What's more dangerous, a chicken or a gun?

In a couple of years, the owner of a single chicken—or pony, or goose, or calf—will be subject to more intrusive surveillance than the owner of a gun.

"Not since Prohibition has any government agency attempted to enshrine in law a system, which so thoroughly stigmatizes and burdens common, everyday behavior and is so certain to meet with huge resistance from the citizens it unjustly targets."

So says Mary Zanoni, Executive Director of Farm for Life, an organization dedicated to battling an absolutely, unspeakably insane intrusion into the lives of American farmers and consumers—and something that has 'til now pretty much flown beneath major media radar.

She's talking about the "Draft Strategic Plan"issued by the USDA last April, spelling out steps it intends to take to implement a National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

NAIS, in short, would require every owner of even a single animal to register his/her home with a national tracking system, including Global Positing Coordinates (for satellite tracking) and implant or tag every animal with a radio frequency device (RFID).

For small- and medium-scale farmers this means implanting a microchip into every single heifer, sow, hen, duckling; footing the bill for the cost of it all; and facing fines and even imprisonment for noncompliance.

Apparently, there have been a few setbacks to the timeline, but by most accounts, unless there is a HUGE uproar against it, the NAIS will become mandatory. Now they're saying by 2009. There are already mandatory programs in place in Texas and Wisconsin. (Update: Texas just backed down (temporarily, at least) from mandatory premises registration—thanks to widespread and strenuous objections....)

Would it surprise anyone to learn that the original impetus for a nationwide animal I.D. program came from a private membership group, the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA)? Who's in this group? Cargill, Monsanto, Schering-Plough and the National Pork Producers Council. Big ag is all for NAIS, because apparently it'll make it easier for U.S. producers to export meats to foreign markets. And industrial meat-producers won't have to tag every single on of their animals. A batch ID will do for them. But the little backyard operator will be saddled with a ridiculous amount of record-keeping, registration (of births, deaths, every coming and going of every animal)...

And of course this scheme does NOTHING to make America's food supply safer.

Zanoni has a quite thorough reaction to the draft plan, which is flawed on several important grounds, each one of which would be reason enough to throw the whole thing out:

1. Constitutional infirmities of the proposed program;
2. An enormous economic cost to animal owners, the States, the Department, and, ultimately, to American taxpayers and consumers for a program likely to be ineffectual;
3. Weaknesses in the stated rationales for the program;
4. A lack of consideration of alternative, far cheaper and more easily administered measures which would more effectively protect animal health and food security; and
5. A lack of notice and an opportunity to be heard for medium-scale, small-scale, and home farmers, and for other citizens owning livestock solely for their own use or pleasure, in the Department's process thus far.

Read Zanoni's entire letter....