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Texas tries to stop NAIS

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
It looks like Texas is trying to stop NAIS too. Hope they have better luck than South Dakota did with HB 1224.

How many other states have legislation pending or have passed legislation to keep NAIS voluntary, do any of you know?

Bill Filed in Texas House to Stop Mandatory NAIS
March 15, 2009


Representative Kleinschmidt has filed HB 3322 to stop the Texas Animal Health Commission from making NAIS mandatory! HB 3322 is identical to SB 682, filed earlier this session by Senator Eltife.

Under the current law, the TAHC has the authority to make NAIS mandatory whenever it wishes. HB 3322/ SB 682 remove that authority and the civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance. The bills also contain several key protections to prevent coercive or misleading tactics from being used to implement NAIS, including the misuse of existing disease control programs. HB 3322/ SB 682 does include a provision that allows the TAHC to mandate the NAIS if and only if the USDA adopts a final rule under the Administrative Procedures Act mandating NAIS. This "federal trigger" is not ideal, but it has been carefully limited.

Ultimately, we must fight NAIS at BOTH the state and the federal level. By passing this bill in Texas, we not only provide important protections for Texans, but we send a signal to Congress that Texans are opposed to the NAIS, helping us at the federal level.

Neither bill has been set for a committee hearing yet, and we anticipate significant opposition to getting the bills out of committee. So it is critical that more legislators step forward to co-sponsor these bills, to provide the impetus to move them forward!!

Please call your State Senator and Representative this week to urge him or her to co-sponsor SB 682 and HB 3322!

You can read the bill and follow its progress at http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=81R&Bill=HB3322
 

Trinity man

Well-known member
Texas Animal Health Commission has very little money to run its department itself most likely run the ID program. The director over my area said it will never pass here, unless they put more money into their department which is not likely. Because the state is getting real short on money. Texas hasn't been refunded from all the storms that have hit the gulf coast area. I know the department I work out of (USDA-AMS) department that there was talk that our department runs it. But here in Texas we are just contractors that cover only a small area and don't have the man power to do it either. So if it does pass good luck on them getting someone to do it. They might need hazard pay for these ranchers are deadly against it.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
USDA to host NAIS listening sessions in seven states



(4/30/2009)


Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the schedule for listening sessions regarding the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) to be held in seven states in May. (Yup, During calving and Planting Time )

The listening sessions will include information about the current program, as well as an opportunity to give public testimony or ask program-related questions, according to an April 30 U.S. Department of Agriculture statement. Discussion sessions related to the program's cost, impact on small farmers, privacy and confidentiality, liability premises registration, animal identification and animal tracing will allow producers to provide their input on ways to make NAIS into something they can support.

"USDA needs to hear directly from our stakeholders as we work together to create an animal disease traceability program we can all support," Vilsack said

The public meetings will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time, with registration one hour prior to each meeting. The meetings will be held:

* May 14 in Harrisburg, Pa.;

* May 18 in Pasco, Wash.;

* May 20 in Austin, Texas;

* May 21 in Birmingham, Ala.;

* May 22 in Louisville, Ky.;

* May 27 in Storrs, Conn., and

* June 1 in Greeley, Colo.

Additional information on the meetings can be found at www.usda.gov/nais/feedback.shtml.

'Really listening'
Secretary Vilsack takes his own notes at a recent NAIS meeting


(MEATPOULTRY.com, April 24, 2009)
by Steve Bjerklie

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




It could easily become one of the most contentious issues dividing the meat industry — if it isn’t that already — but industry representatives who attended a meeting earlier this month with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack seemed pleased with how the secretary is choosing to handle the debate over the future of the National Animal Identification System, at least so far.

"The secretary made it clear during the meeting that this is his first foray into the issue," Colin Woodall, executive director of legal affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and an attendee at the gathering, told MEATPOULTRY.com. "What probably impressed me the most was that the secretary took a lot of notes — he was taking his own notes. He seemed to be really listening to what everyone had to say."

A total of 28 organizations, mostly producer groups like the NCBA but also representatives from organizations representing packers and processors, took part in the meeting. Each representative had five-to-eight minutes in which to present his or her group’s point of view. USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service began implementing NAIS in 2004, but the program has been subject to delays and modification ever since as the industry and USDA debate how far-reaching an NAIS should be.

"The secretary is inclined to favor NAIS, so the real decision is whether the program’s going to be voluntary of mandatory. This meeting was the first step in that process," said Woodall. The April 15 meeting will be followed by several "town hall"-type gatherings hosted by the secretary to be held at various locations throughout the U.S.

In general, meatpackers and processors favor a livestock identification system and many prefer a mandatory program, such as was instituted in Europe following the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and foot-and-mouth disease crises of the 1990s, which devastated beef industries across Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom. A traceback system tied to a federally managed computer database would allow faster detection of problem-source livestock and more rapid containment of diseases, proponents of mandated traceback argue. Opponents, however, see the issue in terms of privacy, property rights and liability.

"One of our biggest concerns is confidentiality of information," said Woodall. "When it comes to keeping private information private, the government’s track record is pretty sketchy, let’s be honest about it. Until we have a firm, iron-clad guarantee of confidentiality, we can’t support a mandatory NAIS program." There has been some concerns voiced in the producer community as well that meatpackers would be able to use a traceback system to assign liability to producers for things like pathogenic contamination. At present, packers and processors found by USDA inspectors to have contaminated and/or adulterated product must bear the costs of a product recall.

