Ask yourself the following; What’s the dumbest thing you can think of if you have one chicken.
I published this about a year ago and NAIS disappeared from the radar but, as most of us know when big money is at stake and government officials who are more interested in serving themselves than serving the public are involved, things come back to haunt us. The NAIS program was tacked onto the latest farm bill, thanks to the people listed in this article.
If we’ve been paying attention, we’ll have noticed that all the tainted meat and produce recalls have been from the big agri-businesses, not the small farmer. This particular piece of legislation is bought and paid for by those same agri-business interests, plus those who stand to make lots on the radio ID devices.
You’ll think I’m making this up, so check it out at wwwusda.gov/nais. Don’t just read the summary. Summaries are written by those who want you to believe their viewpoint. Read it all, and read it like a lawyer, that’s who wrote it. The USDA draft program standards were released in April 2005. Maybe they thought the entire month was “April Fools.”
The following is not legal advice, it’s information for you to do with as you see fit.
Do you know what NAIS stands for? In USDA terms it means “National Animal Identification System” and is the brainchild of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA). NIAA is the frontman association for big corporate entities involved with meat production and marketers of hi-tech identification systems.
After 9-11, when everyone was afraid of their shadow and we were all scrambling to see how quickly we could give our freedoms away in return for illusory and impossible schemes that would protect us from all harm, the NIAA formulated a scheme that would play on our fear and allow them to capture all the meat sales in the US. Mad cow disease (BSE) helped fuel the fear and speed it along.
The NIAA proposed to the USDA that all animals should be registered in a federal database. That includes every chicken, duck, goat, cow, alpaca, pig, horse, pigeon, etc., all of them. Everyone who has an animal, for pleasure or for food, will have to have their premises registered with the database. If you take your horse to a show or on a trail ride you’ll have to inform the database within 24 hours. If you take your prize chicken(s) to the county fair, you’ll have to inform the database. You’ll have to register the birthplace of an animal and every time the animal leaves or enters the property you’ll have to inform the database. If you sell an animal to someone else, an animal dies, loses it’s ID tag, wanders off, is slaughtered or you just can’t find it, you have to make a report to the database. Each step of the entire process for each individual animal will require time and money from the individual owner. Corporations won’t have the same restrictions, they’ve thought this part out as you will see. Animals have always been considered personal property and licensing an animal would be no different than licensing other personal property, furniture, TV, stereo, books, etc. That’s how ridiculous it is. Later in this article, I’ll give you the specific sections of the documents to check out. (The document has changed, and at this writing, I don’t have the new section information).
The smoke and mirrors justification behind it is: it will make meat safer because there will be a way to track problems. How is that going to be possible to control and track every aspect without an armed guard present from raising, through processing, to delivery, to consumption? An air marshall is one thing, but a meat marshal is going too far. On the other hand, if you buy a chicken from your neighbor or small farm producer, then slaughter and prepare it under sanitary conditions yourself and consume it the same day, or shortly thereafter, how likely is it that it will spoil?
(Since first publishing this article I’ve received some correspondence from an inspector who spends their time checking on big food factories. They said, "You wouldn’t believe what goes on in those places. It makes a person not want to eat." Putting a tag on a cow will never replace cleanliness. The next step will be irradiating everythng we find in the supermarket. Irradiation kills all, the good, the bad, everything. It’s like antibiotics. Once everyhting is killed, the bad stuff, which is usually the most aggressive, takes over. I’ll be posting articles on Candida Albicans in the near future and they will give the reader insight into that issue. Once the small farmer is driven out of business, we won’t have any choice but to take what we can get. Food is the single easiest way to contol the population. Think about that.)
They, those who want to control the market, also contend, I think the smoking part has gotten to them, it will eliminate any possible terrorist activities concerning meat production, etc. Hundreds of people handle the products and are involved with the operation from beginning to end consumption. Trucks ship meat across the country, meat sits in truck stops and/or motels, unguarded. Distributors, meat markets and fast food places all get involved. If your neighbor or a small farm producer supplies the meat, what are the chances that terrorists will come in and tamper with his chicken?
Terrorists aside: anyone who’s been around big agribusiness animal production knows that cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. are raised in unsanitary conditions. Check it out for yourself by driving by a feedlot and taking a deep breath. Ever been in a meat processing/packing operation? Would you want to live downwind from a dairy?
