faq8

Even if you don't farm you'll be impacted by this new program. If you plan on purchasing any number of any of the species covered by this system, whether you buy a live animal for personal use as a pet, competition animal, or food at the store, a farmer's market, or directly from a farm, at the very least, the price of your purchase will increase due to increased overhead created by implementation of the system. It's still unclear as to how implementation of the system will effect operational costs of animal shows and state fairs, but the impact on operating overhead will be serious.

The financial burden on small producers of agriculture and aquaculture animals will have to be passed on to those purchasing the animals and animal products resulting from covered operations. Operating overhead in the form of increased labor costs from mandatory federal reporting will be increased for veterinarians, staff working at all sorts of animal exhibitions including but not limited to fairs, horse shows, FFA and 4H events, etc.

The increase in labor overhead will drive some small producers out of business or underground and the mandatory reporting/registration/inspection requirements will drive some buyers of agricultural animals away from the market, and will probably result initially in a glut of agricultural animals. This glut will lower prices, forcing remaining small producers, many of which operate on a low profit margin already, out of business. With a reduction in producers will come a reduction in selection in products available to the consumer and will probably result, ultimately, in higher prices.

If this program is implemented as it currently stands, it will lay the foundation for further regulation. NAIS presently covers only the afore mentioned species, but includes in it's draft language room for expansion to other species without limit. It can also be used to set precedent which would enable states, counties and cities to restrict/monitor ownership of dogs, cats, birds and exotic pets. Please note the link to New York's dog and cat micro chipping proposal in the alert box above. Already in the state of Oregon we have seen legislation to restrict dog ownership by breed, and legislation passed by Portland, Oregon, restricting/eliminating exotic animal ownership.

Another concern is increased costs to state government associated with the launch of the system. Initially, the federal government is providing grant money to cover the costs associated with setup and launch of NAIS, but who's going to pay for the program in the long run? I can't help but think back on the Oregon Department of Agriculture's requirement for owners of wolf hybrids to obtain exotic animal permits. An increase in scope of ODA's existing exotic animal regulations, in the early 1990's, that was neither funded nor well thought out. At the time, I owned a wolf hybrid and was the first person to apply for an exotic animal permit for one in the state. It took 2 months for an inspector to get to my facility to conduct the inspection due to the fact that the state had created a new requirement without funding the program or acquiring the necessary man power to carry out the inspections - actually at the time USDA did all of the exotic animal permitting inspections for the state, this was just an increase in the scope of the free work ODA was expecting of USDA. A USDA inspector came out and I was informed that these inspections were done for the state by USDA and were not reimbursed, they therefore were of the lowest priority. Three years later, the ODA determined that the program wasn't cost effective and created jurisdictional problems vis-à-vis enforcement and funding, and dropped the program. What will the outcome of NAIS be if it's found to be too difficult to maintain after implementation? The individual states, tribes and territories of the USA are going to be required to collect all of this data, which will be considerable to say the least. The fed is not planning on funding the states' data collection services beyond the initial set up period.

In a time of increasing budget deficits and increasing taxes, fees, surcharges, etc., on federal, state and local levels, do we really need another huge, unfunded, federal mandate landing on our states? Especially when we already have existing programs that do the job right now as far as disease tracking both within and without the food chain?

<< Back ~ Next >>

~~ Featured Websites ~~

jrigutto.com

Stop Animal ID

Oregon Against NAIS