NAIS—It is about false numbers
From: National Association of Farm Animal Welfare PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Darol Dickinson
740 758 5050
February 16, 2009 For Immediate Release Please
NAIS~~~ Congress Briefings Askew by USDA
By Darol Dickinson
There is ocean front property in Arizona. You can have it free, but at some future date you may
have to pay some amount of property tax and other ownership assessments may be enforced from
time to time. Does this sound like an illusionary Bernie Madoff investment?
In a letter dated July 20, 2008, Jere L. Dick of USDA–APHIS wrote, “According to USDA’s
National Agricultural Statistics Service, there are 1.4 million US livestock raising operations that
derive at least $1000 annual revenue from livestock sales. More than 475,532 premises,
approximately 33% of this total figure—has been registered with NAIS.”
USDA has a long history of integrity, and trusted service to livestock owners. Now, to
implement their NAIS program all the ethics have apparently been abandoned. Many who recall
the USDA’s reputation for honesty, are appalled at the extraordinary degree of political
deviousness USDA uses to promote their computerized animal numbering program—NAIS.
The 2007 US Ag Census was released Feb. 4. Although the product and type operation of a
ranch, dairy or grain farm is totally different, USDA includes them all under the same generic
name, “farms.” Census data shows the USA is home to 96,347,858 cattle with 963,669 cattle
farms. There are 9.3 million sheep and 83,134 sheep farms. There are 3,140,529 goats and
144,466 goat farms. There are 67,786,318 hogs at 75,442 hog farms. There are 296 million
turkeys, 349 million laying hens, and 2,187,509,325 total domestic fowl at 213,432 farms,
assuming the census process carefully counted them all.
For horse population, Kathie Luedeke at the American Horse Council in Washington DC stated
there are 1.96 million people who own 9.2 million horses in the US, a number no one disputes.
For totals, this comes to 2,373,284,030 head of livestock, fowl, etc. They reside at 3,410,142 US
farms. NAIS enforcement plans also include not just the above numbers, but a total of 33
different species of cervidae, buffalo, camelids, alpaca, deer, ratites, marsupials, elk, etc.
Obviously the 2.3 billion number is just a start in the scheme as no census numbers are available
on the huge domestic game bird business. An unknown total non-census number is much larger
than the published Feb. 4 data.
For the Ag census, only US farms with sales of $1000 or more annually are counted. Reliable
sources estimate there are 411,400* farms with less than $1000 annual sales that would be
required to comply with the mandatory NAIS. This could include inventory of small animals, 4-H
projects, fancy poultry, hobbyists, entry level and want-to-be farmers.
The category with the greatest growth recorded in the 2007 census was cattle owners of 1 to 9
head, up from 179,346 in the 2002 census to 232,849 farms. Small farms are growing in numbers
faster than all other sizes. Much of this is due to subdivision of land holdings mostly near cities.
This additionally increases numbers of owners of smaller inventory groups.
NAIS premises enrollment encourages more than one premises to be signed up per farm owner.
This is designed to multiply current enrollments for USDA and increase annual licenses fees once
the program is mandatory. Owners of a diversified operation could spread their risk of a forced
livestock “depopulation” if USDA suspected a disease. Owned or leased farms could be divided
into a number of different units. If NAIS becomes mandatory one concerned rancher plans to
enroll 18 farm units to protect family livestock assets from a complete business devastation in
case of a USDA inflicted quarantine or depopulation.
The USDA official press releases and staff tells Congress, the media, the Senate, and the public, a
number of 1.4 million livestock raising operations exist in the US. Yet, the 2007 US Ag census,
plus the American Horse Council data and farms with below $1000 in annual sales clearly reveal
the more correct number is at least 3,821,542 farms raising livestock.
Today the USDA alleges over 500,000 premises are NAIS enrolled. Many of these are multiple
unit enrollments, livestock auction facilities who own no cattle, custom feed lots, rodeo arenas,
USDA employees, state DOA extension agents, livestock owners who are unaware they are
enrolled and producers who are in the process of “Opting Out.” Some youth have been forced to
“enroll their property” before a single goat or lamb could qualify for government controlled state
fair competition.
Western Horseman Magazine has the largest circulation of any livestock publication in the world.
In their online poll, June of 2008, based on thousands of votes; over 91% of animal owners, if
given a choice, would refuse to comply with any component of NAIS.
Calculating the actual number of all real farms, total NAIS alleged enrollments minus the multiple
enrollments and adding the under $1000 income farms, the percentage of enrolled farm owners in
the US is not 33% but, in fact, less than 9.8%.
The USDA has doled out over $138,000,000 for cooperative agreements and NAIS sign up
incentive programs. Their 28 USDA branches including the Farm Service Agency, County
Extension offices and USDA licensed professionals have dedicated untold hours to coerce new
enrollments in NAIS. The cost to USDA per NAIS enrolled farm owner is well over $360 each.
NAIS is the result of looking for trouble, not finding it anywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and
applying costly, bogus remedies. Never has such a USDA grandiose plot been attempted with less
user approval, less convincing value, and such distorted numbers used to spin the program.
During the Houston Livestock Stock Show, USDA Deputy Enforcements Secretary, Bruce
Knight tried to cajole Texans (Texas is the 33rd lowest percentage premises enrolled state) on
NAIS saying, “Registering is easy. It’s free.”
Hello, “Bruce” Madoff? Any ocean front property in Arizona available, perhaps 1.4 acres?
For more information on NAIS go to www.naisSTINKS.com.
* Twenty one formal requests to Congressmen, the Sec of Agriculture and USDA staff; all
refused to answer in a 60 day period.
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