The government wouldn’t let that happen you say. Go back and read paragraph two and see who’s making and implementing the laws. The USDA says that they will enforce the law.
During the early part of 2005 there were two major recalls of coliform bacteria contaminated meat, www.fsis, see usda.gov/Fsis_recalls.2005 (and more since). The total was one million pounds and was distributed nationwide. The meat was raised, processed and distributed by a major meat production corporation. There was no way to determine whether the meat was from one cow that contaminated the rest, from a contaminated herd, a problem during slaughter, processing, packing or distribution. Similar situations have occurred since. With the proposed NAIS laws that won’t change because there will still be no way to pinpoint the exact cause.
What will change is everyone who raises a cow, pig, goat, chicken, pigeon, duck, fish or fowl for food, etc. will be required to put GPS numbers on the property where the animal is kept and place hi-tech distance identification items (radio frequency identification device, electronic tags, implants, etc.) on each and every animal, including non-food animals like horses. The large corporations won’t have to tag and identify each animal, they’ll be able to use one number for an entire herd or group. See, I told you there’d be no way to pinpoint the cause. And, they don’t have to pay for each animal during the tagging and registration process either. A small producer or individual does, but they don’t. Pretty smart, huh. Big corporate bosses don’t get paid millions for sitting around and drinking cappuccino, they get paid for thinking how they can let you pay and how to control what you buy and how much you pay for it. They also work toward better ways to control every aspect of your life. One word for it is helotry, we’ve just brainwashed to believe we aren’t slaves.
Since first coming upon this NIAA information I’d wondered “Why horses?” Here’s one observation that a reader wrote to me about that I hadn’t thought of. A horse, in most modern day instances, isn’t likely to wander off and not be found. So, why track it? If you can track the horse, you can track the rider!
So, what’s the thought process behind this? Institutions like to clone and perpetuate themselves. I hate to break this news to some, but government is an institution. The bottom line with most corporations is the bottom line. One way to expand the bottom line is to control the market. If everyone has to get a product, no matter what product, from one source or consortium, the source can control the price by artificially changing the demand to supply ratio. If you control the supply you can artificially manipulate the demand and control the price. This is also true when the source controls who they supply. Can’t happen? First check out the price of oil and gasoline and the big oil profits of the last couple of years. Second, check out past supply tactics to control price, etc. by entities like Microsoft. I rest my case.
One contention for the controls, as proposed by the NIAA, is that it will enhance export markets. Small producers and individuals aren’t involved in export markets but will be expected to comply with, and pay for, the controls. My very limited experience in that area is most Europeans and Asians aren’t interested in the excessively high antibiotic use, genetic manipulation and lack of individual cow testing for mad cow disease, rejected by the USDA, as is the case in the US.
The NAIS will place extreme financial and time burdens on the small producers, homesteaders and individuals who are involved in meat production for sale or personal use. As stated, it will also place unnecessary burdens on non-food animals use such as horses and animals for show. The USDA admits that “there will be costs to producers” (plan pg. 11) and that “private funding will be required.”
Those involved in the NIAA include Monsanto, Monsanto is also involved in Terminator Seeds, GMO , also known as Frankenfoods (from Frankenstein), let that mental picture roll around inside your head for a moment and you’ll understand where the name came from, The National Pork Producers, Cargill Meat and Hi-tech I.D. equipment manufacturers like Digital Angel, Inc. EZ-ID/AVID ID and Micro Beef Technologies, Ltd., plus others to a lesser degree. The National Cattleman’s Beef Association wants to privatize the database and according to Lancaster Farming , Aug. 6, 2005 the NCBA wants it to be them who’s in control and who the registration fees would be paid to.
For more clarification read the following sections of the Draft Strategic Plan (PLAN) and Draft Program Standards (STDS). Stds pgs, 3,4, 6,7,10,12,13,17,20, 21,27,28. Plan pgs, 5,10,13,17.
Advice from opponents is: don’t voluntarily register or comply without at least first demanding and reading all the material.
Fresh meat comes from local sources, not something that has been shipped half way around the world.
The government giveth and the government taketh away. If you want your food supply and prices controlled, and want to have another freedom taken away, you can sit back and let it happen. Or, you can do your homework and voice your opinions to the USDA or contact your congressman.
Meanwhile, don’t sign anything that you haven’t read completely or volunteer to join a program if you don’t have all the information.
For more information go to http://www.nonais.org