Sean Stanton, who operates North Plain Farm in Great Barrington, poses with some pigs in this November 2004 photo. Eagle file photo

Tuesday, October 17

GREAT BARRINGTON — A federal program that calls for electronic monitoring of livestock to track the movements of sick or diseased animals has raised concerns among local small-scale farmers.

Farmers and consumers are invited to a meeting on the subject tonight at 7 at the Berkshire South Regional Community Center. The forum is sponsored by the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

"The main concern is that this could put some small producers out of business," said Michael Faber of the Berkshire Co-op Market, which does business with local farmers. "It requires a certain level of technology and investment that would work well for large-scale factory farms. But for some of these small independent producers, it puts obstacles in the way of what they do."

The United States Dairy Association, through its National Animal Identification System (NAIS), has begun gathering information on farm premises in Massachusetts and other states.

Eventually, the USDA will ask farmers to apply an electronic device to its animals — chicken, llama, turkey, pig, horse, goat or cows — that would track their movements to the veterinarian, a slaughterhouse, a new farm or another location.

The USDA's intent is to track animals that become sick or diseased, working backward to determine where the animal may have picked up a disease.

'Overwhelmingly negative'

"The response we've been hearing is overwhelmingly negative here in Massachusetts, where most farms are small-scale, sustainable producers of livestock," said Ben Grosscup of the Northeast Organic Farming Association. "It's a program made for and by big agri-business. From the USDA perspective, it's an enormous technical task to undertake. We also think it's unworkable."

According to Grosscup, political opposition to the program is growing among some influential leaders.

Local farmers who operate small-scale farms say the program is simply not realistic for their operations — particularly organic farmers who have free-ranging livestock.

Sean Stanton, who operates North Plain Farm in Great Barrington, has chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows and horses. A program like NAIS would be costly and unrealistic, he said, since he knows the origin of and destination of all his animals.

The NAIS program is being implemented at the state level in Massachusetts by the Department of Agricultural Resources.

Voluntary for now

While the federal program is voluntary at this point — with actual electronic monitoring not yet widespread — opponents say the NAIS has already begun collecting state data on individual farms without farmers' permission.

Grosscup said the program "entirely misses the urgent need for disease prevention in the farm economy."

Grosscup claims that while the program has been described by the government as "voluntary," routine animal reporting information gathered by municipal animal inspectors is being "uploaded" by the state to the USDA "for the explicit purpose of inaugurating this misguided program."

This information-sharing raises confidentiality issues for farmers, said Grosscup.

  He said the program would not seriously compromise large-scale factory farms, but would complicate farming for smaller farmers.

William Turner of Egremont, whose dairy farm has 300 cows, said he has no big objection to augmenting a program that's already in place on his farm, unless it's costly.

Each of his cows has a steel tag in an ear to identify it, so that the cow could be traced to his farm if necessary. The new system, however, could potentially be costly.

"If it's going to cost me $3 per cow and I have 300 cows, how does that fit into the budget?" he asked.

Yet with high-tech system, if he bought some new animals and one was ill, he could track it through its various stops along the way, possibly to the point of exposure, he said.

'It's their problem'

"It shouldn't be a problem telling people you've got to identify the animal; they shouldn't be upset about that," he said. "If they have a problem on their farm, it's their problem until it leaves the farm. And then it's everyone else's problem."

Grosscup, however, said the NAIS program does little to prevent disease; he said more animal testing and better sanitary conditions for large-scale farms should be a bigger priority.

Ellen G. Lahr can be reached at elahr@berkshireeagle.com or at (413) 528-3660