A new program, the National Animal Identification System, instigated by the USDA, will become mandatory by 2009. The system requires anyone with even one livestock animal to participate in a two-step process of registration.

First, the premises with names, address, phone number and GPS coordinates must be put into a federal database.

Second, it mandates that owners tag and register a 15-digit ID number for any animal that ever leaves the premises for whatever purpose – selling, slaughter, trail rides, veterinary visit, fairs. Notification must be made within 24 hours of every off-premises event.

The USDA has plans to enforce compliance with large fines.

The process will be pricey, and this invasion of privacy will have the most impact on small farms, as each animal or fowl must be registered individually. Large meat producers, which often process large groups of animals together, will only have to register by lot number.

The plan is so distasteful to participants that at an informational meeting in Ellsworth recently, protesters splattered state agriculture officials with manure. As more people become aware of the plan, there will be more protests – not necessarily of the dung-flinging variety, though that does tend to get the attention of officialdom and seems somehow appropriate to the issue.

This plan is brought to us by the biggest corporate players in U.S. meat production (e.g., Monsanto, Cargill Meat) and the marketers of high-tech animal ID equipment (Digital Angel, Inc., EZ-ID/AVID ID systems).

Joyce White, Stoneham