Old Big Brother Had a Farm

USDA ID-tag plan for farm animals has some small-scale farmers unhappy 10

If only Orwell could get a load of this.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is promoting a system that would have farm-animal owners and livestock handlers attach microchips or other ID tags to their furry and feathered charges so they could be monitored throughout their lifetimes by a centralized computer network. The National Animal Identification System, as it's known, has been in development by the department since 2002, with help from an agribusiness industry group that represents bigwigs like Cargill and Monsanto.

Is the USDA's ID-tag plan a baaaaad idea?

Photo: iStockphoto.

Sounds like Animal Farm meets Big Brother. Yet, while some small-scale farmers are outspoken in their criticism of the scheme, many in the agriculture community say it's high time the U.S. more carefully tracked livestock. The question is how best to do it -- and the devil, as always, is in the details.

The vision, says Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, is to create a comprehensive high-tech tracking system that would eventually know the whereabouts of every cow, llama, hog, catfish, ostrich, and other farm critter in the nation so that animal-borne diseases such as avian flu, mad cow, and foot-and-mouth disease could be easily and systematically kept in check. If an animal were discovered to be a carrier of a disease, this system could supposedly track every location it had been in through the course of its life and the other animals it may have come in contact with; those exposed could then be killed before the disease spread out of control.

Some independent farmers are concerned that the costs of NAIS would be particularly burdensome for small-scale operators, who are already struggling to stay afloat. "It's horribly insidious," says Lynn Miller, editor of Small Farmer's Journal. "The USDA is poised to push us off our farms."

Dore Mobley, spokesperson for the USDA, counters that such claims are greatly exaggerated. "It's simply not true," she says, explaining that the department has no intention of putting any farmer, no matter how small, out of business. And though she acknowledges that farms of every size will have to share the costs of the program, she reasons that it is "an investment in the future of animal agriculture from which all will benefit."

Martha Noble of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which advocates on behalf of midsize and small-scale farming, acknowledges that some form of tracking system may be necessary for public-health reasons. "We are not opposed to a tracking program, per se," she says. "We understand the need for effective monitoring of animals and disease, but there's a lot of disagreement about how is it going to be implemented, who is in control, and how is it going to be paid for."

Some small-scale farmers also suspect that the program was designed by big industry, for big industry -- and, indeed, there's no denying that industry had a heavy hand in it. According to Glenn Slack, president of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, a trade group, "The program is largely based on a plan developed in 2002 through an industry-government collaborative effort facilitated by NIAA." NIAA represents, among others, the biggest meat producers in the U.S., including Cargill Meat Solutions and the National Pork Producers Council, and the makers of high-tech animal-ID equipment, such as Micro Beef Technologies and Digital Angel. The latter group, needless to say, could benefit directly from a nationwide animal-ID program.

Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States has taken no position on the program, but argues it could actually be better for the animals than current tagging methods: "If anything, microchips may be less invasive to animals than branding or ear-clipping, which has been going on for eons," he says. And according to Mobley, the ID program would enable officials to be more prudent in choosing which animals are killed in the event of a disease outbreak, rather than wiping out herds and flocks on a large scale, as has generally been the approach heretofore. (Granted, most of the animals are destined for the slaughterhouse anyway, but that's another story.)

I'm Going to Have to See Your ID

The program -- which is thus far voluntary, but could eventually become mandatory -- is designed to unfold in three stages. First, farmers and producers would register the barns, factories, slaughterhouses, and even homes where their animals -- be they 10,000 cows, a dozen chickens, or a single potbellied pig -- reside and are processed.

Second, animals born or living on those premises would be assigned a 15-digit federal ID number and a tag -- in some cases, an implanted radio-frequency identification (RFID) device. But producers of certain species such as chickens and swine that are bought, moved, and slaughtered in big groups could be allowed to identify an entire lot with a single ID number -- a less time-intensive and expensive process. Critics argue that since factory farms are in the business of mass production of animals, this would present them with a cost advantage. Miller says this is a loophole that effectively "renders the whole program moot."

Third, data on each animal's whereabouts would be compiled and regularly updated in a centralized computer network, which the USDA expects to be up and running on a national scale by 2009 at the earliest. The department has suggested that animals' RFID tags could eventually be tracked real-time by a Global Positioning System, but there is no clear time frame for this scenario.

