Fur flies over IDs

MIDDLEBOROUGH -- Opposition is growing among small independent farmers throughout Southeastern Massachusetts to a new federal animal-identification system they say could spell the end of their way of life.

The farmers say the US Department of Agriculture's National Animal Identification System, aimed at pinpointing and controlling disease, may be fine for large, corporate farms that can afford its requirements, but would drive small operations out of business if participation were mandated . The measure is not even the best way of dealing with animal diseases, they say, and smacks of Big Brother.

"It's a classic example of technology and bureaucracy run amok," said Frank Albani, director of the Soule Homestead Education Center in Middleborough and president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Massachusetts. The association is drumming up opposition at meetings around the state, including a Dec. 5 session at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Middleborough that drew about 60 farmers from the area.

"I think the role of government should be to support the small farmer instead of consistently putting up stumbling blocks" like the ID program, with its undetermined costs and privacy concerns, Albani said. "It seems to me like one more blow to small farmers."

The identification program has three components: premises registration, animal identification through tags, and animal tracking. The USDA had planned to eventually make participation mandatory, but, following pressure from small livestock and poultry farmers across the country, the agency issued a new draft User's Guide on Nov. 22 saying the program will remain voluntary on the national level and left to the discretion of states.

Albani and other small-scale farmers say they still fear authorities will make participation compulsory as soon as there is an outbreak of disease. Some of the farmers were already unnerved to learn recently that state officials had provided information about their farms to federal authorities this past summer without their permission or knowledge.

The organic farming group, known as NOFA, is telling farmers not to register their operations or tag their animals, and to urge their state representatives and senators to fight any plan to make the ID program mandatory in Massachusetts.

"The main issue is it's not an effective way of dealing with animal diseases," NOFA representative Ben Grosscup said at the Dec. 5 meeting. "There is a more direct way, and that is better farming practices."

Jack Kittredge , a NOFA representative and owner of the Many Hands organic farm in Barre, said his group believes outbreaks of animal diseases can be attributed to unhealthy factory farms and similar confined, feed-lock facilities.

"What we need to do is deal with the problem at its source, which is the scale at which we raise animals," Kittredge said. "It's the current method that has caused the disease problem, and that's what has to be addressed."

The USDA says its aim with the ID program is to make it easier for health officials to locate and track animals and alert all farm operations in the event of a major disease outbreak such as avian flu or mad cow disease.

A little less than 25 percent of the estimated 1.4 million livestock and poultry operations in the country have registered their premises to date, according to USDA spokesman Ben Kaczmarski . Federal officials still hope participation in the program, begun in the summer, will reach 70 to 90 percent by January 2009 .

"We'll take every step to see it remains voluntary," Kaczmarski said. "I think once they see how sincere we are, the fear will die down."

But Albani said the USDA's new draft language offers no comfort.

"As far as I know, they're reserving the right to make it mandatory at any time," he said. States still have the option to make participation in the national database a requirement. Michigan, for example, did so after an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis there.

In Massachusetts, about 1,800 farm operations recently found they had been entered in the national registry without their knowledge. The 3,400 known livestock and poultry operations in the state (according USDA records) are required under state law to be recorded by community-appointed animal inspectors in "barn books" and the records sent to the state Department of Agricultural Resources. When premises registration was announced by the USDA, state officials began uploading all the farm operations from their barn books into the registry. About 1,800 were uploaded until a public outcry forced the department to cease the transfer. But those that were uploaded will remain in the database.

Kent Lage , assistant commissioner of the Department of Agricultural Resources, said registration in the national database is now up to the farmers.

"Some people seem to be over reacting to this," he said. "The idea they're all going to have to get microchip readers" for scanning identification tags "is just somebody's speculation."

He said Massachusetts livestock and poultry owners have had to register with the state for the last 40 years through the barn books, so registering their premises is really nothing new.

Rick Burnet , a member of Plympton's Agricultural Commission, disagrees. He owns a horse boarding and training facility in that town and raises cattle .

"This is just another erosion of our privacy," he said. "I know people who have been registered without knowing it."

There is also the issue of cost: While registration of farm premises is free under the USDA program, tagging each animal with a 15-digit identification number so its whereabouts can be tracked could add considerable expense for small farms.

The cost depends on the type of identification used. Cattle, for instance, can be identified with button-like radio-frequency ear tags that cost about $3 each. Horses are generally outfitted with injectable transponders implanted by a veterinarian at a considerably higher cost per animal.

Cynda Williams, who keeps about 80 chickens and a handful of ducks and turkeys on her farm in Acushnet for eggs and meat, frets about whether the tags might harm her birds and her customers. But she worries more about her budget. Her farm is certified organic, and she has a regular egg route and sells replacement pullets. She said having to put identification on her poultry could render her small operation no longer cost-effective.

"They are trying to drive small farmers out of business," Williams said.

Darlene Anastas, chairwoman of the Agricultural Commission in Middleborough, said she is not convinced the program will help backyard farmers, despite the USDA's good intentions.

"As I read the literature and try to see what benefit it would provide, I'm hard pressed to see any to the small farmer or 4-H kid," Anastas said. "If I had to answer today whether I want this, I'd say no. It looks to be just another layer of bureaucracy."

Anastas said she did some pricing of tags and equipment used for identification. She said scanners to read the tags were more than $500 each -- a significant expense to small farm s if they should need the equipment.

Indeed, at the Dec. 5 meeting, many farmers expressed concern about what the ID program could mean for their bottom line. Some said they also fear facing discrimination in the marketplace if they did not participate in the program and their animals did not bear the government ID tag.

Lakeville horse owner Shawn Conway questioned whether he would have to file a report every time his daughter wanted to ride a horse at a fair or in a parade. (The USDA's 74-page User's Guide says animals would not need identification numbers to simply participate in some hometown parade, but tags would be necessary for larger events, such as state fairs.)

But identification of the animal had long been necessary in many situations, noted Lage, of the Department of Agricultural Resources.

"Why are people so concerned when they already have to provide some kind of animal identification of their own for health certificates?" he said.

Chickens taken to fairs, for example, already are required to wear leg bands or bear tattoos to identify each bird.

Christine Wallgren can be reached at clwallgren@aol.com.