The government of our fine nation is frantically attempting to get a national animal identification program into place, allegedly in part because we are at risk for BSE or mad cow disease. They are cramming the whole concept down our throats as if will actually change anything rather than costing farmers a lot of money for the privilege of being further inspected and regulated and getting to do a lot of pointless paper work.
Canada already has such a program up and running.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency just released the results of their investigation into a case that surfaced there in April of this year.
(From the Cattle Network), “The investigation, conducted in line with international guidelines, identified 148 animals, including the affected animal’s herdmates and recent offspring. From this group, 22 live animals were located and all tested negative for BSE. One additional animal, which is currently pregnant, has been placed under quarantine and will be tested once it has calved. Of the remaining animals investigated, 77 had died or been slaughtered, 15 were exported to the United States and 33 were untraceable.”
They blame the age of the animals for the lack of traceability, but notice that only twenty-some animals that they did locate were found alive. 92 were long since eaten or disposed of so they couldn’t be tested. What good did the tracking system do?
Not much by my measurements. Except for 23 animals still at the farm, which were negative anyhow, it was much too late to prevent disease from entering the food chain if was ever going to. NAIS is just a feel good program for the government to point to and say, “Look what we are doing for you.”
Farmers can say, "Look what you are doing to us," instead.
[NAIS]
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6 comments:
I've been trying to follow this. Thanks for the clear explanation. I wish you would run govt. ag programs.
Hi Jan, I wish the government would run ag programs for farmers in this country and for our customers, the consumers. Instead they are much more interested in keeping big beef packers and dairy "co-ops", (that are really big companies masquerading as farmer run), happy and lining their pockets. If you get a chance read Sarpy Sam's posts on the topic at Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere, and No Animal ID. He says it all very well and links to many good articles.
Keep up the pressure and the good fight! Too many weenies forget how vital ensuring the safety and security of our farms are... Although Canada might be doing better(?), gosh knows we should ALL do more! Thanks for the information...
The danger is that the vast nonreal farm, nonhobby farm, non 4H/FFA citizens haven't even heard of this and wouldn't think twice about it if they did.
I don't think I'd know about it if it weren't for the blogosphere.
Hi FC, I started studying up on national ID back when Great Britain had its foot and mouth disease epidemic. They have an extremely intrusive system, which didn't stop that disease from ravaging their nation, despite its depth and scope. Farmers there are virtually buried in paperwork, needing passports for each cow just to have them on the farm and detailed itineraries to move them anywhere. They are more regulated than nuclear waste!
Hi Matthew, thanks for stopping by. Here in New York we already have a very effective system, proved by the fact that one of our cows (20 years ago at that) was sent for slaughter and sold to Pennsylvania. She was picked by a new brucellosis test that was too sensitive and the state vet was on our farm the day after she was sold! No fancy traceback system except the little metal ear tag from the USDA, which has been required just about forever. BTW, there was never anything wrong with her, just a test that needed to be changed.
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