Many producers have voiced concern that if the government controls this kind of proprietary information about the purchase and sale of their products, the IRS or a competitor could get ahold of it through a Freedom of Information Act request. That's presumably much of the reason why, though the first two stages of NAIS are intended to be carried out by federal and state agencies, the USDA has decided that the third stage of the program should be overseen by private entities. Exactly which entities remains to be seen. (Johanns, who happens to be the former governor of a big beef-producing state, Nebraska, had at one point supported a proposal that would have a spin-off of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association take a leadership role in overseeing the database for much of the program. That didn't go over so well.)

Already some 200,000 large-scale facilities are voluntarily participating in stage one, having registered themselves on the state level, perhaps believing that a tracking program will eventually help demonstrate the safety of their meat products to overseas customers. Says NIAA's Slack, "In addition to providing a much-needed national emergency-response capability in the event of disease outbreak, NAIS will help enlarge the international market for U.S. livestock products."

A draft plan released by the USDA last April proposed making the program mandatory as soon as 2008, and indicated that there would be no significant federal funding assistance for the tagging process. The proposal ignited a firestorm of opposition within the farming community, and Johanns has since backed off the mandatory aspect.

The USDA hopes to release a revised plan by the end of this year, and it will likely leave to state officials decisions about whether to make the program voluntary or mandatory. The agency's NAIS coordinator, Neil Hammerschmidt, said in a speech last month to the cattle-industry group R-Calf USA that USDA isn't sure whether it has the authority to impose a federally mandated program that requires producers to report to a private entity.

In the meantime, states are moving on their own to put the animal-tracking system in place. Minnesota and Wisconsin have approved measures that make stage one of the NAIS program mandatory, according to Mobley, and Maine, North Carolina, Texas, Vermont, and Washington are considering similar legislation. The USDA has allocated more than $60 million to help states implement the animal-ID program, Mobley says.

Not Safe, Just Sorry

What irks Mary Zanoni, executive director of Farm for Life, which works to protect the rights of small farmers, is that she believes the current USDA proposal would not make the U.S. meat supply appreciably safer. "Basically, the NAIS system would be of no use at all in dealing with the most common types of meat contamination in the U.S., the occurrence of pathogens such as listeria or E. coli in processed meat," she says. That's because when contaminants occur in industrial-scale quantities of meat -- as is often the case -- and are not discovered until the meat has been distributed through the supply chain, it is all but impossible to find the source. "There is no way to identify individual cows from one million pounds of hamburger," she says.

But would the NAIS help control the spread of mad cow or avian flu? "We have reams of scientific data that tell us without exception that by far the highest incidence of any transmittable contagion happens in industrial farm applications," says Lynn Miller. "That's where animals are in cramped, unhealthy conditions, and vulnerable to widespread disease outbreak." If the USDA wants to control disease, he says, it should develop standards for healthier animal conditions and then put in place a monitoring and tracking system solely for factory farms.

Zanoni sums up the views of many independent farmers: "Real food security comes from raising food yourself or buying from a local farmer you actually know. The USDA plan will only stifle local sources of production through over-regulation and unmanageable costs."

Amanda Little, Grist’s former Muckraker columnist, is author of Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells—Our Ride to the Renewable Future. Her articles on energy and the environment have been published in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Outside, and New York magazine.

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  1. jropergirl Posted 7:36 am
    10 Mar 2006

    The operative word is HAD....Since when it is the government's business how many hens grandma has? Or where and when I take my horse? What this article doesn't' mention is that I will have to register my Premisis- read home/barn-(and pay for this), I will have to microchip my horses (read pay for this too).  Furthermore, my horses will no longer be mine- they'll be part of a "national herd"- it's in the USDA language.  
    I will also have to tell a state official when I decide I want to take my horse to a rodeo, or for a stroll around the block.  I'll have to let them know when I bring him back and I'll have to tell them what other horses I came in contact with.  NONE OF THIS is their business.

