The truth is, other countries generally have much
less intensive reporting requirements and
significantly fewer species involved in their
identification schemes. In the EU they employ a
passport system with the RFID (radio frequency
identification device) in the document, and tagging
in at least the cattle's ears. Yet their reporting
requirements are very similar to those the USDA
wants to require and there are more species involved
than in the Aussie system which presently only
covers cattle. In the EU they require these
passports for cattle, swine, sheep and horses.The
figures used here are all in the British system and
I simply converted pounds to dollars so it would be
more understandable to Americans. Proposed costs
were $13.25-$18.90 (that's 7-10 pounds) per animal
and actual reported costs are between $37.86-$94.66
(or 20 and 50 pounds) per head.
Since the USDA
Secretary of Agriculture and research verifies that
our system is going to be more complicated than any
other nation's systems, the base I will use for my
costs are going to be the one's available in UK
documents. It seems logical that a more complex
system would actually have higher costs than a more
simple system, but to avoid arguments, I am using
the actual figures I could find. Poultry is not
required in the British system, but the lowest cost
per animal appears to be 20 pounds. I readily grant
that it is subjective, but since there has been no
cost analysis done, and the touted $3 tag cost is
for the tag and not the program, I've had to pull
from places that actually have a program and costs
available for that program.
So now let's
imagine you have a small farm with some milk goats,
chickens and guinea fowl, a couple of horses for
pleasure and a couple of bottle calves for your
children to raise for their spending money and one
for your own consumption. This is an extremely
common scenario amongst homes where people want to
provide their own food to some degree and desire to
live a 'simple' life in which their children can be
raised with good food and an understanding of taking
good care of things so they will work together and
are beneficial to each other. So much for
sensibilities.
The NAIS arrives on the scene
and you have decided that you will try your best to
comply with the new regulations. First, you must
secure your license to farm, or premise
identification number. This is issued by the state
and because you didn't volunteer early and the
program has now become mandatory with enforcement,
the price is $10 per year.
You have six milk
goats who kid once per year. You have always used a
neighbor's buck for breeding purposes so thankfully
you don't have to register him. There are 12
chickens at present, but two are setting on clutches
and they are due to hatch out in two weeks. The last
time you were able to get a count on those guineas
you had 10 of them, but today you only saw seven
while you were doing morning chores. Maybe they are
setting on eggs as well? Uh-oh. The three calves are
still where they are supposed to be, so all is well
with them, but you don't have a head gate, so you
have called the vet out to help with them and the
horses.
Thus far you have purchased all the
AIN tags you will need (kinda worried about those
guineas though), the "data accumulator" or in
English, a laptop computer ($1200) which you will
keep in the barn so you can record all vaccinations
and medications administered, and the handheld wand
($450) and the cords ($40) required to ensure you
don't make a number transposition on those 15 digit
tags, the software you have was provided free for a
thirty day trial period, and you are now ready to
become NAIS compliant.
The tag costs are
higher than they said they would be because of the
agencies that had to be employed to keep track of
all the tags. The company you bought the tags from
includes free entry into the database for the animal
with purchase of their tags, so you saved the 30¢
fee on each of those reports. The cost for each
identification device is $37.86 on the goats, cattle
and even (gulp!) the poultry! This is because as the
documents repeatedly state, the system must be
uniform. Horses are higher because they are
considered to be luxury animals, so the cost for
them is $47.70.
The goats definitely seem to
justify the expense more. They give you both milk
and cheese and let the kids raise up those calves so
they can buy some of the things they are in an
endless state of 'dying to have.' The goats only
cost you $226.92 and you figure they can eat a
little less and be just fine anyway. The calves cost
$113.58 and you are hoping prices hold out until
they are ready to sell as that should help you with
the costs of the goats and chickens, fingers crossed
on this thought!!!
The horses. Oh boy. The
whole family got together and decided the horses
simply had to stay even though they aren't putting
any food on the table because we might just need
them to be able to go to town with the way the gas
prices are going up and the new war in the Middle
East keeps worsening on a daily basis. It's cheaper
to feed the horse than the car, so it was unanimous.
Besides, the price horses brought had plummeted
because of the system getting close to mandatory and
you waited too long to sell. So the horses cost
$95.40, so long as you don't ride them. Reporting
their movements is 30¢ every time you take them off
the property and 30¢ every time you bring them back.
The horses seem to be some kind of insurance on the
hoof, plus they sure are nice to look at in the
morning.
Thus far you have spent at total of
$2,968.82 to be compliant with the NAIS. Of course
you had to put all this on a credit card as you only
make $20,000 per year, So somewhere in the figuring
you will need to remember the interest rate of 15.8
percent, but that seems trivial and not even worth
considering if you think about the national debt for
half a second. Anyway, there are things to do and
the vet should be here to put the chips in the
horses and cows with his portable squeeze gate in
about an hour. Usually he charges $55 to come out
for a visit to the farm based on a two hour visit
tops, but the office girl informed you he was having
to charge a bit more due to all the extra reporting
now.
