Need-to-know info on animal ID: the USDA has targeted farms and livestock facilities, and their livestock, for intrusive, unnecessary, and eventually mandatory identification and tracking regulations.

The United States Department of Agriculture would have you believe Americans are at high risk from being infected with one or more animal-borne diseases--such as mad cow disease and Asian bird flu.

The USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) promises animal tracking from birth through death to stave off the transmission of these diseases. Animals will be identified using a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag, or other type of identification mechanism. Species to be covered by the system include cattle, swine, sheep, goats, horses, poultry, bison, deer, elk, llamas, and alpacas.

The USDA claims the NAIS is necessary to help make our food safe, and they have done a good job of marketing the program. A thoughtful examination of the facts, however, reveals the NAIS is not as portrayed.

Is the NAIS Legal?

The NAIS is patently illegal, posing problems on several constitutional fronts.

The NAIS is clearly in opposition to the search and seizure laws upheld by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. If the NAIS is implemented, USDA officials will not need a warrant to enter a premises to inspect animals; they will be able to enter private property whenever they deem it "necessary." Also, the NAIS Draft Program Standards (DPS) indicate that identification will include the GPS coordinates of the premises where the animals are kept. According to Mary Zanoni, who holds a law degree from Yale and is now the executive director of Farm for Life, a nonprofit organization supporting small-scale and sustainable agriculture, legal precedents define GPS monitoring as an illegal search of citizens' homes.

As if that weren't enough, the NAIS also has the potential to violate both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which state that no one can be deprived of property without due process of law. The USDA claims the right to remove animals from a premises, and it makes no mention of remuneration to the rancher.

"The federal government doesn't have jurisdiction to come onto your private property and put a tag on your animal," said former Congressman Helen Chenoweth-Hage. "It's a due process issue." But, she said, the feds have a long history of overlooking the constitutional protections for life, liberty, and property.

The USDA is ignoring the illegality of the NAIS and is trying to convince states and agricultural groups that the NAIS is necessary, promoting it under three flagship tactics: disease, terrorism, and market competitiveness.

Will the NAIS Prevent Disease?

The spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease," is the most prominent mantra of the USDA when promoting the NAIS. The truth is that the NAIS is not necessary for the control of BSE. In 1998, a Harvard Center for Risk Analysis study (commissioned by the USDA) concluded that, if BSE were introduced into the United States, due to the preventive measures already in place, it would be extremely unlikely to become established here. According to the Harvard study, "Measures in the U.S. that are most effective at reducing the spread of BSE include the ban on the import of live ruminants and ruminant meat and bone meal from the UK (since 1989) and all of Europe (since 1997) by USDA/APHIS, and the feed ban instituted by the Food and Drug Administration in 1997 to prevent recycling of potentially infectious cattle tissues. This feed ban greatly reduces the chance that BSE will spread from a sick animal back to other cattle through feed." Of the three BSE-positive cows in the United States, not one entered the food supply (and at least one came from Canada, which ironically already has a system similar to the NAIS).

Not only does the United States already have measures in place to protect the food supply from BSE, but worldwide, BSE is a diminishing threat. Cases of BSE have declined about 50 percent per year over the last three years, with only 474 animals dying of BSE in 2005. Human deaths related to BSE have a similar rate of decline, with only five deaths in 2005 (all in the United Kingdom).

The cattle industry already has excellent identification systems in place, such as branding and tattoos. These systems are already working, say ranchers; therefore, the NAIS is not necessary. Plus, the great majority of contamination of meat (such as improperly mixing intestines or spinal material with ground beef) occurs at the processing plant, not at the farm. Tagging cows won't prevent such carelessness.

Will the NAIS Reduce Terrorism?

