Some Harvard farmers were among roughly 10,000 across the state who received letters from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) just before Thanksgiving, offering them an opportunity to opt out of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) program.
The program, designed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help health officials respond quickly to disease outbreaks in livestock, has three components: premise identification, or registration of each farm and its animals; animal identification, involving some type of electronic tagging; and tracking of livestock movement.
The MDAR’s letter this month addressed premise identification only and stated that information already gathered by local animal health inspectors about each farm would be uploaded to the NAIS database unless farmers notified the MDAR by Dec. 14 that they do not want to participate.
Prospect Hill Road resident Bonnie Chandler, who raises goats, sheep, and chickens on her small farm, has been an opponent of the program from its inception and this summer testified in favor of a bill that would pull the state’s support of the national program (H757). She said she received a copy of the letter just before the Thanksgiving holiday. The letter said that recipients had 45 days from the date of the letter to respond, but that date was Oct. 30, and the letters didn’t go out until Nov. 12, according to MDAR database administrator Joao Tavares.
Commenting on the short time given for allowing responses Chandler said, “They obviously don’t want us to opt out, and are making it as hard as possible.
No one should want to be on that system as far as I’m concerned,” she continued, adding that she had promptly sent an e-mail to Tavares, saying “count me out.”
Another recipient of the MDAR letter, Madigan Lane resident Joanne Karohl, who also raises goats, sheep, and chickens, said she thinks the NAIS program is “very ‘Big Brother,’” and is “a misdirection of resources.”
“The reporting requirements are ridiculous,” she said, “and then there are the costs. I’d have to ID and report movement on each animal. Any time an animal moves off the property—even to the vet—it has to be reported.”
The controversial program has spawned fears among small farmers that their livelihood will be threatened, that people will be fined for not registering their farms, and that the USDA will use the NAIS to provide government surveillance of livestock. Some people fear that the program would lead to the eventual registration of all animals, including pets.
According to the U.S. government’s NAIS website, www.usda.gov/nais, the focus of the program is agricultural animals only—livestock and poultry; the only animals recommended for identification are those moved from their premises to locations where they can come into contact with other animals. And the program is optional.
Brad Mitchell, director of biosecurity and regulatory services for the MDAR, said that much of the impetus for the NAIS program is that “[U.S.] trading partners are looking for it.”
“There is a demand that food be more traceable,” he said, especially in light of outbreaks of mad cow disease in Europe.
However, farmers like Karohl think NAIS is redundant.
“All of my animals are registered with two separate registries,” she said. “All are tattooed and identified, so you can tell exactly where an animal came from. As far as I can tell,” she added, “the origins of the program are with people who make these radio frequency ID tags.”
According to Mitchell, neither the animal identification nor the tracking aspects of the NAIS program have been defined yet.
“The USDA hasn’t figured out how to do it,” he said, adding that the MDAR has its own concerns about the tracking aspects of the program.
“We aren’t going to participate in a program that will cause problems for small farmers,” he said. “We want them to remain profitable.”
However, he pointed to premise registration as an effective way to respond to disease outbreaks.
“We do have a lot of programs to help prevent disease and programs to make sure farmers maintain sanitary conditions,” he said. “But if disease happens, we need a way to follow through.”
Commenting on the fact that many farmers already have their animals registered with one or more organizations, Mitchell said the problem is there is no consistency in the registrations.
“Most states already have some kind of premise registration,” he said, but different states have different requirements for different species. NAIS, he said, is “one consistent way to identify animals and premises.”
Asked why the letter about premise registration for the NAIS program used an “opt out” approach rather than an “opt in,” Mitchell said, “The majority of people we speak to want to participate in this.”
He said that people who want to be part of the program outnumber those who don’t by a margin of five to one.
Nevertheless, concerns raised by Chandler, Karohl, and many other farmers across the state prompted 14 legislators, including Jamie Eldridge, to throw their support behind house bill 757, requiring the MDAR to withdraw its support of NAIS. The bill argues that neither the U.S. Department of Agriculture nor the MDAR has demonstrated that the NAIS will prevent the spread of diseases of animal origin to humans or to other animals, or that it will benefit animal or public health.
The bill is among 400 before the state legislature’s joint agricultural committee that are due out of committee by next August.
