner thanked the farmers for bringing the issue to his attention. “I knew nothing of this before 3 months ago…it was under the radar,” he said.

Representative Anne M Gobi (D, Spencer) stayed and heard everything.

Patricia G Stewart is a goat farmer in Ashburnham. She is a member of the national Liberty Ark Coalition and a founding member of the Small Holders Alliance.

Stewart explained that NAIS has three components.

(1) A seven-digit identification code for animals, which is already in effect.

(2) The electronic tagging of animals with Radio Frequency ID (RFID) chips—also known as “spychips.” For this the Feds want to expand the code to 15 digits. “It is problematic to put microchips on the ears, or under the skin” of animals, she said.

(3) Universal tracking. “Every time an animal leaves the premises, you must report within 24 hours where that animal went. If I don’t report within 24 hours, I could pay a fine of $1,000 per day.”

These are kids of Hames & Axle's Mithral 2*D. They are about one week old in this photo, taken here in Ashburnham. Hames & Axle is Pat Stewart's farm. [photo: David W. Stewart] [farm website: www.hamesaxle.com]

The RFID spychips would include Global Positioning (GP) data. the GP satellites are under the control of the Pentagon.

Signing on to this plan gives “ a tacit approval” of the Feds’ “right to seize our animals.” But, she says, “I never signed anything… never gave my approval.”

Another farmer in the audience said that the State authorities were falsely claiming that over 1,100 had signed agreements to voluntarily comply.

An identification and tracking plan was presented to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2001 in during the “Mad Cow Disease.” USDA didn’t accept that plan, so it was warmed over and presented as an “agro-terrorism” project.

USDA website says that NAIS began to be implemented in 2004 as “a cooperative State-Federal-industry partnership. “NAIS is currently a voluntary program.… USDA has adopted a phased-in approach to implementation.… the draft strategic plan references mandatory requirements in 2008….”

That’s also when the Feds plan for us humans to carry national ID cards. In March the US Senate voted 100-0 to implement a national ID cards system in 2008.

Stewart said that the NAIS assumed animals would be tracked in lots, which doesn’t make sense for to smaller farms. The Board which has been set up to administer NAIS represents only corporate agribusiness and marketing interests. Thus private information is given to public agencies and then turned over to other private parties who control those public agencies.

Feds want spychips in chickens and goats

Jack Kittredge has a small farm in Barre, and is Social Action Coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Massachusetts

“It suddenly come to dawn on people that the federal government is serious about this,” he said. At present, the problems facing small farmers come not so much from pending legislation, but in the form of regulations and administration of existing legislation.

“In Massachusetts we have a very gung-ho Commissioner of Agricultural Resources...actively pursuing this” and “getting paid by the feds to do this.”

The USDA has a pot of $33 million to subsidize State compliance with NIAS.

However, there is more legislation awaiting action in the U.S. Congress.

HR 1254, the National Farm Animal Identification and Records Act calls for “an electronic nationwide livestock identification system [for] all livestock born in the United States or imported… The Secretary may use technology developed by private entities…to operate the livestock identification system.” One of its six sponsors is Congressman Barney Frank (D, MA).

HR 3170 would establish “a Livestock Identification Board to create and implement a mandatory national livestock identification system.… automated and electronic with participants using compatible technologies.”

Massachusetts Commissioner of Agricultural Resources Douglas Gillespie has said that grazing animals outdoors would be prohibited if there is an outbreak of disease like Mad Cow.

It makes no sense to Jack Kittredge, trying to combat Avian Influenza and “terrorism” by applying NAIS to small organic farmers.

“In my mind [the reasons] don't make sense.” Why not test selectively for disease the way they do in Europe and Japan? Instead “the USDA has actually prohibited” private livestock operators from testing cows for the foreign market

To deal with Avian Influenza they should be “going to the source... very large facilities”— factory farms where millions of genetically identical animals are confined in close proximity.

The influenza cannot normally evolve into forms that can cross over to human populations. Because infected birds usually die before they can pass the virus, it does not have a chance to mutate. The conditions for mutation exist in the factory farms, where birds live out their entire lives confined to adjacent cubicles where they cannot even move.

“Our markets are seeking us out. because we raise birds in the healthiest outdoor conditions,” said Kittredge.

Kittredge also said that the “Homeland Security” argument was specious. Terrorists, if there are any, are bound to target “huge factory farms… It makes no sense to apply this to small rural operations”

He believes that people can defeat the NAIS program by boycotting it. “If enough people did that, the Feds would back off from this program.”

Kittredge reported that there were many glitches in a NAIS-like pilot program that was run in Australia. The costs of implementation ran to $37 per animal. Thus for small farmers “the costs are not going to be insignificant…its a serious threat to our way of life.”

The Australian data suggest that the spychip system is being tested out on animals, at the expense of the farmers. Similar systems are already being tested on humans on a voluntary basis. One test site is the Harvard Medical School, which could use spychips for its security staff and offer them to patients to record their medical history.

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