Another justification for the NAIS is protecting our food supply from terrorist attack. "September 11, 2001, also taught us that we have to prepare for potential intentional disease introductions. NAIS is a top USDA priority," said William Hawks, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. But as rancher Len McIrwin pointed out, the NAIS will do nothing to reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks on U.S. food. McIrwin, who runs about 5,000 head of beef cattle in eastern Washington, said there is nothing to prevent a terrorist (or an unscrupulous competitor) from sneaking into an auction barn, replacing one of his cows with a diseased cow, and placing his cow's tag on the diseased cow. The NAIS, said McIrwin is "tracking tags, not cows."

Zanoni concurs, stating; "The Department's own proposals suggest that the counterfeiting and theft of tags will quickly become a problem."

What Is the True Agenda?

The NAIS was conceived by the large meat producers in the late '90s as an alternative to country-of-origin meat labeling legislation introduced by Chenoweth-Hage. "We label everything--clothes, cat food, fish food--but not the meat we put into our bodies," said Chenoweth-Hage. A high percentage of the meat that is sold in U.S. stores that bears the USDA sticker comes not from U.S. ranches, but from many foreign countries, whose food safety and environmental standards are not as high as ours.

Chenoweth-Hage's meat labeling bill would have allowed consumers to choose between American-grown and foreign-grown beef. But the large meat packers, who sell most of the foreign-grown beef, knew consumers would opt for American-grown beef--and thus, the large meat packers would lose money. So, said Chenoweth-Hage, they got together and created the NAIS program, which instead of properly labeling foreign-grown beef, would improperly burden American beef producers. "The shoe is on the other foot," said Chenoweth-Hage. It is ludicrous, she said, that the USDA should create a new huge arm of bureaucracy in the name of making our food safer, while giving a "wink and a nod" to non-traceable imported beef. The meat labeling bill, although passed in 2002, has not been implemented due to "lack of funding"--although the USDA has spent millions on the NAIS.

Kenny Fox, a rancher and regional vice-president for the South Dakota Stockgrowers' Association, states: "The only supporters of an unnecessary mandatory animal identification program are the companies that stand to sell billions of dollars worth of equipment, the USDA that wants a feather in its cap by deceptively claiming it is somehow managing disease, and the large meatpacking companies."

What Effect Will the NAIS Have?

As with every government regulation program ever conceived, the NAIS will have one predictable effect: it will drive the cost of the regulated commodity sky-high. Fees, equipment, and required paperwork will cost farmers a small fortune--and many of the smaller producers will be forced out of business.

Rick Stott, a board member of the U.S. Animal Identification Organization, said that the projected cost is $1-$2 per head. But at the 2005 ID/INFO EXPO, a presentation by the Smithfield Beef Group indicated that the total cost of an RFID identification system--including the tag, reader, data accumulator, software, Internet access, subscriptions and upgrades, and labor--could total as much as $24.10 per head for a small herd. For larger herds, economies of scale kick in.

Zanoni estimates that a moderate-sized dairy would generate about 550 reportable events each year (such as selling bull calves, culling cows and excess heifers, and recovering escaped cattle). As Zanoni points out, a farmer would have to interrupt his or her work an average of 1.5 times per day to submit information to the USDA database. Western ranchers are faced with the nearly impossible task of locating every single cow at any given moment. McIrwin said that 10 percent of his cows each year either lose their tags, stray, or die and are eaten by scavengers. Trying to keep the tracking database current in such situations is obviously impractical.

"Instead of farming, I'll be worrying about keeping up my compliance level, just to stay out of jail," said Eric Vimont, who runs a start-to-finish grass-fed beef operation in Benton City, Washington. He is also concerned that down the road, the NAIS will be used to interfere with farming operations, such as feed specifications and handling methods. "There's so many ways this is going to bite people, it's mind-boggling," said Vimont.

Perhaps we could learn by example. Australia has had a mandatory RFID cattle-tracking program since 2001. Brad Bellinger, Australian Beef Association Vice-chairman, said of Australia's National Livestock Identification System (NLIS), "Financial costs like NLIS and restrictions upon our management are seriously eroding our competitive advantage in supplying an increasingly contested world beef market." Keith Ringer, who raises beef on 14,000 acres in Colveville, Washington, said that an Australian rancher speaking at a Washington Cattlemen's Association meeting reported that the NLIS was originally supposed to cost only $3 per head, but was now over $35/head, and was inaccurate to boot. There is no reason to suspect the NAIS would be any better.

