NAIS - Congress Briefings Askew by USDA

NAIS~~~ Congress Briefings Askew by USDA

By Darol Dickinson

There is ocean front property in Arizona, you can have it free, but at some future date you may have to pay some amount of property tax and other ownership assessments may be enforced from time to time. Does this sound like an illusionary Bernie Madoff investment?

In a letter dated July 20, 2008, Jere L. Dick of USDA--APHIS wrote, "According to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, there are 1.4 million US livestock raising operations that derive at least $1000 annual revenue from livestock sales. More than 475,532 premises, approximately 33% of this total figure---had been registered with NAIS."

USDA has had a long respected history of integrity, honest calculations and trusted service to all livestock owners. Now, to implement their NAIS program all the ethics have been truncated. Many who recall the USDA uprightness of record, are now appalled at the extraordinary degree of political deviousness USDA uses to promote their esteemed 100% computerized animal numbering program---NAIS.

The 2007 US Ag Census was released Feb. 4. Although the product and type operation of a ranch, dairy or grain farm is totally different, USDA calls them all the same generic name, "farms." Census data shows the USA is home to 96,347,858 cattle with 963,669 cattle farms. There are 9.3 million sheep and 83,134 sheep farms. There are 3,140,529 goats and 144,466 goat farms. There are 67,786,318 hogs at 75,442 hog farms. There are 296 million turkeys, 349 million laying hens, and 2,187,509,325 total domestic fowl at 213,432 farms, assuming the census process carefully counted them all.

For horse population, Kathie Luedeke at the American Horse Council in Washington DC stated there are 1.96 million people who own 9.2 million horses in the US, a number no one disputes.

For totals, this comes to 2,373,284,030 head of livestock, fowl, etc. They reside at 3,410,142 US farms. NAIS enforcement plans also include not just the above numbers, but a total of 33 different species [including] cervidae, buffalo, camelids, alpaca, deer, ratites, marsupials, elk, etc. Obviously the 2.3 billion number is just a start in the scheme as no census numbers are available on the huge domestic game bird business. An unknown total non-census number is much farther beyond published Feb. 4 data.

For the Ag census, only US farms with sales of $1000 or more annually are counted. Reliable sources estimate there are 411,400* farms with less than $1000 annual sales, who would be required to comply with mandatory NAIS. This could include inventory of small animals, 4-H projects, fancy poultry, hobbyist, entry level and want-to-be farmers.

The largest expansion category for the 2007 census was cattle owners of 1 to 9 head up from 179,346 in the 2002 census to 232,849 farms. Small farms are growing in numbers faster than all other sizes. Much of this is due to subdivision of land holdings mostly near cities. This additionally increases numbers of owners of smaller inventory groups.

NAIS premises enrollment encourages more than one premises sign up per farm owner. This is designed to multiply current enrollments for USDA and increase annual licenses fees once the program is mandatory. Owners of a diversified operation could spread their risk of a forced livestock "depopulation" if USDA suspected a disease. Owned or leased farms could be divided into a number of different units. If NAIS becomes mandatory one concerned rancher plans to enroll 18 farm units to protect family livestock assets from a complete business devastation in case of a USDA inflicted quarantine or depopulation.

The USDA official press releases and staff tells Congress, the media, the Senate, and the public, a number of 1.4 million livestock raising operations exist in the US. Yet, the 2007 US Ag census, plus the American Horse Council data and farms with below $1000 in annual sales clearly reveal the more correct number is at least 3,821,542 farms raising livestock.

Today the USDA alleges over 500,000 premises are NAIS enrolled. Many of these are multiple unit enrollments, livestock auction facilities who own no cattle, custom feed lots, rodeo arenas, USDA employees, state DOA extension agents, livestock owners who are unaware they are enrolled and producers who are in the process of "Opt Out." Some youth have been forced to "enroll their property" before a single goat or lamb could qualify for government controlled state fair competition.

Western Horseman Magazine is the largest circulation of any livestock publication in the world. In their online poll, June of 2008, it was tabulated with thousands of votes; over 91% of animal owners, if given a choice, would refuse to comply with any component of NAIS.

Calculating the actual number of all real farms, total NAIS alleged enrollments minus the multiple enrollments and adding the under $1000 income farms, the percentage of enrolled farm owners in the US is not 33%, but in fact less than 9.8%.

The USDA has doled out over $138,000,000.00 all authorized by Congress, for cooperative agreements and sign up incentive NAIS programs. Their 28 USDA branches including the Farm Service Agency, County Extension offices and USDA licensed professionals have dedicated untold multiple hours to coerce new enrollments in NAIS. The cost to USDA per NAIS enrolled farm owner is well over $360 each.

NAIS is the result of looking for trouble, not finding it anywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying costly bogus remedies. Never has such a USDA grandiose plot been attempted with less user approval, less convincing value, and such distorted numbers used to spin the program.

During the Houston Stock Show, USDA Deputy Enforcements Secretary, Bruce Knight spoke, trying to cajole Texans (Texas is one of the lowest percentage premises enrolled states) on NAIS said, "Registering is easy. It’s free."

Hello "Bruce" Madoff? Any ocean front property in Arizona available, perhaps 1.4 acres?

For more information on NAIS go to www.naisSTINKS.com.

* Twenty one formal requests to Congressmen, the Sec of Agriculture and USDA staff; all refused to answer in a 60 day period.