Linking COOL With NAIS Means Trouble
For Consumers and Small Farmers & Ranchers
By Randy Givens
April 9, 2007
For years, consumers, farmers and ranchers have pushed for the adoption and implementation of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for agricultural products. COOL will simply require that all agricultural products sold in the U.S. be labeled as to what country they originated from. That way, the consumer can tell if the products they are considering buying are grown and processed under the U.S. food safety laws, or if they were grown and processed in a country which has far less stringent laws and procedures for food safety.
Additionally, COOL allows American consumers to decide if they want to support American farmers and ranchers under the "Buy American" concept, or if they want to support global corporate agriculture giants. Those Industrial Agriculture companies are responsible for importing much of the food we currently buy. Unfortunately, when evaluating food to buy, we have no idea where it was grown, by whom, and under what conditions it was harvested, processed, and shipped.
Many Americans want to be able to choose between locally/regionally grown American food products and the unknowns associated with imported food products. Accordingly, they were able to mount a grassroots campaign and got COOL legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. Since then, those globalist corporations who seek to make their profits from selling us imported food have managed to block the implementation of the laws mandating COOL in the U.S. Grassroots efforts are gaining momentum to finally get COOL implemented and give consumers the choice they need and want.
Now, the globalist corporations have come up with a strategy to turn a grassroots victory for consumers and small farmers and ranchers into a disaster for non-corporate food production in the U.S. They are proposing to link the implementation of COOL with mandating the implementation of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). According to their plan, if COOL is implemented, NAIS must be implemented. As Americans have been pushing the implementation of COOL from the grassroots, they have also been battling NAIS as a threat to pet ownership, and the existence of small farmers and ranchers. Big agriculture sees their loss on the ultimate implementation of COOL as a way to win by forcing NAIS down our throats.
NAIS is an industry-government plan to identify and track every single livestock animal in the U.S., from birth to death. NAIS would use microchips or Radio Frequency Identification Devices for most animals, and the information would be stored in massive privatized databases, creating huge profits for both the companies making and selling electronic devices, and those that manage databases. NAIS does not track meat from the slaughterhouse and processing plants, where most contaminations occur, to the grocery store. Therefore, it has nothing to do with food safety. NAIS was invented by and for the corporate agriculture companies and their high tech allies. NAIS is simply a way for big companies to force small farmers and ranchers out of business, so that the international giant agricultural corporations can comply with foreign requirements, and sell more U.S. grown meat in foreign countries.
In order to do that, the businesses pushing NAIS want everyone who owns just ONE, (or more), chicken, pig, sheep, goat, cow, or horse to have their animals electronically tagged when they leave the place (premises) where they are born, and report (within 24 hours) into centralized databases all movements of those animals off those premises, or the sale or death of those animals. The animal owners - including pet owners and small farmers and ranchers - will bear the high costs in both time and money. Many people, who keep one horse as a pet, or a few chickens for eggs, will be forced to get rid of their animals. Small farmers and ranchers will find the costs of these tagging, monitoring, and reporting systems simply unaffordable, driving them out of business.
As these pet owners are forced to get rid of their animals, and the small farmers and ranchers are driven out of business, the businesses that sell to them will lose their customer base, and also be driven out of business. NAIS spells economic ruin for rural communities. The only agricultural operations that will be able to stay in business are the giant farms, ranches, and meat processing companies which will be able to afford the NAIS electronic requirements because of the huge scale at which they operate.
For instance, NAIS will require people with backyard flocks of, say, 20 chickens, who produce eggs for themselves and maybe a neighbor or two, to tag each of their chickens, because they were born on different "premises." The small flock owners will have to maintain records on each chicken, and report each sale or death of a chicken to the centralized database, within 24 hours. That will require them to own a computer and internet connection to do the reporting, or file reports through overnight mail. If one chicken is killed and hauled off by a coyote, they will have to round up the remaining 19 chickens just so they can report which one got hauled off by the coyote! People who own animals such as horses, sheep, goats, or cows will have to use electronic identification, which means also owning an electronic tag reader, or paying people to perform that service for them.
Meanwhile, down the road, the corporation which operates a giant chicken farm, with 10,000 chickens at one place, will have to pay only one premises registration fee and can manage its huge flocks with only one tag per flock. This is because they produce and maintain flocks as a single unit as they move through their production chain, without mixing flocks from different sources. Therefore, their cost per chicken being tagged, tracked, and reported, is very small compared to the small farmer. As the costs for the small farmer increase, the costs for the giant corporation decrease. This will drive the small farmer out of business and allow the giant corporation to gain more control over the market. As the giant corporations gain more control over the market, eliminating competition from small farmers, they will be able to set the (their) price for the food we buy. The corporate giant wins, and the consumer and small farmer lose.
Even if we "win" by finally getting COOL implemented, it will be a hollow victory if globalist agricultural giants force us to implement NAIS. NAIS will destroy small farmers and ranchers, eliminating any competition with their food products at the grocery store. If we let corporate agricultural giants win on forcing the implementation of NAIS with COOL, Americans will end up with LESS choice at the supermarket, and higher prices for their food, as the agricultural giants will have eliminated competition.
We must not let those corporate giants force NAIS on us. Please contact your members of Congress and let them know that NAIS is bad for American agriculture, bad for American business, and bad for American consumers - who are America's voters. To find out how to contact your Congressmen, go to VoteSmart. For more information about NAIS and what you can do to stop it, go to Liberty Ark Coalition. If you would like to help, please sign the support pledge. There's power in numbers.