NAIS Meeting in Whitney Point, NY

Report on Today’s NAIS Meeting in Whitney Point, NY

Attendance:

There were about 25 or more people in attendance, plus two ladies from New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, a man representing the USDA, and another man from the county level.

One of the ladies from Ag & Markets did most of the talking with occasional input from the others. She asked up front that everyone be respectful of each other even though the topic was controversial. Folks were respectful throughout the meeting, even during the Q&A/comment period.

Presentation of the program:

• The basics of the NAIS were explained in a slideshow. During the slideshow two things were emphasized:

1. The Voluntary nature of the NAIS,
2. And that NY state is not implementing everything that is being advised by the federal level of the program, (For example, NY will not require the use of RFID tags, and is actively encouraging the use of tags already on the animals).

• It was stated that the NY version of the NAIS is called the New York Animal Health Information Systems (NYAHIS). NYAHIS will attempt to maintain the “positive aspects” of surveillance embraced by the national system, discarding the elements that just do not work with NY State. They believe that in doing this they can still meet the goals of the national program. (Personally, I don’t see how they can do this.)

• The premises number will be 7 alphanumeric characters, and the animal ID number will be 8 alphanumeric characters. (If they were only using numbers that would give the possibility of trying to track over 999 trillion animals. With both number and letter variables in use I don’t even want to think how many that would be. Why does anyone need this many variables?)

• Current status: 51% of premises ID’s registered. (I’m not sure where this number comes from.)

Q&A session

The real heart of the meeting was the Q&A session: Lots of folks had strong opinions and concerns about the state and federal levels of the program. I don’t recall any farmer there who really had much good to say about the NAIS. As I mentioned, everyone was civil and reasonable. This helped us cover a lot of ground.

The main speaker fielded most of the questions, and did well overall. Here is a summary:

Q: How secure is the database?
A. She could only speak of the NY database, which is only accessible via direct physical (cable) connection to the computer storing the database. Only 5 state vets have access to the database.

Q. There were questions about RFID tags and the frequencies to be used. Also there were concerns about the vulnerabilities of the tags to tampering and duplication of the data.
A. You don’t have to use the RFID tags in NY.

Q. I received an information packet in the mail. It included a card that had my premises ID. What’s going on? (A few people there had this happen to them.)
A. Folks who had previously been registered with state animal disease programs were registered automatically. The literature that was sent to you included instructions in how to opt out of the program. (This must be the data mining hinted at in the last NY State Cooperative Agreement document. None of these gov’t folks seemed bothered at all by the blatant privacy invasion that had been perpetrated upon these farmers.)

Q. How can the program be “Voluntary” and still attain 100% participation?
A. Well, I have to admit that it doesn’t sound very realistic.

Q. What is really meant by a “Voluntary program?”
A. In NY State you will never be forced to participate in the NYAHIS. It will always be voluntary.
(This was discussed at some length with lots of comments from farmers. Many doubted that anyone could presume upon the future and guarantee that things would always remain voluntary. My own comments were that even if things remained unchanged that you could not avoid compliance even when you are not registered. State fairs could restrict participation to livestock with NAIS ID, processing facilities could require that ID tags be present before any livestock could be processed, etc. They had no answer for these concerns.)

Q. Have there been any cost analyses performed? Who is going to pay for the personnel needed to track animals, maintain the needed databases, and enforce the NAIS?
A. State level: Pretty sure that these have been done but could not readily reference any info. Did not know total cost (too variable) or who ultimately pays for it. Federal level: The USDA rep had no answer for these questions.

Q. NAIS does not address issues of disease prevention or treatment. Wouldn’t it be better to close the barn door rather than to go chasing the horses?
A. This was not really answered at all.

Q. There are at least 4 different amendments to the U.S. Constitution that are violated by the NAIS (1st, 4th, 5th, and 14th). Care to comment on that?
A. Hey, It’s a voluntary program. You don’t have to participate.
Q. That’s not a good enough answer. How can you as government employees actively support a program that violates the Constitution?
A. (They really couldn’t answer this one either.)

Q. The NAIS will create a complete “paper trail” for the whole life of livestock animals, say, for example, a cow. The cow can change hands several times and eventually be slaughtered in a USDA plant. What if someone gets sick and sues the place they bought beef from. They can now sue everyone who ever had anything to do with this cow, right from the market back to the farmer who first owned her. How does the NAIS handle the increased liability for farmers?
A. This won’t happen in NY. We are too good at preventing disease from spreading. If you see any problems, report ‘em. (This got a few polite chuckles from the group, even though she was sincere when answering.)

Q. How does the NY program protect farmers from lawsuits?
A: I don’t know but I can look into it.

Q. How does the federal program protect farmers from lawsuits?
A. (From NY level) The federal program has ensured that you will not be held liable. (She turned to the USDA rep but he did not say anything to confirm or deny this.)

Q. Every animal sale that is made has to have receipts. Everyone keeps records of their own animals. Plus there are disease prevention and herd improvement programs that keep records. Isn’t the NAIS redundant?
A. Maybe, but it is difficult to pull all this info together to use it efficiently. The NAIS will consolidate this info to speed up tracking of animals. On the state level it will mean being able to shift from thousands of paper files that must be manually searched to an up-to-date computer database. This will save many, many hours of work.

To be fair to our hosts I must say that they did well in the meeting. They had a tough subject to address with a tough audience (very independent-minded farmers). They were professional and friendly throughout, even when some of the questions were very difficult. They were not rapid big government fanatics trying take away our rights. They sincerely believe in what they are doing and want to help. They are good folks but rather naïve for trusting in the program to fix anything. I hope that we gave them some things to consider.

After the meeting some of the more outspoken farmers were able to talk together. A few of us have decided to keep in touch and continue to fight the NAIS.

Gil