Missouri Farmers, Ranchers, and Consumers will hold a protest of the NAIS

Contact: Paul Hamby 816 632 0602
Email: info@missouriansagainstnais.com |
Press Conference at 10:00 am at
Truman Conference Center, Jefferson City, Missouri

June 5, 2009 Jefferson City, Missouri………….

Farmers, Ranchers and Consumers will hold a protest of the NAIS – National Animal ID System on Tuesday June 9 from 8 am to 12 noon. The protest will run concurrently with the USDA NAIS listening session at Truman Hotel & Conference Center in Jefferson City, Missouri. More than a dozen organizations have signed on in support of the peaceful protest and will have members attending to speak out against NAIS. The USDA has been pushing for mandatory NAIS, originally calling for mandatory in January of 2008 and with enforcements in January of 2009, but has delayed implementation due to huge public outcry against the program. USDA is now asking for public input on how to overcome objections to the program. Bob Parker, a southern Missouri farmer, has toured the state speaking out against NAIS, “The USDA does not want to accept that the people are against this program. They are asking how to make it more palatable. Our message to USDA is to end NAIS now.”

NAIS is a three phase program designed by the USDA and the Nat’l Institute for Animal Agriculture to advance guidelines for international trade through an agency of the World Trade Organization called the OIE. NAIS will tag and track movements of 33 species of animals worldwide. Phase 1 requires livestock owners to obtain a GPS linked Premise ID number for their property. Phase 2 requires all animals be identified with an international ID device. Phase 3 requires electronic reporting of movements on or off a premises to effectuate 48 hour trace-back to the premises of origin of any and every animal. Each phase is predicated upon the preceding phase. There can be no NAIS animal ID without a NAIS premises ID.

Opposition to NAIS is strongest from independent cattlemen, small farmers and hobbyists.

Doreen Hannes is a researcher, author and public speaker whose family has a small farm and raises much of their own food. She states, “The design of NAIS is effectively a license to farm. This program would cost us at least $4,000 the first year. There is no method for growers to recoup the cost of the program, and the implementation of NAIS will be the destruction of the family farm and rural America. The cost to freedom is simply immeasurable.”

“The Missouri Libertarian Party has worked with farmers and ranchers in Missouri for years to prevent implementation of the burdensome regulations of the National Animal Identification System being forced on them by the USDA”, Glenn Nielsen, Missouri Libertarian Party Chair.

Paul Hamby, NW Missouri coordinator for Campaign for Liberty, states “NAIS will put an undue burden on non-electric Amish farmers, small hobby farmers, 4-H and FFA members while providing no benefit to them. NAIS will not make our food supply safer. I am against this international livestock ID program run by the same federal government who just bought General Motors.”

The following organizations are sending members to Jefferson City to speak against NAIS on June 9:

R-CALF USA

Missouri Campaign for Liberty

Arkansas Animal Producers Association

International Dairy Goat Registry

Missouri Independent Consumers and Farmers Association

Illinois Independent Consumers and Farmers Association

Ozarks Property Rights Congress

Missouri First, Inc.

Liberty Restoration Project

Legislators Against Real ID

Missouri Libertarian Party

Missouri Constitution Party

Missouri Rural Crises Center

Citizens for Private Property

Douglas County Citizens for Liberty

For interviews or talk radio guests call,

Doreen Hannes 417 349 9625/417 962 0030

Bob Parker 417 257 8711

Ray Cunio 314 223 6925

Paul Hamby 816 632 0602

Updates and links to organizations listed above www.missouriansagainstnais.com