According to Vimont, the NAIS will "do everything but make our food safe," by pushing smaller farmers out and replacing them with factory farms. Vimont claims that the production model based on small producers, good product, and relatively manageable scale, where the consumer knows the producer, is the best model for safe food. "If you get bigger, you lose quality control," said Vimont. Zanoni said, "The USDA plan will only stifle local sources of production through over-regulation and unmanageable costs."

What's Next for the NAIS?

The USDA has managed to convince major farm and veterinarian organizations that backing the NAIS program is in the best interests of "public safety." Many states now have voluntary premises identification programs in place: Wisconsin has made premises identification mandatory, and Indiana intends to have compulsory premises registration by September 2006. Some states have assigned premises ID numbers to farmers without their knowledge or consent.

The USDA is trying to implement NAIS through almost any means possible. It is even trying to get states to institute NAIS by bypassing state lawmakers. For example, in Texas, the USDA circumvented the state legislature by gifting federal money directly to state regulatory agencies, giving the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) $1 million to implement the NAIS in Texas. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns said that the USDA has awarded about $27 million to state and tribal ag agencies. According to Dore Mobley, a public affairs specialist with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "The USDA will have invested close to $85 million by the end of 2006 for this system."

But the public reaction to the NAIS has not been overly positive. In Texas, the proponents of the NAIS confidently set July 1, 2006 for the implementation of mandatory premises registration. However, livestock owners raised such a fuss that the TAHC first postponed a February meeting to March, then again to May; now the TAHC says they won't address the issue again until early in 2007.

Tennessee State Rep. Frank Niceley (R) has introduced a measure that would opt Tennessee out of the national electronic cattle tracking system. Niceley said the NAIS "is not the best idea for anyone except people who are manufacturing radio chips."

The USDA, no longer confident that it can coerce all 50 states to implement the program, even with sizeable "bribes," has moved on to plan B--according to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), "[NAIS] is an issue we're going to deal with in the [2007] Farm Bill." Also, the USDA has modified its goals, which originally called for a mandatory NAIS to be in place by 2009. Now Johanns says 2009 is the goal for a functional voluntary system. But Johanns said that if certain benchmarks aren't met, the USDA would consider making the system mandatory--claiming the USDA has that authority without Congress passing any new legislation.

The NAIS is far from dead. But the NAIS doesn't have to happen--if we keep our state and national policymakers informed. Texas and Tennessee are setting the tone for the rest of the nation.

More Truth About Disease

The USDA cites other diseases, in addition to "mad cow disease," as proof that the NAIS is necessary--Asian bird flu, Newcastle Disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and brucellosis. The USDA is relying on knee-jerk reactions to perceived threats in order to thrust the NAIS down Americans' throats. Asian bird flu is spread primarily by wild, migrating waterfowl and shore birds--certainly the USDA cannot hope to tag and track wild birds. One more thing--unlike BSE, there is no evidence that eating properly cooked poultry can transmit avian flu. In other words, only people who work at factory poultry farms, where there are thousands of birds, face the likelihood of any foreseeable risk, if anyone does.

Newcastle Disease also infects poultry. But again, an invasive tracking system isn't necessary to control this disease and won't prevent it. The disease was originally introduced in the United States by illegally imported fighting cocks, which, of course, would not be tagged. And a vaccine against Newcastle Disease has been licensed by the USDA.

Foot-and-mouth disease hasn't occurred in the United States in over 70 years. In addition, although it poses an economic threat to livestock producers, it does not pose a health risk to humans (and is distinct from the hand, foot, and mouth disease recently prevalent in Malaysia). Individual states have their own programs for eradicating brucellosis, and many states are brucellosis-free.

The NAIS isn't meant to keep us safe--it is made to keep us under government control.

--JODIE GILMORE