1984 comes to Animal Farm
Released 05 Jan 2011
By Lachlan McKenzie, Federated Farmers NAIT spokesperson.
Who would have thought New Zealand farming in 2011 would be facing an Orwellian double hit. Big brother from Orwell's 1984 becomes reality with the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) Bill having passed its first reading before Christmas. While all animals are equal, according to Orwell's Animal Farm, NAIT's flaws means that some farm animals being kept out are more equal than others. Let me explain.
The NAIT concept at first blush sounds very reasonable to those outside of the farm gate. It's about tracking and tracing farm animals both antemortem and postmortem, ensuring, that should a biosecurity incursion take place, we know the numbers and location of all livestock. Postmortem, it enables processed foodstuffs to be tracked and if necessary, eliminated from the food chain should something untoward happen. That said the latter is possible right now.
This seems not just as plausible but somewhat sensible. Federated Farmers I assure you is not some reactionary bunch of computer phobes. Far from it. I happen to be trialing Ultra High Frequency radio-frequency identification (UHF-RFID) as part of my farm system. Rather, in the spirit of whoever benefits should pay, then finding the tangible benefit for family farmers in NAIT is somewhat elusive. The benefits seem to accrue to the processors and their customers, not to mention the equipment vendors. Farmers are left with the cost of tooling up but that's minor compared to lost time it will take to input a mass of data. More on that later.
NAIT is also being pushed as a biosecuirty panacea. Should we suffer from a disease we dare not speak its name, it will enable us to rapidly track back to source and all related movements. This will enable rapid threat containment and it does sound plausible. Except for one of two glaring holes.
Aside from the fact only deer and cattle are being currently enrolled and serious livestock diseases aren't limited to just those two, it relies upon 100 percent data accuracy with 100 percent of all animals being recorded. What then about the several hundred thousand livestock estimated to be living on lifestyle blocks and even in our towns and cities? Even if you have one cattle or one deer, you will need to tool up for NAIT as if you had 500. It begs the question over how 100 percent compliance will be assured. We are, after all, only as strong as our weakest link and since the scheme puts New Zealand on a pedestal, finding those gaps by our competitors makes commercial sense for them.
Also, as a farmer in the central North Island, I have a number of feral animals such as wild deer and pigs that could easily become vectors for the major livestock diseases. These wild animals are of course ‘off the NAIT grid', as would be livestock kept in someone's backyard. There are literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of livestock in the wild that could infect or re-infect our domesticated herds. No one from NAIT can explain away this hole. We also seem to forget that since the disease that dare not speak its name is endemic to many parts of the world, we have a fight or flight option. Fight is 100 percent eradication whereas flight is vaccination. We're having the wrong debate.
Federated Farmers has contacted our farming colleagues overseas and learnt with Australia's version of NAIT, some 34 percent of the cattle slaughtered in a sample did not have lifetime traceability. That's more than a hole it's a chasm. NAIT relies upon an ideal world but we all know we don't live in one. It also ignores the most basic maxim of computing - RIRO - rubbish in, rubbish out. There is no use having a gold plated system if it's built of muck metal.
If you're a farmer undertaking substantial compliance work for no return and no perceived value to your farm business, then it's no wonder errors creep in. Australia's costly version doesn't add farm gate value because of the 26 major beef export nations, it receives the second lowest price on the world market. The United States, without traceability, usurped Australia and regained its market in South Korea even after BSE. Look at it like this, NAIT will be like combining Courierpost with births, deaths and marriages. That's a heck of a lot of data to input and what happens if tags are ripped out, fail or animals just vanish by accident or by rustling. It is the farmer who has to jump through additional hoops and cost to prove to a call centre operative they're not a crook. . The system is only as strong as its weakest link so that demands swinging fines to cajole people and that builds only resentment.
The genesis for NAIT hails from the United Kingdom where EU subsidies had created a veritable black market in livestock being moved around to bolster herd numbers. Subsidy explains why things went pear shaped there but that's not what we have here. Instead the life of most animals is birth then farm with potentially a grazing run-off in between before being sent to the works. All farmers know we have traceability right now because that's how we get paid. When we send stock for processing we are paid on the weight and grade of those animals. This is a very accurate and effective system and milk products are similarly traceable right back to individual farms, by way of batch testing for quality and of course, payment.
While NAIT is seemingly a happening thing, Federated Farmers will be taking the real-world experience of farmers overseas into the Bill's Select Committee. NAIT's compliance regime, charges and fines will be a big focus for our submission
As will be the technological platform. Low frequency radio-frequency identification (LF-RFID) technology may be proven but so is UHF-RFID. What's more applications are available now to read UHF-RFID by bluetooth on mobile phones, but not LF. If UHF-RFID is used by logistics firms to oil rigs then I consider it proven. UHF brings in the possibility of animal telemetry, which moves beyond ‘working for the man' into something I can use practically as part of my farm system. LF-RFID is a technological dead end for while the ice-box was proven technology in its day, the refrigerator proved to be somewhat superior.
Oh and does anyone remember the INCIS IT debacle?
