{"id":312,"date":"2010-05-24T12:30:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T16:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/?p=312"},"modified":"2023-02-08T14:58:58","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T18:58:58","slug":"name-games-with-the-usda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/?p=312","title":{"rendered":"Name Games with the USDA"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Doreen Hannes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

\"DoreenBio<\/h3>\n

Doreen Hannes<\/strong> is the Director of Research for the National
\nIndependent Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA)<\/a> and is dedicated to weeding through the lies, half truths, and mis- and disinformation to
\nhelp people to understand the methods and propaganda being used to manipulate us….and to dig for the truth. As -civil-ization is predicated upon agriculture, the goal of those who would be our masters is to control the land, control the food, and thereby control the people….otherwise known as the global implementation of\u00a0 Agenda 21. If we lose our ability to feed ourselves, we will not be able to fight against anything else. Doreen blogs at Truth
\nFarmer<\/a> and you can listen to her radio show, Truth Farmer, at Liberty News Radio<\/a> and read her articles at News with Views<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

On May 11th, the USDA held the first of three public meetings on their “New
\nNAIS” program “Animal Disease Traceability”. The meeting began
\nat 8am with three power point presentations. California State Veterinarian,
\nDr. Richard Breitmeyer gave the first presentation. This was the same presentation
\nhe gave at the mid-March NIAA (National Institute of Animal Agriculture) meeting,
\nalso held in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

A little history is in order to understand the progression of this idea
\nfor animal traceability. In the US, the first notable plan for identifying
\nanimals was the NFAIP, along with FAIR, those being the National Farm Animal
\nIdentification Program and Farm Animal Identification and Records. Then under
\nthe Bush Administration there was the United States Animal Identification
\nPlan, with the NAIS, National Animal Identification System hot on it’s heels.
\nNow, they have “killed” NAIS, but are moving forward with the Animal
\nDisease Traceability plan, the ADT. The main difference here is that the USDA
\nis going to make a rule on the ADT to prescribe the “performance standards” for
\ntraceability that the states MUST meet to engage in interstate commerce with
\nthe ADT.<\/p>\n

Breitmeyer’s presentation focused on the difficulties around tracing the
\ncontacts of tubercular (and suspect) cattle in the state of California and
\nother states without the aid of an interoperable database covering all animals
\nand all movements. According to his presentation, the state of California
\nhas approximately 57,500 known live cattle imports from Mexico per year. This
\nis significant in that more than 75% of all tuberculosis in cattle is of Mexican
\norigin. Breitmeyer lamented that when he began as a vet 25 years ago, the
\nUS had nearly eliminated TB except for in small areas of northern Michigan
\nand northern Minnesota where the soil make up continues to keep TB in the
\nwildlife and therefore occasionally in cattle. Breitmeyer’s presentation was
\nactually quite a good illustration of many of the failed policies of the USDA
\nin disease control, the lack of quarantine at the borders chief among them.
\nOf course, he is a proponent of a NAIS style system because having all that
\ndata available would make his job easier\u2026At least on paper.<\/p>\n

The second presentation was given by a very soft-spoken APHIS\/VS (Veternary
\nServices) representative, Dr. TJ Mayer. He stressed that the “theme” for
\nthe development of the “new” program is “collaboration”.
\nThose to be affected must be involved in the process of developing the solution
\nfor the lack of traceability that now exists— particularly in cattle. Cattle
\nare the primary focus for this new plan, and the methodology for bringing
\ncattle to 95% traceability back to the point of identification in 2 business
\ndays is dependent on “collaboration” in developing the processes
\nin our states. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) Mayer also illustrated that
\nthe desired traceability would be implemented gradually through partnerships
\nof stakeholders and building upon the requirements outlined in the rule that
\nis to be developed for criteria that states must meet for interstate commerce.<\/p>\n

The third presentation was by Becky Brewer (Oklahoma State Vet) and the
\napparent lead member of the newly established “Regulatory Working Group”.
\nDr. Brewer related the thinking of the Regulatory Working Group on the measurable
\noutcomes of the ‘traceability’ standards to arrive at 95% of “all” animals
\ntraced back to the ‘traceability unit’ within 2 business days. Sounds just
\nlike the NAIS Business Plan, doesn’t it? Brewer stated, “In government
\nspeak, “all” doesn’t mean all.” This may explain why the USDA
\nkept insisting that when opponents of NAIS cited documents verbatim, we were “spreading
\nmisinformation”. Evidently the English language is a linguistic and statistical
\nanomaly in the hands and mouths of bureaucrats.<\/p>\n

