Page 72 - Winter2009

NAIS Update

PUBLIC POLICY CHALLENGES TO LOCAL FOODS
By Judith McGeary, Esq.

While the local foods movement grows by the agency on programs that actually improve
leaps and bounds, government policies frequent- animal health and respect individual rights. Both
ly do not recognize the important and unique letters are available at www.FarmAndRanch-
role that local food plays for both farmers and Freedom.org.
consumers. WAPF members have been reading At the same time, Secretary of Agriculture
for several years about the problems that the Vilsack has announced that the agency will
National Animal Identification System (NAIS) release new plans for animal identification. He
poses, and have more recently been alerted to has not provided any details on the direction
the federal food safety bills that are pending in the program will take, and said simply that the
Congress. Both of these issues continue to pose plans were going through the agency channels.
dangers to the availability of healthy, nutrient- In recent weeks, we have seen several articles in
dense foods. various trade journals, from equine magazines
to food publications, extolling the virtues of
NAIS UPDATE NAIS. So it appears that the pro-NAIS industry
For newcomers, the National Animal Iden- is working on a plan to stage a comeback of the
tification System (NAIS) is a plan to require program.
anyone who owns even one livestock or poultry
Judith McGeary animal—even just a single chicken or a pet horse NAIS LAWSUITS
is an attorney and —to register their property, tag each animal (in In the last issue of Wise Traditions, we dis-
small farmer in most cases with electronic identification, such cussed the status of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal
Austin, Texas,
and the Execu- as microchips or RFID tags), and report their Defense Fund’s lawsuit against the USDA and the
tive Director of the animals’ movements to the government within Michigan Department of Agriculture to stop the
Farm and Ranch twenty-four hours. In the last issue of Wise Tradi- implementation of mandatory NAIS premises
Freedom Alliance. tions, we covered the Senate amendment that cut registration and tagging. The Court dismissed
She has a B.S. in NAIS funding for 2010 in half, to seven million the lawsuit, and denied the Fund’s motion for
Biology from dollars. The House and Senate then appointed rehearing.
Stanford University a conference committee to work out the many But the action in the courtroom is not over
and a J.D. from the differences between their versions of the 2010 yet. In 2009, the Wisconsin Department of
University of Texas
at Austin. She and Agriculture Appropriations bill, which provides Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection
her husband funding for all USDA programs in the coming (DATCP) became the first state agency to man-
run a small year. Ultimately, Congress authorized just over date NAIS premises registration, and it recently
grass-based farm five million dollars for NAIS, about a third of began enforcing the regulation. In October, Pat
with sheep, cattle, what the agency had requested. Monchilovich, a rancher, was found guilty by
horses, and heritage Unfortunately, the conference committee a district court and fined two hundred dollars
breed poultry. report includes language that encourages the plus court costs of one hundred ninety dollars.
For more
information about USDA to consider an “effective” NAIS program, Monchilovich argued that his property was not
NAIS and what which appears to be the new euphemism for a a “premises” and that the costs of NAIS far
you can do to mandatory program. So the threat of mandatory outweighed the benefits. Notably, the DATCP
stop it, go to rulemaking remains. In October, one hundred discovered Monchilovch not while in the process
www.farmandranch- organizations signed a letter to Congress and to of investigating a disease outbreak, but using
freedom.org or the USDA asking that the USDA use the 2010 pre-NAIS tracking methods when he consigned
call 1-512-243-9404. appropriations to wind NAIS down and refocus some cattle at a sale. Despite the obvious fact that
70 Wise Traditions WINTER 2009