Agriculture, Ethics, and the Environment

A recent article on TheNewAmerican concerns  small farmers.  The Obama administration is altering the systems to track livestock over state lines, developed by the Bush administration in 2003.  Originally a response to complaints about the mad cow disease discovery in December of 2003, the two systems, Farm Premises Identification (FPI) and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), are being implemented as voluntary, with the intention of becoming mandatory in the future.  This year’s agriculture appropriations bill will include more than $7 million for NAIS; this budget is half that of last years appropriations.

These developments are being scrutinized by an organization formed in protest to these programs.  That organization, Arkansas Animal Producers Association (ARAPA), is predicting a dependency on imported meats as a result of forcing small farmers to adhere to USDA operational standards.  Importing meat to replenish the shortcoming would increase the risk of foreign disease importation as well.  To elaborate more, ARAPA claims that 85 percent of small farms in Arkansas would have to abandon their practice.

There are many downsides to the implementation.  The micro-chips that are used for this type of tracking are said to infringe upon religious freedoms concerned with electronic surveillance implants.  An example of this can be seen with the Amish biblical declaration of the numbering of animals as the “mark of the beast.”  These implants are noted to increase both infection and disease.  ARAPA claims similar systems in England, Canada, and Australia have failed.  ARAPA is also arguing that the intervention is needless because of effective animal disease tracking systems that states already have.

The changes to the original plan allow the USDA to continue its umbrella jurisdiction over animal tracking while only moderately affecting farmers.  Application of the plan encompasses farmers transporting animals over state lines, for which they will have to be registered, increasing USDA oversight, and establishing a Security Advisory Committee to oversee animal health.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Animals, Current Events, Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.