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  2. Henwhisperer Posted 7:50 am
    10 Mar 2006

    My chickens are a part of the Nat'l Herd?And your sheep, his goats, that horse. You know NAIS is headed down a very deep and slippery slope. Someone should look into the grants and "gifts" the individual state Agriculture Depts are getting. In Vermont it was a $114,000 grant and a $100,000 "gift" that was not earmarked and did not go through the Ways and Means committee.
    We, the people, must wake up.
    Henwhisperer

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  3. pubwvj Posted 9:11 am
    10 Mar 2006

    NAIS should be 100% voluntaryI read the article "Old Big Brother had a Farm". It is a basic point that is being totally missed by the USDA and large producers. NAIS does not fit small producers. Even worse NAIS is a total disaster for homesteaders. The minimum cost of doing NAIS is going to run a homesteader or small farmer more than $500 per year. NAIS is not needed at these levels. Not for disease and certainly not for export profits, the original reason for NAIS.
    Please keep spreadking the word of how badly NAIS will harm the very small livestock producers and people who raise their own meat. NAIS is unnecessary for these groups and should be kept 100% voluntary. That would make it workable. Then the producers who want the trace-back for the markets that demand it would be able to have it and the rest of us very small livestock producers would not be burdened.
    I publish a blog http://NoNAIS.org which is my attempt to spread the word about NAIS. There are articles, sample letters, fliers, posters and handouts (see http://NoNAIS.org/handout).
    Thank you,
    Walter Jeffries

    Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont

    http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/

    http://NoNAIS.org
    Print this to pass out: http://NoNAIS.org/handout

    Print this to hang up: http://NoNAIS.org/poster

    Ad copy is available here: http://NoNAIS.org/ads

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  4. ramarata Posted 9:47 am
    10 Mar 2006

    NAISI love the USDA comment that this wasn't going to cost much.  Who do they think they are kidding?  1- cost of the tags or implants-I have horses-$35 per-that's times 10.  If one has chicken at $3 per tag-100 chickens is .....duh, $300??  The cost of a scanner (probably a portable, so if I accidently "comingle", I can scan the other horses) $800-2800 or more.  A high speed computer, my old one won't cut it:  $750-1500 or more.  High speed internet service for the reports, dial up won't be able to handle it, $85 a month, instead of $12.95.  The software to do the reporting-Heaven only knows how much for that.  The cost they are going to charge for each report, unknown at the moment.  Premise ID; $10 a yr in TX.

    Not one of the idiots in the USDA/agribusinesses considered the number of people in the USA who do not speak English, do not have electricity, either through choice or they can't afford it, those who are illiterate (aprrox. 10% of the population), and those who are on a fixed income.  This is a one size fits all ruling made by big business for big business.  It will destroy the American farmer, which is their intent.

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  5. Dunappy Posted 10:20 am
    10 Mar 2006

    NAIS=Loss of rightsNAIS would take away my rights as a private citizen to ride the trails in the National Forest. I as a horse owner would be required to tell the federal government my every movement with my horses, but the Hunters are not required to log in their movements tracking down a deer on foot or by ATV. IS that right? I would not be allowed to go to a horse show with out telling the federal government, I would not be allowed to take a horse to the Vet without telling the federal government. Becasue I also own chickens and ducks, I would be required to tag every single chicken and report every time I killed one to eat. NAIS is the greatest infringment on constitutional rights to date.

    All livestock owners would be subject to unreasonable search and seizure, Involuntary servitude to the federal government and the loss of the rights to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness.
    Our private property will be controlled by the federal government.
    NO NAIS Stop taking away our rights

    www. nonais.org

    http://www.stopanimalid.com

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  6. caniscandida Posted 3:51 pm
    10 Mar 2006

    some help up on Brokeback MountainRemember that rather comic scene in BbMt, when the flock that Ennis and Jack are supposed to be minding get mixed up with another flock?  And it turns out to be pretty impossible to get back all the sheep they started with, even though they end up with a few that they never saw before?  Well, suppose all the sheep had ID microchips in them; and suppose Jack and Ennis had Star-Trek-like tricorders: then there would be no problem, they could tell which sheep are whose right away.
    But then again, if they had Star-Trek-like technology, they would probably each have had his own nicely warmed tent, and so they would never have had to spend a cold night cuddled up together -- and there goes the story.  No fun in that at all!

