anybody heard about this

**dragonjimm** · 06-27-2008, 07:22 PM

found this article in my monthly backwoods home email and thought i'd pass it on.

The original article here http://www.backwoodshome.com/nl/nl0806.html

www.nonais.org

Fighting NAIS

Finally, for we rural folk, there is one huge, immediate area of concern -- one place where our freedoms and many of our rights (enumerated in the Bill of Rights and otherwise) are being directly threatened. We're talking of course about the USDA's outrageous National Animal Identification System.

Bureaucrats developed NAIS for the benefit of large beef producers whose export business was threatened by fears of Mad Cow Disease. As you probably know, it aims to have us all register our "agricultural premises" with the federal government, tag every animal we possess with a number, then report each and every time we move an animal from our registered "premises." The program is so broadly (and badly) set up that it even demands that we report to the government if we take a horse out for a trail ride.

The commercial meat producers who wanted the program are allowed to register entire lots of their animals en masse, while family farmers are expected to tag (and pay fees for ) each individual chicken, duck, goat, sheep, horse, cow, or pig they own.

For disease control, NAIS is equivalent to using a sledge hammer to swat a flea. (Livestock Week compared it to "a finely crafted blueprint for a concrete blimp".) So it's clear that the real aims of the program are: 1) central control the national food supply; 2) elimination of family farms; 3) creating a test system for eventual mass tracking of human "animals"; and 4) benefitting corporate meat producers, micro-chip manufacturers, and bureaucrats at our expense.

So far, the USDA claims that the program is "voluntary." But in fact many small family farmers have discovered that their property has been registered with the system without their knowledge or consent, and some states have passed their own mandatory programs that are even more invasive than the federal one.

Fortunately, despite the USDA's attempt to implement the program by stealth, opposition (though belated) has been strong. There have been preliminary victories against NAIS. But this program -- and the central surveillance it represents -- remains a key part of the federal government's long-term plan to control all agricultural and human activity. NAIS must die.

Many organizations and individuals are working on just that. But "Opposition Central" for NAIS is NoNAIS.org by Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont. Go there to get news -- and get involved

**Rick** · 06-27-2008, 08:36 PM

That's actually pretty funny. On the one hand they talk about how poorly the government runs things then throw in a good dose of paranoia about tracking people. It could never ever be another great idea poorly executed could it? Somewhere buried in that paranoia is probably a good argument against what sounds like another USDA flop.

**Sam Reeves** · 06-27-2008, 09:03 PM

Maybe they want to tax the rain water that the cattle consumes.

**nell67** · 06-27-2008, 10:14 PM

Actually Rick, we had to register our farm and all our animals before the kids could show animals at the local 4-h fair 4 years ago,so this has been going on for a little while,however the amish do not have to follow the rules as I purchased goats and pigs from the Amish prior to the house burning,and NONE of their herd were tagged,guess no one thought to contact them and inform them of the requirements,eh?

**Rick** · 06-28-2008, 07:40 AM

I didn't doubt the program exists. It sounds like something the USDA would require after all the problems with mad cow disease. I can even see some reasonable thought processes that would lead up to it. It would, after all, allow the USDA to track infected animals back to the source of the disease. I can't imagine it was ever intended for small farms and/or family consumption but maybe it was.

I was just chuckling over the author's assertion that the government can't do anything right but they have it together enough to tag and track people.