GUEST editorial
USDA uses tax dollars to purchase public policy
The USDA has paid $2.1 million to the National Cattle and Beef Association to secure their agreement to promote USDA’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS) to the association’s 29,000 members. Similar agreements have been made with the American Angus Association, the American Sheep Industry Association, the National Pork Board, the U.S. Animal Identification Organization, the National Milk Producers Federation, the Future Farmers of America, and who knows how many other groups.
NAIS, first proposed as a mandatory program, met ferocious opposition from ranchers, farmers, homesteaders, and a host of individuals who own horses and other animals. So strong was the opposition, that more than a dozen states introduced legislation to block the program at the state level.
Not to be outdone, USDA changed its strategy, and announced the program would be “voluntary,” but then started handing out money to secure cooperation from both non-profit organizations and state departments of agriculture. Michigan and Wisconsin were among the first states to make the program mandatory at the state level, and Colorado and North Carolina were among the first states to require that animals shown by 4-H and FFA students be registered in the “voluntary” national program.
Western ranchers are especially wary of any program that the government describes as “voluntary.” They remember all too well that the grazing permit program was introduced as a “voluntary” service offered by USDA, years ago. This program quickly became mandatory, and more grazing rights, transferred by treaty to the ranchers, were swallowed up by the government. Now, government claims that ranchers have no grazing rights, but are allowed to graze so-called “public lands,” for a fee, and only to the extent that the government allows.
Many livestock owners see a similar process in the works with NAIS. Once a livestock owner “voluntarily” registers his “premises” with the federal government, and reports the number and type of animals that reside there, the government can easily make the program mandatory, and dictate the number and type of animals that may be housed on that premises—anytime the government decides to do so.
There is no legitimate reason to impose this program on producers. The claim that it will allow the government to effect a 48-hour trace back in the event of a disease outbreak is bogus. There are already multiple programs in place to adequately identify diseased animals, as well as their recent history. There has been no serious disease outbreak in this country for decades. The occasional emergence of a diseased animal has been quickly identified and controlled. Most often, these diseased animals are imported from other countries.
NAIS is designed by, and for, large exporters, and the manufacturers of the identification tags and tag readers. USDA has become the tool of these industries, and USDA is using the tax dollars of all Americans to impose the will of these industries on all producers.
Congress has not yet authorized USDA to implement any animal identification system, but it has supplied the hundreds of millions of dollars USDA has used to develop the program and to pay special interest groups to help sell it to the public. NAIS is not necessary. It will be an unbearable burden on small producers; it will do nothing to improve food safety, and it will swell the already bloated USDA bureaucracy, while enriching only the industry that designed the program.
The National Animal Identification System is a USDA program that must be stopped.
Bert N. Smith
Ruby Valley, NV