FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Frankfort, KY (February 5, 2010)—Members of the Community Farm Alliance celebrated a victory today, as word came from Washington that the USDA no longer planned to implement the National Animal Identification System. USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack will make the announcement today.

Plans to implement the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) began in 2004 under the Bush administration, as a strategy to address animal disease. The program called for premise registration of every farm in the country, electronic identification tags for every animal, and tracking every movement of every animal on every farm in the United States.

In May of 2009, not long after being appointed by President Obama, USDA Secretary Vilsack launched a listening tour, in which he held public hearings in cities all across the country to hear farmers concerns about the program. The tour stopped in Louisville during its 12 city run. CFA members and others from across the Commonwealth assembled themselves at the meeting to send the message that Kentucky farmers would not take N.A.I.S. The group argued that implementation of NAIS would do nothing to improve animal health or food safety, but would annihilate family-scale farms, which are the majority of farms in Kentucky.

Today, after nearly six years of farmers and ranchers across the United States fighting back, the USDA has decided to drop the program. The USDA has decided to wipe the slate clean and try to create a new system for tracking livestock that farmers can agree on, allowing individual states to decide how to identify and trace farm animals. According to reports, creating a new plan could take as long as two years.

Adam Barr, beef producer and President of the Community Farm Alliance said, “N.A.I.S. was not an option for a state like Kentucky, where the majority of our farms are small-scale. Our farm economy is based in largely on a multitude of beef cattle herds. NAIS would have placed an undue burden on beef and other livestock producers. As family farmers, our goal was to stop the implementation of N.A.I.S, and today we feel like we did just that. Our hard work paid off; our voices were heard. It’s a great day for CFA, a great day for Kentucky farmers, and a great day for America!”

“The decision to scrap the program shows that the USDA recognized the significant grassroots opposition to NAIS across the country. Five states including Kentucky, have anti-NAIS legislation. We worked hard to keep NAIS out of Kentucky and we’re fortunate to have a state legislature that passed a bill to prevent mandatory implantation of the program. We are elated that USDA has dropped the program all together,” said Barr.

The Community Farm Alliance (CFA) is a grassroots membership organization with over 2,000 members in 75 Kentucky counties.