More NAIS

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]