Woodall told MEATPOULTRY.com that producer organizations are also particularly concerned that anti-meat activists could access information in a government-managed traceback system, using the data to target ranches and farms for mayhem and vandalism. Until a federal judge in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ruled otherwise earlier this month, there were worries among producers that NAIS data would be accessible through Freedom of Information Act requests. The ruling held that NAIS data is protected by the Privacy Act.

Even though Vilsack has made public statements supporting NAIS, Woodall said he likes what he’s seen so far from the secretary in terms of dialogue. "There’s been a firm commitment from the secretary to take a step back and take a look at the whole thing," the NCBA executive commented. "He’s not against making some changes to what’s been proposed so far. I’m satisfied too, that he is taking our point of view very seriously."
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Multi-tags face chop in Australia
Brian Clancy

June 11, 2009

THE multi-tagging of sheep and lambs as part of the National Livestock Identification System has been deferred and is likely to be abandoned.

Known as transaction tagging, whereby sheep bought by restockers and lot feeders would have to be retagged each time they were sold, was scheduled for July 1 as part of the on-going development of the NLIS for sheep and goats.

But this week NLIS management committee chairman Ian Feldtmann said transaction tagging would be deferred.

Mr Feldtmann wouldn't elaborate as to the reasons, though he said state governments had the ultimate control of animal-health issues relating to livestock identification.

He said a recent meeting of the respective ministers failed to agree on a number of matters relating to transaction tagging.

In the meantime Victoria is to push ahead with its own system for recording mob-based movements of sheep and lambs from July 1.

Victoria will be the first state to do so, though all other states have agreed to the system but have yet to set an implementation dates

Agriculture Minister Joe Helper said the mandatory transaction tagging, along with other enhancements for traceability, would be deferred for further national consideration.

Mr Helper said lamb finishers were one sector of the sheepmeat supply chain who didn't want to tag every lamb they bought.

"To address this issue, (the) Victorian Sheep Identification Advisory Committee has endorsed the development of a national business plan to address the remaining gaps in the current system and to investigate the feasibility of introducing a system based on electronic tags," Mr Helper said.

Department of Primary Industries' animal standards manager Tony Britt said Victorian producers selling non-vendor bred lines of sheep would still have the option of recording the Property Identification Code attached by previous owners on the accompanying National Vendor Declaration form.

Dr Britt said mob-based movement recording would operate similar to that of cattle except without individual ID.

He said potential buyers of sheep would be required to register their PICs prior to a sale.

Saleyard operators would then be responsible for forwarding details of both the vendor's and buyer's PICs, along with numbers of sheep bought or sold, to the NLIS sheep database.

Dr Britt acknowledged saleyard operators might charge a fee, but said that had to be weighed against the cost of any breakdown in the traceability of any major exotic disease such as foot and mouth.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Farmers protest animal ID system at Mo. meeting



By CHRIS BLANK, Associated Press Writer

News Tribune - Missouri

Published: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:00 AM CDT



Hundreds of Midwestern farmers called Tuesday for the federal government to scrap a national livestock identification system, saying it would fail to make food safer and intrude on private businesses.



"You guys don't know what the heck you're doing," David Hannes, a farmer from Mountain Grove near the Arkansas border, told U.S. Department of Agriculture employees at a town hall meeting.



The USDA started the National Animal Identification System in 2004 to ensure the safety of nation's meat by helping the agriculture department track down livestock during disease outbreaks. Animals are tagged, and information about them and the farms where they live are kept in a searchable database.



USDA veterinarian David Hopson said the tracking system would help officials respond to :disease outbreaks more quickly because they would know where livestock are and have been. The system also will help open foreign markets to American meat products faster, he said.



"We need a good system in place to keep our U.S. livestock healthy," Hopson said.



Individual states decide whether to participate in the animal tracking program and whether to make farmers' participation voluntary or not.



A 2008 Missouri law bars the state Department of Agriculture from participating in a mandatory livestock tracking program without the explicit approval of the Legislature. Michigan became the first state in 2007 to make parts of the program mandatory by requiring radio frequency identification ear tags to be attached to cattle and dairy cows.



Tuesday's rancorous town hall meeting at a hotel in Jefferson City was sponsored by the federal agriculture department and drew producers from Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kansas and Wisconsin.



Several dozen protesters, including some farmers, stood outside the hotel, while inside, the audience greeted critics with loud cheers, standing ovations and shouts of approval.



The tracking system is "irrelevant and unnecessary," said Rhonda Perry, program director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, which helped sponsor the protests. It will not make the nation's meat supply safer because the problems have been at the processing facilities, said Perry, who farms near Armstrong in mid-Missouri.



Others sharply criticized the USDA's competency and honesty while USDA employees sat less than 10 feet away. Numerous speakers criticized government regulations that they said make it harder for American farmers to stay in business.



Steve Willard, president of the Missouri Cattlemen's Association, said no issue has triggered as much controversy as the livestock tracking system and implementing it could be a "costly mistake" given the strong opposition.



The "country was built on a free enterprise system and that should not be interrupted," Willard said.



Of the 55 people who spoke in nearly four hours, only one pork producer endorsed the tracking system.



Brent Sandidge, who lives in rural Saline County about halfway between Kansas City and Jefferson City, noted that pork sales plummeted during the recent swine flu outbreak, even though pigs weren't spreading the disease. He warned other livestock producers that one infection that is not quickly contained could ruin their industries.



"I watched swine flu destroy our markets," Sandidge said before hecklers interrupted him and he stormed out of the hotel.



On the Net:



National Animal Identification System: http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/



newstribune.com
 
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