Many have been signed up for NAIS without their permission or knowledge (nearly 14,000 in Idaho). Would you like to be signed up, say for a new car lease without your permission or knowledge? be responsible for the monthly payments and not even sure the car will run?

The reasons we are told NAIS is needed keeps changing. (Disease protection, bioterrorism, global market, mad cow, etc) Yet when Creekstone Beef wanted to test every cow they process for BSE, the USDA said NO!!!! Creekstone had to take the USDA to court to sue for the right to test for BSE! And what does my reporting to the USDA when I take my horse off my property have to do with big ag selling beef to Japan?

Even before the USDA actually tries to mandate NAIS, they have been working hard to bribe the states to do their dirty work through Cooperative Agreements with lots of money attached. They bribe organizations, associations, businesses, veterinarians, and farmers either to promote or join using ‘incentives’ – everything from popcorn and pliers to cash. They are attempting to add limits to services to those farmers who refuse to participate. In an earlier emergency situation farmers in desperate need of hay to feed their cattle were told that they had to have the Premises ID (in other words, they had to be enrolled in NAIS) before they could get it. The latest regulations that were posted for public hearings on the Federal Register attempt to tie NAIS to the various government disease control programs.

Simple rule – with the USDA and NAIS, ALWAYS be sure to ‘look behind the curtain’!

The single tag for a “group” option appears on its face to be a huge loophole for factory farms.

Also, they have dumped a lot of money - I have seen estimates in the half-billion range, I believe, if not more (I’d have to check) into a “voluntary” program that really will do little to improve food safety. The biggest problems are in the big meat processing/packing plants and with runoff from factory farms, where more resources are desperately needed. This tagging does absolutely nothing to address those issues at all.

Generally, from what I can tell, it does appear that some of the concerns may be overblown, but big ag clearly has its influence still at USDA and has shaped the current regulatory system to benefit them as much as possible, so the fears of small, family farms are not without some justification, even if they are, at this point at least, a bit exaggerated.

The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance - http://farmandranchfreedom.org/content/ - has been a leading voice for small ag on this. Again, I don’t necessarily know if everything they say is 100% accurate, but it does appear there is some foundation for concern.

For 90 researched articles on NAIS, the bad and the worse, go to http://www.naisSTINKS.com. Videos, posters and political cartoons also.

Thanks for exposing your associates to this dastardly USDA flawed thought scheme to increase taxes on livestock owners. Darol Dickinson