By Sue Karber, Staff Writer for GFN:

NAIS (National Animal Identification System) is simple to understand if one understands the impact on trade of the SPS and TBT agreements made through WTO (World Trade Organization) the OIE and Codex. Already lost most of you haven’t I?

Simply put, NAIS has nothing to do with food safety but everything to do with giving up our sovereignty. The USDA is selling this invasive, unconstitutional, program as a means to increase international trade by complying with the international mandates we have under in treaties and now forced to live under those international laws even if it means destroying our constitution. Now ask yourself this; would you rather eat a cow that has been tested free of BSE (Mad Cow) or would you rather eat a cow that has a brand new NAIS compliant microchip and not tested and proven clean for BSE? No brainier right? Well, our government doesn’t think it is scientific to test because they are not allowed by treaty without permission from other treaty holders. Creekstone Farms in Kansas has lost 2 billion dollars in sales and laid off 150 tax paying employees while they sue the USDA for the right to test every cow they process.

Japan tests every cow they process and Creekstone has a ready market if they are allowed to test. So again why would tags make cattle sell better to foreign markets than testing? It won’t, but since we have entered into agreements to allow the European Union (EU) to set the standards for our Agricultural Industry and we have to obey their commands the USDA is trying to make us swallow the compliance order of total surveillance of every moving creature.

Most big cattle processors are global so they think it is great to have a global system of surveillance and ability to pass their liability over to producers. They don’t want to test cattle that would end the producer’s liability for good. Any process problems after testing means the processors have liability, which cannot be passed back to producer. The tests are both USDA approved and EU approved by the way from several vendors. Creekstone has a brand new lab just waiting to be used for 27 months now or 2 billion lost sales ago and climbing. You have to ask why the USDA demands tags and not testing? How will tags increase confidence in safety over testing?

Now for the kicker. The big boys don’t have to tag. Only the little guys have to tag every single animal while the big boys get lot numbers. The little guy gets to report by phone or computer program which costs money, has yearly royalty fees and pay a fee for incident reports which must be filed within 24 hours or fines or in some cases even jail. What are those incidents? Birth, death, buy, sell, take to show, take to vet, any movement off property, and any co-mingle with other animals.There are also the tag costs, reader cost and prayers they work. Tags have a 50% failure rate in four years of tests in Australia, are easily lost and hackable and some have viruses that can wipe out that expensive computer, expensive report program and reader.

USDA will not discuss actual costs so we have to go by the tests in other countries. I have three sources that range from $35.00 per head to $37.00 per head and climbing and according to the Winter 2005, Volume 3 and Number 4 of “Cattlemen’s Journal USA”, the disease trace back has been impeded by the E-Nils (Aussie Version of NAIS) because of so many animals never deleted from the data base and other hindrances. They had to go back to the old methods. R-Calf can be reached for a copy at 888-258-7212 or email cjusa@memontel.net

There are some great resources to many unanswered questions in this publication. Cattle Facts has some great information but is Australian so it might be better to visit on the web http://www.cattlefacts.com.au/Issues_nlis.h tm#ABA%20case and Read a typical cattle producer's objections to NILS http://www.cattlefacts.com.au/Issues_nlis_let. htm also have a look at this http://www.lmaweb.com/infonewspast.html#192 see what their actual costs have really been and some of the headaches.

Here is the real numbers in Australia http://www.austbeef.com.au/Postings/15403/Content /ABA%20Qld%20NLIS%20RIS.doc and the phantom cattle which costs the producers in the cost area of our Enron scandal http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/08/06/austr alian-naisnlis-costs/ These are eye opening reading. Just think, if every bite of food in the world is controlled and every drop of water is controlled by the UN or a combination of the UN and Global Corporations what life would be like, it is happening with UN Agenda 21 http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/do cuments/agenda21/index.htm, WTO and USDA right before our eyes.

USDA won’t send you the drafts or supplements or the Strategic Plans which are available on line and big reading, however they have a nice glossy packet that skims over the details they will hand out or send. It doesn’t tell about the real guts of the program that will wipe out all but big producers. I call it fascism but others may have other words for it. The total program is extremely complicated and mostly hidden to public scrutiny, but if you have the guts to dig you can get the real story at http://www.nonais.or g/ NONAIS has all the important document locations which the USDA switches around regularly to keep people from reading all the details. Walter keeps the links updated to the USDA new hiding places daily.

There are allot of acronyms to learn in this global game of tag, what is yours is now federal property the (national herd), not private property. We are now stakeholders not property owners. Here are the various players in the proposed National Animal Identification System being pushed by the USDA and managed by APHIS (Animal Plant Health Inspection Service). Hang on to your hat because the ride is a doozy.

There is the WTO (World Trade Organization), which reached an agreement with participating countries a few years back in Uruguay, called the SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) and TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) agreements which I have been up rechecking my facts all night since it is so complicated a mess. http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/agr ic_e/agric_e.htm this will get you started.

