--- NAIS is Contagious----

--- NAIS is Contagious----

Interestingly enough, it's Pearl Harbor Day---and so it is for Cattle

12/7/09
©Doreen Hannes

Last week I heard from someone who works at several sale barns in the area that one was currently tagging all breeding cows with 840 NAIS tags if they did not have the metal brucellosis tag in their ears. As of January 1st, 2010, they would tag all breeding stock going through the chute with 840 tags regardless of metal bruce tags that were already in the cow's ear. The word was that this was 'some sale barns' and 'some veterinarians'.

I've spent several days trying to get information and documentation on this, and this morning, our Missouri State veterinarian, Dr. Taylor Woods, was kind enough to call me and explain what is happening in fair detail.

According to Dr. Woods, in March or April of 2009, he received a notice from the USDA stating that in two weeks all federal funding for Brucellosis was to be cut off. This was rather a shock to him and he called and went all the way up to Dr. John Clifford. Clifford told him he should have received a notice regarding this in December of 2008. Dr. Woods told him that this was the first he had heard of it, and went on to ascertain that the reason for failure of notification was because Missouri has been 5 years brucellosis free. Dr. Clifford stated that he would allow funding to continue for Missouri until December 31st, 2009. At that time, all blood testing for brucellosis would cease and all breeding cattle would be identified at the market by the market veterinarian with the 840 tag. The 840 tags are currently provided by the USDA free to the state of Missouri, and will supplant testing and the metal Brucellosis tags at market.

Also, Doctor Woods said that as far as he is aware, this is what is going to happen in every single state. Also, that only Texas and Missouri have been collecting blood and actually testing for Brucellosis. He said that these 840 tags are NOT NAIS tags. Also, notably, that he is rather irritated to see a successful program of Brucellosis eradication going away and relying instead upon a tag that will not detect the disease. It is confirmed via a myriad of sources that there will be no more pulling of blood to check for brucellosis in several states. The USDA Veterinary Services (VS) is doing away with the brucellosis program to bring in the OIE (World Animal Health Organization) standards for trade on Animal Identification, which at the very least, according to the Guidelines of the OIE, will identify an animal back to the farm of origin or 'premise'. These are the first two prongs of NAIS: premises registration, and animal identification. You cannot have 840 identification without going back to the 'premises'. Doctor Woods told me that they would be using the sale barns (markets) as the premises. This is NOT supported by any documentation that is available anywhere.

Now, I am completely unable to find any other designation for the 840 tags other than one which links the identified animal back to the NAIS premises of the owner selling the cattle. For cattle, all 840 tags are radio frequency identification, the USDA is allowing 840 non RFID identification for hogs, otherwise all 840 is RFID and all 840 is linked back to the farm of origin or premises.

Again, this is to go into effect in all states beginning on January the 1st, 2010. Doctor Woods was kind enough to assure me that he would be happy to give me whatever correspondence and documentation he could find regarding this. The issue as I see it is that there is not much time at all before January 1st, and I certainly cannot wait the six weeks it took for my last request from the Missouri Department of Agriculture to be fulfilled. The USDA never gives out any information unless you possess the capacity to actually sue them for the information…at least not to the likes of me.

There are several States with statute constraining the implementation of NAIS and premises registration. Missouri is one of those States, and there appears to be a definite conflict here unless the documents can indeed support something other than premises registration under NAIS standards (you can call it what you like, NFAIP, USAIP, NAIS, NLIS, or whatever), this would indeed be construed as mandating or otherwise forcing participation in NAIS or any similar program by the State Veterinarians office and a case of the USDA forcing a State Department to violate statute to continue to participate in interstate commerce. The USDA is in violation of the APA at the very least.

At any rate, I wanted to get this information out despite the lack of paperwork to support this as there are many sources confirming the generalities of this and no one saying that 840 tags will not be used on cattle going through the chutes in the state of Missouri after January 1st, 2010.

When I do get the actual documentation, I will be sending it on to all interested parties. This is trickle down and up NAIS in full effect. 2010 is the year for OIE compliance on animal identification for the USDA. And first they came for the cows……

Hungry? Tough! There's transfats in that.

