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 Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Activism Against NAIS

By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM

On March 11th, a congressional committee held a public hearing on plans to expand NAIS, the National Animal Identification System. This issue has been on my radar thanks to Monica Hughes' blogging on it on the FA/RM blog. An action alert from the Weston A. Price Foundation describes the proposal as follows:
The USDA has proposed a rule to require all farms and ranches where animals are raised to be registered in a federal database under the NAIS for existing disease control programs. The draft rule covers programs for cattle, goats, sheep, and swine. It also sets the stage for mandatory NAIS animal identification in the future.
It's not too late to comment. The alert noted that:
You can submit written testimony to the subcommittee up to 10 days after the hearing. Send your testimony to the Hearing Clerk, Jamie Mitchell, at Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov. Be sure to put "March 11 Hearing - Animal Identification Programs" in the subject line. Keep your comments clear, polite, and concise.
Here is the e-mail that I sent yesterday. I encourage others to write their own letters.
From: Diana Hsieh <diana@dianahsieh.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:58:58 -0600
To: <Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov>
Subject: March 11 Hearing - Animal Identification Programs

Dear Members of the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry --

I am writing to you to oppose National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

I am an ordinary citizen from Colorado, albeit with some interest in raising livestock myself. I am opposed to NAIS because:

* NAIS violates the property rights of all farmers. Farmers should not be required to tag their livestock any more than parents should be required to tag their children. Livestock is private property, and the government should respect that by limiting itself to protecting the rights of property and contract.

* The costs of compliance with NAIS will drive smaller farmers out of business. Sadly, I suspect that many large farms -- particularly those already on the government dole -- are pushing for NAIS for that very reason. They are eliminating their competition by government regulation. That's anti-American. The government should not be complicit in such schemes.

* NAIS will raise prices for consumers. Food prices have already gone through the roof. Particularly during an economic downturn, to require farmers to incur more costs -- which will then be passed on to consumers -- is very bad economic policy. Freedom, not government controls and regulation, is the key to economic prosperity.

* NAIS will not protect the food supply. The government does a lousy job of protecting the food supply, as the recent peanut butter and tomato scares show. The solution is not more burdensome regulations. It is a free market in agriculture. Under that system, Americans would have the capacity to buy from known local farmers or rely on the private certification of their choice. Americans will be responsible for their own safety -- just as they ought to be. We are not children: we are rational adults who ought to be free to act on our own best judgment.

NAIS is indefensible. It is anti-American. It should be wholly abandoned.

For more information on Free Market Agriculture, see the web site of Free Agriculture - Restore Markets (FA/RM) at http://fa-rm.org/.

-- DMH

Diana Hsieh
Ph.D Candidate, Philosophy, CU Boulder
E-mail: diana@dianahsieh.com
Blog: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DianaHsieh
Secular Government: http://www.SecularGovernment.us
Free Market Medicine: http://www.WeStandFIRM.org
I also sent that letter to my two senators and one representative in Washington.

If you express your opposition to this dangerous and expensive expansion of government control over the private property of farmers, write to the subcommittee hearing clerk at Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov. You can find and contact your own representatives via Congress.org. You are welcome to use my letter (or portions thereof) as you see fit. Please feel free to post what you write in the comments.

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 Comments

Monday, March 16, 2009 at 23:27:07 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Daniel
URL: http://thenearbypen.blogspot.com


Great letter! I liked these two lines especially: "Americans will be responsible for their own safety -- just as they ought to be. We are not children: we are rational adults who ought to be free to act on our own best judgment." Very true.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 0:41:28 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Innommable
E-mail: luis.a.lopez1(at)gmail.com

Thank you for bringing attention to this!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 6:11:01 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: j.d.
E-mail: j.d(at)aol.com

oh this is interesting! I just finished up a report on this very issue for one of my law classes. Basically I had to pick out a proposed rule and write to a hypothetical client about the impact. Spent about a week reading the comments and....people. are. pissed. I think the most important question I could come up with was what gains will be maid by switching to this nationalized tracking system? Because I can only see this as slightly improving the tracking system overall, but the cost will likely be several thousand farms, perhaps even into the 10's of thousands. Being that the government is proposing these changes, it should come as no surprise that in the very rule proposed, they agency admits it has not collected any data on how this will impact small farm operations; they go so far as point out that there are nearly 300k farms in the united states, a majority of them being small farms, yet neglect to assess the impact on the majority of these farms. Worse, they 'predict' that the compliance costs will be minimal, but anyone who has dealt with the government knows that A) that's nonsense, B) even if it starts out as minimal, costs will grow, and C)there's still a question of how they believe it will be 'minimal'--> the agency admits that they actually don't even know how many tag manufacturers there are, yet no discussion of how they believe it will be 'minimal'. I've found that the large farm operations are pushing to pass this rule into effect, naturally, to force out/acquire/hinder their competition.

I think the very least that should happen here is make it a voluntary system. But then, we're dealing with the government.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 9:29:51 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Jason Crawford
E-mail: jasonc(at)alumni.cmu.edu
URL: http://www.jasoncrawford.org

Thanks, Diana. I contacted the committee and my representatives, basically forwarding your note and saying that I agreed with it completely.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 12:04:19 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Cy Keckkows
E-mail: beefeater(at)atherosclerosis.com
URL: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/magneticcows.html

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/magneticcows.html

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