As you eat breakfast while waiting for
the vet to come and musing over how on earth you are
going to keep from going bankrupt, the local radio
station reports that the area sale barn has upped
it's commission charge from $12 per head to $35
because it has to run so many cattle through again
due to the poor read rates. Oh brother. In defense
of the sale barn, the fines for not having the farm
of origin recorded correctly can get up to $500 per
offense, so they have to watch their errors very
closely.
The vet arrives and you get the
portable squeeze gate into the calf pasture and coax
them with a bottle into the thing even though they
are waaaay past weaning age. You've just been trying
to get them to grow as much as possible to help pay
for things. You've decided that this year you will
sell the calf to someone else for beef and just hope
that the imported meat at the supermarket doesn't
get above $6 per pound.
The calf tagging goes
pretty well and you get the tags entered into your
wand without difficulty. Now you head on to the
horses. The gelding goes into the chute without
trouble and the chip is inserted into his neck with
only two attempts by the vet. You get that entry
into the wand as well and are actually starting to
think this is pretty cool.
Then the mare goes
in. She is not a happy camper. Holding her head
still should be some kind of an Olympic or extreme
sports event and that hand is really going to swell
up on you in a little while. After what seems like
forever the vet gets the chip in her neck. When you
go to read it with your wand she flips her head and
smashes the wand into the side of the squeeze chute,
and the blasted thing busts into pieces all over the
ground and the portable chute. Super glue ain't
gonna fix it. You've only got one week until the
entire system is mandatory with enforcement and you
still have all those dang birds and goats to implant
and band!!!
Since you've known your vet for
years he has some empathy for you and says he'd be
happy to help you tag the other animals so you can
just enter everything into his wand and still get it
uploaded to the proper databases before the fines
set in on you. Just then, one of the dad burned
guineas comes out of the brush with heaven only
knows how many keets in tow!!! You don't have the
tags for those keets. Awwww nuts!!! Plus the vet is
there and he is required by law to report any
sightings of untagged animals. That's $1,000 per
event in fines to you or the loss of his license if
he fails to do so! Man. There were at least 10
keets, although you are sure there will only be six
tomorrow.
Right now you want to quit. Doc says
"Hey, don't worry about it, you still have a whole
week to get it all done and I have ten tags for
poultry right on my truck." He's a real helpful
sort. After he scans the mare who is still in the
chute you let her loose and load the gelding back in
for scanning. Now it's back to the calf pasture to
re-scan those boys. It takes 30 minutes to get them
back in the chute because they are so full they
can't be easily coaxed with the bottle any
longer.
Next you go to do the goats as you
have decided that there is no way to get the wand in
time to avoid fines, and you know your vet is a nice
guy but fears for his job if he is proven to not
enforce this system properly. The girls behave quite
well while the microchip is inserted into their tail
webs. They definitely deserve a treat.
The
chickens are all in the yard so it only takes 25
minutes or so to get the id bands on them. The vet
notices the clutches under the two hens and asks how
many tags you think you'll need for the imminent
chicks. When you say you'll just get in touch with
him when they hatch out he gives you a 'look'. Oh
boy. So much for mister nice guy.
It's time to
move onto the guineas. Too bad the 12 year old boy
is in school as he's really fast and actually stands
a chance at getting a few of them. Since you know
you were missing three adults yesterday you decide
to go back to the brush in the horse pasture first.
Bingo!!! Two more guineas are in there setting on
clutches. Drat. You get one of the hens and get the
band on her but the other one takes off and actually
abandons her nest rather than giving herself up. It
breaks your heart, but rather than spend several
hundred more on tags since you know the vet will be
back after 'the look' in the chicken coop you squash
the nearly hatched out keets in their
shells.
After trying for a good half hour to
get the rest of the guineas the vet just decides to
leave you with the tags and you can call him to come
back and scan them when you've got them all penned
up. You tell him that you don't have any pen that
will keep the guineas inside. All you have is the
chicken coop and they flat fly over the yard for the
chickens. He assures you that he's sure you can get
it worked out, after all those fines are too high to
chance getting any just over the lack of a
completely enclosed pen for the guineas. He's
absolutely right.
Since your momma didn't
raise any fools you invite him in for coffee before
he hands you the bill for the morning's events. He
starts writing the durn thing up while your still
fixing his coffee!! That isn't good. As you set the
coffee down on the table you invite him to have some
of the fresh coffee cake setting right in front of
him still slightly warm from the oven. After you've
chatted a bit about the weather and such
trivialities for 10 minutes he slides the bill over
to you and you spew coffee out of your mouth across
the table and all over the fresh coffee cake. Guess
he won't have any after all. Its $110 for his time,
$5 per each application $3 for each read (including
uploads into the Meta data system thank heavens!)
and $378.60 for the ten extra tags for the keets.
Next to that he wrote (chickens, too) letting you
know he's definitely cutting you some slack. That's
a tidy sum of $680.60 Not bad for a morning's work
at all.
Your smallish farm total is now up to
a sum of $3,649.42 and you still have to buy that
new dadgum wand again. Obviously this system is
affordable and worth every penny.
