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Nebraska Farmers Union |
1305
Plum Street • Lincoln, NE 68502 Contact
John Hansen Office: 402-476-8815, Fax: 402-476-8859, Cell: 402-580-8815 |
For Immediate Release Contact: John Hansen
July 7, 2005 402-476-8815 office
402-580-8815 cell
Nebraska Farmers Union President’s Statement on National Animal ID
System
Nebraska Farmers Union
President John Hansen praised the work and effort that went into National
Farmers Union’s comments on the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s
Strategic Plan and Draft Program Standards for a national animal identification
system (NAIS) that were submitted today.
“Our national staff did an outstanding job in the drafting of our
comments. Our state organization has
been a long time leader on this issue because we fully understand how enormous
the economic risks are to our livestock producers. We simply cannot afford to take the unnecessary risk of operating
without a safety net, which a good NAIS should provide,” Hansen said.
“Nebraska is one of the top red meat producing and processing states in the nation. It is critical to our livestock producers, our food consumers, and Nebraska that every possible precaution be expeditiously taken to develop and implement a livestock producer friendly NAIS.” Hansen said some of the key elements that NFU identified that should be included in a NAIS included the need for the system to be universal from state to state, built on the foundation of successful disease control and management programs already in place, supportive of state roles, the management and control of the data collected must stay in government hands, an exemption from freedom of information access is needed to protect confidentiality, exemption for producer liability, and not to saddle livestock producers with the costs of the program.
Hansen said, “We recognize that both our Nebraska’s producers and consumers are at risk without a national ID system in place to quickly trace and isolate a potential disease or bio-terrorism attack. A good NAIS will not only protect livestock producers from undue risk, it protects the safety of our food system, and it protects our national security interests. That is why it should be paid for in a manner consistent with other national security protection systems.”
“This is a good example of an ounce of prevention being worth many pounds of cure. We need to be proactive and protect the interests and concerns of our producers. There is far too much at stake to wait until a major economic meltdown happens before implementing a National Animal Indentification System,” Hansen concluded.
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