Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack ended the controversial National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in February 2010. NAIS was designed to identify and track each and every individual livestock and poultry animal owned by family farm producers or hobby farmers across the country. Put forth as a disease tracking and trace-back security program, NAIS was a fundamentally flawed program that could not deliver real security.

Instead, NAIS would have increased costs, liability, and paperwork to independent livestock producers.

By "registering" livestock, NAIS would have placed even more control of our food supply in the hands of the multinational companies that helped develop NAIS.

Furthermore, NAIS would have usurped existing, well-functioning disease response and brand inspection programs run by states, while doing nothing to improve food safety, increase information to consumers, or prevent diseases for producers.

Despite the end of NAIS, the issue of animal traceability is not dead. The secretary has directed USDA to work with the individual states to come up with a revised program. Each state will be responsible to regulate their internal livestock movements in the most appropriate manner for the state.

In addition, interstate movement traceability systems will be developed in collaboration with the states and with input from livestock producers.

 

Conference Committee trims animal identification program budget

WORC hailed a cut in funding by Congress for a controversial animal identification program as a move in the right direction.

Senate slices funds for animal ID program

Although pleased with Senate action Monday cutting funding of a controversial animal identification program in half, WORC wants Congress to end all funding for the program.

Producers pack animal ID session in Rapid City

Over 400 producers packed into a listening session on the controversial animal identification program held in Rapid City, S.D., June 11.

WORC talks to Secretary Vilsack about animal identification

Livestock industry representatives participated in a roundtable discussion on the proposed National Animal Identification System with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on April 15, 2009.

"We're pretty skeptical," WORC's Gilles Stockton tells the Billings Gazette.

Read news release

WORC asks questions about animal identification

In a letter sent April 8, 2009 to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, WORC is seeking answers and more details about NAIS.

Read news release

See WORC's suggestions for comments on NAIS for the USDA listening sessions.

• WORC submits testimony to Congressional hearing on Animal ID
• WORC submits comments on Federal Registration for Animal ID

Background

USDA has been working for over five years to implement NAIS. NAIS is designed to identify and track each and every individual livestock and poultry animal owned by family farm producers or hobby farmer across the country.

Put forth as a disease tracking security program, its actual intent is more sinister. NAIS will:

• Usurp existing, well-functioning disease response and brand inspection programs run in states,
• Put the cost and liability on the shoulders of producers and famers.

NAIS does nothing to serve as a food safety issue for consumers or a disease prevention system for producers, but costs the taxpayers millions of dollars for nothing in return.

When this cumbersome and costly plan was met with resistance, USDA issued “proposed rules” in the federal register, but like all other aspects of the program, hid its real intent.

Hidden among the tag regulations and numbering systems, is the real crux of the program—to participate in an animal health program, you must register your property with the NAIS program and be assigned a NAIS premises identification number. This mandates the first step of the three-step NAIS program (premises registration, animal identification, and reporting) for hundreds of thousands of animal owners.

Resources

• Read WORC's latest fact sheet on NAIS
• Read WORC's fact sheet NAIS: Unanswered Questions
• Read sign-on letter WORC signed regarding NAIS in House Appropriations Committee
• Learn more about WORC’s position on animal Identification proposals