11 Jan 2006
NAIS

Walter Jefferies from Sugar Mountain Farm had an interesting post yesterday on NAIS - the National Animal Identification System. He also commented here, asking for my opinion and help in "getting the word in the streets".

I've been aware of this bit'o'nonsense for quite some time, and have written my Congresscritters and state reps over it. To a man they responded with the "party line": this is required for "national security" (if they were Republicans) or this is required to rein in factory farm abuse if they're Democrats. The original legislation passed both houses of Congress by wide margins, and is supported by most breed associations and trade groups on some level, including many normally quite friendly to small producers.

Basically, this will mandate "premises registration" for any facility used in animal production (i.e. registering your farm or ranch with the state government, who will then share the database with the USDA and each other) and eventually will require individual marking of each animal - how this is to be accomplished is unclear.

I tried last year to get my fellow farmers here excited over it, to no avail. My mentor in this business, Kevyn, more or less supports the idea - and he's big in 4H, and well aware of the reporting requirements. Most other organic or natural farmers around here are Red Corpuscles in the Reddest of the Red States, and if Dubya and Mitch say it's OK, well, then, God bless'em and fill out yer forms.

In short, although I find the idea idiotic and draconian, fighting it on a political level is pretty much pissing into the wind, at this point.

But there is a saving grace here: as with any government program, the devil's in the details, and we're talking some serious details here.

The premises registration doesn't bother me: I do that every April 15th anyway. I also tag and/or tattoo my large livestock, and keep detailed pedigrees on most of them. Will this program mean more paperwork for me - sure, as any government program does. I already have an egg license, a food service license, and a reefer truck food distribution license. I file quarterly taxes, monthly sales taxes, monthly food/exempt sales taxes and keep my corporate information on file at every supplier I use to qualify for the sales tax exemptions. What's a few more forms on cattle, sheep and goats?

Ah, but there's the rub. The problem isn't registration and tracking of large livestock - it's poultry that causes the real headaches. I keep 200 laying hens and run meat birds in flocks of 200-400 at a time. And that pales in comparison to commercial operations: the average commercial flock is 60,000 birds. And we produce over 150,000 flocks per year. That's 9 billion meat chickens a year. Additionally, there's nearly a billion birds moving thru the national laying flock (about 300 million active layers at any given time) on a yearly basis. So make that 10 billion birds. Add in other poultry (ducks, turkeys, geese, commercial quail, Cornish hens, etc), and you're up to nearly 11 billion birds produced in the United States every year.

Theoretically, each bird will have to be "registered" and then each movement of the bird (from brooder to house, and from house to slaughter) recorded. That's three records for each bird, minimum. To accomplish the tracking, the records will have to contain the bird ID number, and a pointer back to the premises of origin, as well as the information pertinent to the record (movement from/to, birth, death, etc.). That's 33 billion records in this database just for poultry. Every year. Now add the rest of our livestock in and you'll see the implementation problem.

It'll be a real pain for me to track each of my birds, no doubt about it. But think about the problems the factory farms will face here: it'll be damn near insurmountable without considerably driving up their costs. And while legislators simply regurgitate the party line to me, I can assure you that they listen far more assiduously to those making large campaign donations, such as agriPAC's.

But assume it flies. Assume that we all dutifully tag and register each bird, cow, horse, pig and llama. And record every move it makes: my recent trip to Dulls would've generated over 100 records. And given the governmental proclivity for verbosity, I guarantee that each record will be considerably larger than it needs to be. What kind of computer system are they going to use to store and track this data? Whatever they use, it'll be quickly overwhelmed - it's simply not feasible to track this much data over any extended period - and the data will only be useful if tracked over an extended period.

In short, our best hope for defeating this proposition, or at least watering it down, is to depend on the technology being unable to implement it, and on the large producers to scream so loudly when it's actually mandated (currently it's strictly voluntary, but will be mandated at some point) that our Congresscritters sit up and take notice.

My prediction? This will go ahead, and will eventually morph into a logging system, where each producer logs activity for a given premise, which will be filed yearly. Obnoxious? Sure - government is obnoxious almost by definition. But it's not going to put me out of business, and I really think that, once the nightmare of actually doing it becomes apparent, it'll tone down to something we can live with. I hope I'm right.

One final caveat - the only thing that could literally force small producers out of business would be a bio-terror attack originating from a farm. Imagine a terrorist organization buying a small farm in the heartland and intentionally infecting the livestock with ... bird flu? anthrax? BSE? and then selling them through normal channels to slaughter. Once the epidemic was controlled, you can bet the public clamor for shutting down "insecure" livestock operations would be wild and successful. Of course, an Iranian genetic engineer could modify the tomato to exhibit more of it's familial characteristics, and backyard gardens would go the way of the dodo, too.

In the final analysis, it's all a matter of education, public perception, and a willingness to accept the responsibility of a free society. As Franklin famously quipped, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

00:00 /Agriculture | 2 comments | permanent link