There were no question and answer sessions after the presentations. Instead
\nevery table was given a USDA facilitator and three segments of questions to
\nanswer regarding how we might achieve the desired outcome of getting animals
\nid’d back to the ‘traceability unit’ within their timeframes. The tables were
\nmarked with species placards and there were at least five cattle tables, three
\nswine, two poultry, one sheep and goat, and one “other species”.<\/p>\n

When I entered the room I noticed that Kenny Fox of R CALF USA was at a
\ncattle table and I failed to notice the “other species” table so
\nI sat at the sheep and goat table. There were no people at the poultry tables.
\nThe cattle tables were quite full, and all of the reporters were sitting at
\nthe ‘other species’ table, so I thought I would just sit at the empty sheep
\nand goat table.<\/p>\n

When the facilitating began, I was blessed with three USDA representatives
\nat my table, where all the other tables only had one. I shared the table with
\none sheep broker from New Mexico. He deals in 20 to 30,000 head of sheep annually
\nmostly exported to Mexico and was quite content with the Scrapie program.
\nThis program identifies breeding animals back to the flock of origin with
\na number assigned to the flock manager and not the land the animals are held
\non. It also allows for tattoos as an alternate form of official id for interstate
\ncommerce, and does not use RFID tags, although it could in the future.<\/p>\n

The USDA representatives at my table were not particularly interested in
\nhearing about how the failed agricultural policies have created a problem
\nthat the USDA would now like all of us to ‘partner’ with them to solve. They
\ndid take copious notes, and were quite proficient in ‘mirroring’ my statements
\nwhile slightly adjusting them to fit their desired outcome more handily.<\/p>\n

At the end of each of the three segments, a representative from each table
\nstood and gave the ‘report’ from the table on that segment. The consensus
\nof the cattle groups were that only breeders should be identified, RFID tags
\nshould be avoided, back tags should continue to be used for feeders and slaughter
\ncows, and a NAIS styled system would not work at all.<\/p>\n

The USDA is currently promoting the use of ‘bright’ tags for cattle. These
\nare very similar to brucellosis tags in numbering and appearance. However,
\nwhen the only question and answer segment of the day took place and Neil Hammerschmidt
\n(one of the main authors of NAIS) gave most of the answers, he made it clear
\nthat the USDA still wants to ‘aggressively’ pursue the use of 840 tags.<\/p>\n

The bottom line about the entire meeting is that the USDA will try to have
\na draft rule ready in June from the “Regulatory Working Group”.
\nThis rule will define the “performance standards” that are to be
\nmet by the states to engage in interstate commerce. The USDA plans to publish
\nthis proposed rule in November or December of 2010, allow a 90-day comment
\nperiod, and finalize the rule (make it law) from 8-10 months after the comment
\nperiod is complete. There may be different requirements under these performance
\nstandards by species, and some potentially exempted sectors or movements.
\nThere is admitted concern from the USDA and their friends that incentives
\nand disincentives for states must be expressed clearly and not be too “heavy
\nhanded”. In other words, if a state meets compliance levels in hogs and
\nnot cattle, the hogs should not be refused access to interstate commerce.<\/p>\n

It appears to me that we must proactively engage our state legislators
\nto statutorily define requirements for interstate livestock movement and not
\nallow the Departments of Agriculture the leeway to cooperate with the USDA
\nto achieve the goals of the USDA as those goals are still NAIS oriented. The
\nUSDA will not dismantle the National Premises Repository although Hammerschmidt
\nstated that if a state were to want to withdraw all of their participants,
\nthey could do so. Also, according to Hammerschmidt, they still want to move
\n‘aggressively’ to 840 tags as official identification along with electronic
\nCertificates of Veterinary Inspection.<\/p>\n

The onus of implementing the graduated Animal Disease Traceability program
\nrests squarely on the individual states. Either the states will define those
\nstandards statutorily or the USDA will bring about their final desires incrementally
\nthrough the regulatory process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Doreen Hannes Bio Doreen Hannes is the Director of Research for the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA) and is dedicated to weeding through the lies, half truths, and mis- and disinformation to help people to understand the methods and propaganda being used to manipulate us….and to dig for the truth. As -civil-ization […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[139,480,210,211,212,213,214,215,216,217,218,477,219,220,221,136,222,223,224,225,226,227,18],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nais","tag-840-tags","tag-adt","tag-animal-disease-traceability","tag-aphis","tag-becky-brewer","tag-brucellosis","tag-doreen-hannes","tag-dr-richard-breitmeyer","tag-dr-tj-mayer","tag-fair","tag-kenny-fox","tag-nais","tag-national-animal-identification-system","tag-neil-hammerschmidt","tag-nfaip","tag-niaa","tag-performance-standards","tag-rcalf","tag-regulatory-working-group","tag-rfid-tags","tag-stakeholders","tag-traceability-unit","tag-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amishinternet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}