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  7. SMLowry's avatar

    SMLowry Posted 7:02 am
    11 Mar 2006

    What a mistake!This is a really bad idea. I can understand concern at the industrial ag level because I'd guess that most if not all diseases that could adversely impact other animals and people are more likely to start and spread in these inhumane environments. But for the small scale farmer or for the family with a flock of hens, a few geese, a goat or cow, a couple of pigs, whatever, it makes absolutely no sense at all. I work in a small, natural foods grocery. We sell eggs from local chickens. Some of these producers bring in just a dozen or two a week, and we are happy to have them. We also sell locally raised bison, lamb, beef, pork, and chicken -- all of which comes from less than 30 miles from the store. These are very small scale producers who love the animals and love the lifestyle of living on the land. We should be doing absolutely nothing in this country to discourage these small-scale producers and everything to encourage them because some day, perhaps in the not so distant future, these are the people we will rely upon for our food. If we regulate them out of existance, we will be very, very sorry for the loss. Not to mention the fact that many of these small producers raise less common breeds of chicken or sheep which is important for the diversity of the species. Customers love the pastel colored eggs, for example, that you don't get from white factory chickens. I understand that avian flu is serious but we're not going to solve the problem by hurting small farmers. We should, instead, totally revamp our industrial food system, down size, localize, etc. As far as animals go, I'm not against eating meat, but we do eat way too much of it in this country. If we had to get our meat locally, we'd be paying more and eating less of it. But it would be higher quality, better tasting, and less degrading to the environment. Keep track of the big guys and let the small farmers do what they do best.

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  8. Millicente Posted 11:59 am
    11 Mar 2006

    Old McBrother Had a FarmThis development, a brain child of corporate industry and the Bush administration, goes way too far. The comments others have left about NAIS largely reflect my own. Is it Constitutional for this program to be mandatory? And, if it is safety concerns that have prompted the USDA to promote this program, why then, were they as negligent about Canadian beef having been exposed to mad cow as they have been? The only way, as one reader points out, that our livestock can be safe and healthy is for it to be grown in safe and healthy conditions. Fresh air, clean water, and organically grown grains, rather than that which has been genetically engineered by Monsanto.
    As soon as the Bush administration occupied Iraq, they immediately forbid it's farmers from using the seeds they had used for thousands of years. Instead, they passed laws requiring them to use seeds provided by the USA which were 'manufactured' by Monsanto. We know what that corporation has done with genetic engineering and seed. We don't know what they're planning to do with livestock.
    Further, this week the House, despite opposition, passed HR 4167, the "National Uniformity For Food Act". This act essentially nullifies all of the state and local criteria for inspecting and labeling food, even to farm raised vs. ocean raised seafood, in order for "uniform" and negligent national laws to have complete jurisdiction over all food labeling. (centerforfoodsafety.org)
    Is this administration giving themselves carte blanche to destroy our food, our livestock, our environment, our privacy and ultimately, us? Is this what we call "civilization"?

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  9. katesisco Posted 11:04 pm
    13 Mar 2006

    Well, another boon for big business..........as this program is another kick in the seat of the pants for the small farmer.  It is correct to say that the issue of diseasesd meat in our food chain will not be addressed by this bill; indeed one suspects that when a huge contamination occurs the same tactic that now successfully scuttles all uproar--there will of course be a congressional hearing leading to an investigation completed months (years) down the road when the furor has died down--end result--nothing but the red-hot rhetoric that cools to slag with a verbal slap on the wrist for big business.  

    Remember that farmers wishing to certify their herds free from bovine spongiform encyphilitis cannot do so, would, indeed, be liable for federal government prosecution if they do, as it is illegal.  Why is it illegal?  To protect the big guys of course.  

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  10. Ironrosefarms Posted 12:45 pm
    11 May 2006

    No voice in GovernmentOk so those who have posted a opinion here, I have just one question. How do we stop this from going any further?
    I have sent letters to over 100 government officials concerning this and not one sent any sort of reply... I have been told by so many people that there is no way to stop this and that I am wasting my time, could it be? If the nais passes I will be out of business, I have barely broke even the last 4 years and this year is not looking a whole lot better... Right now we have NO voice in our government on this issue.
    I agree cost of implemintation will be outragious for the small farmer, the record keeping of individual animals will be a nightmare, and most every other point I have heard I can relate too... A point I have not heard anything on is the animals that are purchased from livestock auctions and such that are in need of some tender loving care are often bought by small farm owners, they often have the compassion and patience with out the greed of the pocket to help these animals, animals orphaned by the mother and needing bottle fed or things of that nature... however with these types of animals can be a higher mortality rate compared to the big breeder who only keeps the best of the lot. When you have to call and turn in a few dead animals, the one that the prior owner allowed an infestation of worms to go to far and maybe a calf that was orphaned and just would not take to a bottle, how long do you think it will take before some government official and camera crew from the news will be tromping on your property ready to "investigate" the problem? Will they put down every animal you have "for fear of the problem spreading"? (they have done this with concern to "mad cow" disease) then come back and tell you it was ok the animals were not infected... of course the camera crew won't be there this time, they already will have done their damage to your image in the community...
    Iron Rose Farms

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