From Beyond the Broken Spectrum

Bloomberg partly to blame for city’s starvation

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is just another reason why people there are starving. According to a local soup kitchen, they have to constantly throw out donations of perfectly good food due to the city’s law banishing trans fat that took effect in July 2008. The law bans everyone with health department food licenses, including emergency food providers, from serving any foods with trans fat in them.

Government running wild anyone?

Another way to prevent the people from eating is Senator Dianne Feinstein's new bill.

The bill would amend the Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to prohibit the sale of any processed poultry, meat and FDA-regulated food that has not either undergone a pathogen reduction treatment, or been certified to contain no verifiable traces of pathogens.

The bill would also require labels on ground beef, or any other ground meat product, specifically naming every cut of meat that is contained in the product.

Finally, the bill would do away with what she called loopholes in current laws that allow for producers to add coloring, synthetic flavorings and spices to their products without informing the consumer.

"By enacting these simple changes, the Processed Food Safety Act will drastically reduce the presence of pathogens in our food and improve the ability of the consumer to make informed choices about the products they wish to eat," Feinstein said in a news release.

Here is some wording from the bill. You can read the bill in full here.

(A) each ingredient in the poultry or poultry product that was added, modified, or otherwise handled by the person has undergone a pathogen reduction treatment in accordance with requirements of the Secretary that will reduce the presence of pathogens of public health concern and other harmful food borne contaminants; or

`(B) the person has tested and certified that each ingredient in the poultry or poultry product that was added, modified, or otherwise handled by the person contains no verifiable traces of pathogens.'.

The thing is...do you believe they can completely eliminate pathogens? And why would they want to anyway? Understand that 'pathogen reduction treatment' can mean irradiation or washing fat (which will later be added to ground beef from animals imported from all over the world to add bulk and texture to those $1.00 hamburgers) with ammonia. See Food Inc Part 4 on Marler Blog.

If they really wanted to solve the problem they could do it by cleaning up the way feedlots are run for starters. And, outlaw GMOs. But they won't do either, or in fact any real solutions, because it would mean a loss of profits for the big boys.

I'm just glad, no - estatic - that I do not have to buy meat from the grocery store and I pray that I never have to, ever again.

Blog post because I feel like I should

Dear Readers,

I've got 18 followers now. How nice! Welcome and thanks for your interest.

NAIS seems to be quiet right now, though it isn't dead by any means. We're seeing a scattering of articles like this one NAIS: Simpler Technology Fuels Fire, by William Pape on Nov 14, 2009. Pure propaganda by the executive vice president of AgInfoLink which is in partnership with USDA to provide NAIS compliant services.

Worth watching right now is S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act. The Senate HELP committee is due to work on the bill, doing the mark-up, on Wednesday. Here are a few articles about it:
Drew Joseph: Small farms fear food safety bill will further industrialize food
and
Coalition to Senate: Move on Food Safety Be sure to read the comment at the bottom of this article. It says it all, just what we need to be paying attention to.

And another...which should raise the hackles of any farmer or homesteader who likes to take grants. Growing Safe Food Act of 2009 S. 2758. The wording is right out of WHO and OIE's Guide to Good Farming Practices.

It just seems that every day something more urgently disastrous comes out of Washington. Now, and this just in:

President Obama, White House Climate Czar Carol Browner, and their Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are not waiting for Congress to pass cap-and-trade.

The enormous grassroots reaction to the outrageous Waxman-Markey energy tax bill passing the U.S. House has slowed Senate progress to a crawl. While cap-and-trade remains a major threat (especially with new "tri-partisan" negotiations betweens Senators Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman), the biggest threat of huge new energy taxes and government controls right now comes not from legislation, but regulation.

Based on a legal theory originally conceived by Climate Czar Carol Browner in the late 1990s, Obama's EPA is moving ahead with greenhouse gases regulations under the 1970 Clean Air Act even though in 1970 global warming hadn't even been invented yet, and the doom-saying scientists were instead warning of an impending ice age!

Click here to help stop EPA's power grab!

Do you feel it, too? It's coming down around our ears. It's like an avalanche.

Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty

On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. In this 4 minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.



If this does not alarm you then you need to assess your heart. Are you an American or are you a Globalist?

Welcome Vermont Tea Party Bloggers

We'll be posting a blog roll over the next few weeks of the new Vermont Tea Party bloggers. It is important, in this very liberal state filled with people who just believe what they are told by MSM, that we offer an outlet for the real truth.

The truth will set you free.