OK, This all boils down to the SPS agreement which says that each member country can make regulations that must be met by other member countries in order to trade in agricultural goods with each other. Hint, we let the EU/UN make the rules. These regulations must be in the interest of protecting the country making the regulations, protecting against disease, pests or perceived health dangers. The reason the tags are scientific and testing isn't is because we are under international rules not US rules/laws and must abide by trade agreements which has removed our sovereignty and constitutional rights but the government does not want us to understand this until it is too late.

Here is the guide to the Structure of NAIS http://nonais.org/techdocs/AGuidetoth eStructureofNAIS.pdf

Countries making the regulations cannot impose more strict regulations on importer nations that they do on their own nation. This is where the TBT comes into play, remember the Technical Barriers to Trade agreement was made at the same time in Uruguay. That says that developed nations need to help the less developed nations to meet their own criteria, through all kinds of assistance and actually frees third world nations from many of the rules required of industrial nations. It hits us in the pocket book big time. We get flooded in the United States with inferior products while our products are blocked and our US jobs are lost.

Then there is the OIE, or World Animal Health Organization, which is independent of the U.N. in origin but works very closely with FAO (Food and Agriculture Organizations of the U.N. and Codex Alimentarius, which is a sub part of the U.N and FAO. Codex is a global FDA and OIE is like a global USDA. The US is a member of all the above. OIE has authority over all member nations’ veterinary services. OIE has become more and more involved in trade since WTO came on the scene in 1994. In 10 years it has done a number on America Citizens rights and freedoms. I was nice, I did not point out all the job losses.

OIE and Codex are working together on most everything now since, if UN controls the food, they can control the world and we gave them treaties and funding that said go for it. One of the results is NAIS or National Animal Identification System with the issue of “trace ability/product tracing” and UN version of “good farming practices”. On page 41 of the Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission it actually sums it all up about animal identification and the tracing of animal products and keep on reading on age 41 of the same TAHSC publication and you will see NAIS spelled out in the part that starts “The Competent Authority, in partnership. In the Appendix XXXIV of the Terrestrial Animal Health Standards it states such things as “animal identification system” being rolled into “animal identification” so that the smaller term may legally be referred to meaning an entire national or international system. http://www.oie.int/eng/en_index.htm enjoy the read now you have the codes to follow.

Now what does this mean for us? WE HAVE BEEN HAD, but before you blow a gasket understand that our representative passed the Bioterrorism 2002 Act with two copies with two weeks to review and this got slid past them. The UN/EU/WTO set the rules and we fell for it and when push came to shove and it had to be sold to the US citizen the opportunity came in the Bioterrorism Act and putting USDA under Homeland Security with our representatives voting blind. No way could all have read the whole mess with only two copies available in the two weeks time according to the GAO reports I read. So don’t blame the reps, just push them to fix it and quit conning us that tags and expensive tracking will make our food safer or easier to track. It is pure bull pucky. Tags and expensive tracking is inventory control and to stop private ownership of animals and property making us slaves of the Global Corporations under the UN.

The only beneficiary of this mess is Global AG and they are really pushing. Hay producers will lose, yes, hay producers, you are already suppose to be tracking every field and every bale of hay and so forth. Look it up on the FDA site and page 37 of the TAHSC document and notice how the Bioterrorism act reads requiring the same standards of registered premises, report who drove the truck, which field it was from, who worked on the harvesting, who was it sold to etc. etc. Go to USDA site http://www.usda.gov/documents/PreHarvestSecurity and read the 2006 pre-harvest guidelines which is right out of the UN/OIE Farming Practices http://www.oie.int/eng/bien_etre/en_introduction.htm it is worth wading through the trail that gives us NAIS. Sounds great but look at the real message behind the guideline then think of the 24 hour reports that are required for NAIS. Our homes become concentration camps and we are paying to care for animals that now are part of the World Herd (UN) and National Herd (USDA). Every bite of food will be inventoried and controlled by not you or me but by those who will have total control of the world food supply.

It is time to enforce our constitution and get the UN and Global Corporations out of our Government and lives. Just read below..

Once we have regulatory approval, we believe it will only take between four and five years to breed enough chickens to replace the entire world population,” Professor Tiley said. source http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm? The above shows why game fowl has to go or any animal not genetically patented. To control the food and get royalties year after year from GM animals the core genetic base must be totally in the hands of those elite that want total control of all food supplies. Your game fowl, my good old homestead goat or horse has to go. http://www.we-make-money-not- art.com/archives/cat_labs.php?page=3 and http://pewagbiotech.org/newsroom/su mmaries/display.php3?NewsID=968 alternate locations if first link fails. They tend to disappear. My heritage cow, your chicken or goat are a threat to profits and control.

I really hope you will read all the sources I have presented and not take anyone’s word for it. Notice all the phrases, stakeholder, national herd, farm to fork and on and on you will see their programs being shoved down our throats to end our constitutional sovereignty and rights are right out of the above treaties, publications and organizations.

It is not too late. Educate yourself and then let your voice be heard.

Consumers, small farmers, family farms, traditional farms, local supply market production,hobby breeders, heritage breeders all lose. The only winner is Global AG. Are you willing to give up your freedom for them? Are you so gullible you believe tags are safer and less expensive than testing?