NAIS Isn't Dead Yet

Cattlemen who fought against the USDA’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and thought they squelched it until the USDA revived it as Animal Disease Traceability (ADT) , are donating money to the United Horsemen and the International Equine Business Association (IEBA), which, ironically, seem to be bringing in NAIS/ADT through the back door.

These two new organizations, promoting the sale of horse meat, primarily to foreign countries, and the reinstatement of (probably foreign owned) horse slaughter plants in the United States, are muddying the waters by trying to tie this to property rights.

Let’s just grab this bull by the horns.

If you haven’t heard about NAIS, it required that ranchers sign a PREMISES ID contract. In international law books, premises is NOT property, so ranchers were basically signing away their property rights . They became a “stakeholder” (a third party). The USDA wanted to make this mandatory.

Supposedly, NAIS was about food safety and “traceability.” However, most food safety issues are due to poor practices at deregulated, self-policing slaughterhouses (where RFID tags end up on the floor) and deregulated, self-policing meat packing plants. Not ranches. And since tags and microchips can easily be reprogrammed, they won’t prevent bioterrorism.

Bill Bullard, CEO of R-Calf, stated: “… USDA’s entire effort to implement a new form of animal identification system is driven not by a genuine desire to prevent and control livestock disease outbreaks, but rather, by a desire to conform to international trade standards.”

Conforming with international trade standards means conforming with the United Nations’ Agenda 21, its action plan, which has the stated objective of “the encouragement of communally and collectively owned and managed land.”

Since United Horsemen and IEBA seem to be trying to hitch their wagon to “property rights,” you might want to take a closer look.

ANIMAL ID SOLUTIONS

A United Horsemen press release claims the International Equine Business Association (IEBA) will include “forms of permanent identification and traceability” and has “contracted with Animal ID Solutions Inc., a Canadian company with operations in the United States” and “will utilize Animal ID Solution’s Global Animal Identification Network…”

On the Animal ID Solutions’ website, it states that its Global Animal Identification Network “Integrates/exports with other national and international traceability programs.”

Integrates with international traceability programs? Does this sound like a global NAIS/ADT?

If this is about food safety, it’s interesting that Animal ID Solutions has partnered with NCR Corp. NCR Corp. was responsible for the nation’s biggest Superfund site in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for contaminating the Lower Fox River and Green Bay with PCBs.

HOWDY, PARTNER

Animal ID Solutions Global Animal Identification Network has other “partners”: United Horsemen, the Horse Welfare Alliance of Canada, the International RFID Business Association (a trade association to promote an increase in the global marketplace for RFID), RFID Consultants.com (your “global portal” to RFID consultants) and the Animal RFID Consortium.

And these partners have partners. For example, the Animal RFID Consortium is partners with Middle East RFID Consortium.

Animal ID Solutions is owned by Lantz McLaren. However, Anne Olscher, who has also been listed as Animal ID Solutions’ owner and CEO, is co-founder of the Animal RFID Consortium, which operates under the “auspices” of the International RFID Business Association!

THE INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT OF THE HORSE

The 1st Summit of the Horse last year was sponsored by United Horsemen. Its President is Dave Duquette, a horse trainer from Oregon, and Vice-President was Wyoming State Representative Sue Wallis, who is now Co-Chair of the IEBA (along with Bill desBarres of Canada). The idea for the IEBA was supposedly spawned at this Summit.

At the upcoming 2nd Summit, one panel member is Callie Hendrickson of the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts.

If you look at the Colorado Association of Conservation Districts (CACD), , you’ll see that their sponsors include The Nature Conservancy and Izaak Walton League, two organizations promoting UN programs (which promote UN’s action plan, Agenda 21, and communally owned property).

CACD is partners with the USDA, Forest Service, EPA (all partners of the IUCN, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which “links its mission” to Agenda 21) and the BLM. The BLM recently appointed Callie Hendrickson to their Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board.

Retired Texas Congressman Charlie Stenholm, a lobbyist with the law firm Olsson, Frank & Weeda , will be a speaker at the Summit.

Last year, when Stenholm hollered “Lets feed China” during his Summit speech, did one patriotic American in the audience think about the implications of this? I mean, China owns about $1.1 trillion in U.S. bills, notes and bonds.

Stenholm’s firm also represents Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), whose member companies recently sponsored a big biotechnology convention in Chinaand seem to be partnering with Chinese companies.

BIO has also been pushing cloned animals, and they’ll most likely want to protect their members’ international patents.

How will they do this? For one thing, they’ll partner with international RFID consortiums, like the ones listed above.

In 2009, Stenholm asked cattlemen to “Keep an open mind about NAIS. It’s important for food safety and traceability in the event of a disease breakout…” I don’t know, but I wonder if Charlie Stenholm was “open-minded” enough to sign a Premises ID contract for his property.

Olsson, Frank & Weeda’s website states that “our attorneys were instrumental in enacting the FDA Modernization Act.” What was part of this? Traceability.