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This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
Beware the agriculture bureaucrats
January 24, 2007
Calvin and Carol Whittaker live in one of the most
beautiful parts of Idaho,
a little northwest of Idaho Falls, in the community of Leadore
(pronounced "lead ore" because it was a mining town when it
was named). They have lived in the area all their lives, as did their
parents. They have operated a ranch for nearly half a century, as did
their parents. And they have been productive, law-abiding citizens.
Several months ago, Carol heard about a
National Animal Identification System that would require registration
of their ranch into a federal database, and the numbering of their
livestock and reporting of any movement of their livestock off their
premises. The more she and Calvin learned about the program, the more
they opposed it.
Last May, they received a notice from the
Idaho Brand Board that it was time to renew their brand with the
state. Calvin completed the forms and returned them to the Department
of Agriculture Brand Board. A few weeks later, Carol received a card
from the Idaho Department of Agriculture with a 15-digit
identification number saying that their premises had now been
registered with the National Animal Identification System.
John Chatburn, deputy administrator of the
Division of Animal Identification for the Idaho Department of
Agriculture, says that the state of Idaho no longer registers ranches
into the NAIS without the owner's knowledge. He admitted that early
on, a former state veterinarian had signed up people without their
knowledge, but that the veterinarian was no longer employed by the
state, and that the practice had ended.
Chatburn was familiar with the Whittaker
situation. He said the Brand Board sent both a brand renewal form and
a premises identification registration form in the same envelope, and
that the Whittakers had registered their premises voluntarily. The
Whittakers said they were shocked when they received their
registration number and had no idea that they had registered in the
NAIS program.
Carol contacted the Department of Agriculture
and asked to have their premises removed from the registration. She
was told that it was impossible to remove a premises once it was
registered. Chatburn confirmed that the USDA's number allocation
system has no provision for removing a premises once it has been
registered. Even if the ranch or farm is sold to a developer and the
land is converted to hotels and apartment buildings, the land still
carries the premises identification number assigned by the NAIS.
USDA boasts that 349,000
premises have been registered. No one can
say how many of those registrations occurred without the owner's
knowledge. Chatburn says that in Idaho there are between 15,000 and
20,000 premises registered, but again, no one in Idaho knows how many
were registered without the owner's knowledge.
Chatburn says that although he knows of no
way a premises registration can be removed from the NAIS database, he
says an owner may request that the premises registration be
"deactivated." He says the procedure is simply to notify the
state
Department of Agriculture and ask that the
request be advanced to the USDA.
The NAIS was introduced in April, 2005 as a
voluntary program that would become mandatory beginning in 2007 with
premises registration, and then mandatory animal tagging with a
government-assigned number in 2008, and finally, mandatory reporting
of any movement of livestock animals off their premises within 24
hours, by 2009.
This program was supported by most of the
national livestock associations and manufacturers of the technology
required to implement the program. The American Farm Bureau
Association was a strong supporter.
When the program became public, however,
individual livestock owners rebelled, and formed
organizations to oppose the program. The
USDA had to modify the program by issuing a new "Strategy for the
Implementation of NAIS" in April of 2006. Opposition continued to
mount, and the USDA had to issue a new
publication in June 2006, saying that the
program was voluntary and would remain voluntary. And the American
Farm Bureau Association had to change its policy from support for a
"mandatory" program to support for a "voluntary"
program at its annual convention this month.
The USDA is handing out money to states that
are working to implement the NAIS at the state level. Wisconsin and
Michigan, so far, have made the program mandatory. Other states are
finding that grass-roots opposition has encouraged state legislatures
to prohibit a mandatory NAIS. Virginia, Massachusetts, Washington,
Indiana, Michigan, Texas and others have introduced legislation to
prohibit a mandatory program.
There is no legislation pending in Idaho;
the program there is purely administrative at the behest of the USDA,
which has given the state more than $1 million, according to Chatburn.
At press time, The USDA had not yet confirmed Chatburn's belief that a
registration can be "deactivated" if the owner requests it.
Carol and Calvin Whittaker are still
wondering how they got registered for the NAIS when they thought they
were simply renewing their brand. They still oppose NAIS and are
working every day to get free of the unintended registration, and to
warn all their friends and neighbors to beware of anything received in
the mail from the USDA or the state Department of Agriculture.
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