References on Avian Influenza, The NAIS,
and Sustainable Agriculture

NOTE: The arrangement of the references contained herein is meant merely as an educational tool for people to better understand the issues around Avian Influenza, the National Animal Identification System, factory farms, and sustainable agriculture. The inclusion of any one source in no way necessarily means that NOFA/Mass endorses the point of view referenced.

1. Reports, Articles, and Position Statements on The National Animal Identification System:

Article: National Animal ID Program Backstops Agribusiness While Small-Farm System Offers Real Disease Answers By Ben Grosscup, NOFA/Mass, March 2006.
(An article by NOFA/Mass NAIS Response Coordinator, Ben Grosscup on why NAIS promotes an unsustainable system of agriculture.)

Position Statement: Comments on NAIS "Draft Program Standards" and "Draft Strategic Plan" By Mary Zanoni, Farm for Life, Feb 6, 2006.
(A leading voice for a sustainable agriculture message on NAIS.)

Position Statement: Analysis of the NAIS and Proposed Texas Regulations By Judith McGeary, Texas Farmers and Gardeners Association (TOFGA), March 27, 2006.
(An excellent critique of the proposed Texas version of NAIS that emphasizes the program's legal and constitutional problems.)

Position Statement: The National Animal Identification System and the Proposed Texas Regulations By TOFGA, 3-27-06.
(A much shorter version of the above analysis)

Article: Old Big Brother Had a Farm By Amanda Griscom Little, Grist Magazine, 3-10-06.
(An environmental reporter's synopsis of the current debate on NAIS)

Position Statement: R-CALF USA 2006 Position Paper: National Animal Identification System By Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF)
(R-CALF Raises questions about how the current program is being implemented such as the privatization of the NAIS database and the neglect of existing animal identification systems.)

Position Statement: NLIS Bungle in the Jungle By Brad Bellinger, Vice Chairman, Australian Beef Association (ABA), Update No. 19, March 2006.
(The ABA is an organization of Australian beef producers that is allied with R-CALF USA. Here it lays out its critique of the "National Livestock Identification System," which has already been made mandatory in Australia and is quite similar to the proposed NAIS in the United States.)

Book:Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID By Katherine Albrect and Liz McIntyre, 2005.
(This site the companion site to a book on the emerging surveillance technology of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). While the USDA wants to require RFID tags for livestock animals through the NAIS, major corporations like IBM, Gillette, and many others want to put them in every consumer good, and even in people.)

Position Statement:Farm Aid Position on NAIS
(A national organization that supports small farms through grants and education)

Position Statement: Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (A Texas based group that formed to stop the NAIS)

Liberty Ark Coalition: "The NAIS Story" (A coalition that has formed to oppose NAIS)

2. Reports, Fact Sheets, and Books on Pastured Poultry and Avian Influenza:

Report: Fowl play: The Poultry Industry's Central Role in the Bird Flu Crisis By Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN), February 2006.
(Puts recent bird flu events globally in political, economic, and scientific context.)

Report: The top-down global response to bird flu By GRAIN, April 2006.
(Governments around the world are pursuing ill-informed and top-down strategies to combat bird flu. Strategies need to change to reflect the needs and knowledge ofsmall farmers).

Report: Dead Birds Dont Fly: An Avian Flu Primer for Small-Scale Farmers By Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), March 2006.
(Clear explanation of the biology of bird flu, and practical ways to protect small flocks without resorting to confinement poultry production.)

Fact Sheet: Control Bird Flu by Controlling Intensive Poultry Operations By Beyond Factory Farming Coalition, Canada.
(A Canadian farmers' rights group's leaflet on factory farm hazards.)

Book: The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu By Mike Davis. 9-15-2005.
(A book on the imminent public health danger of bird flu, which has arisen from factory farms.

3. Perspectives on how Factory Farms and Wild Birds Affect Bird Flu:

Report: BirdLife Statement on Avian Influenza By Bird Life International, 4-11-06.
(BirdLife International, which is a bird conservation organization, comprehensively analyzes recent outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in wild birds and argues that their role in spreading the virus to domestic flocks has been largely overblown.)

Report: Fish farming and the risk of spread of avian influenza by Prof C J Feare, Wild Wings Management, and BirdLife International, March 2006.
(This article explains how the total lack of regulation of poultry and poultry products in integrated agriculture-aquaculture operations in SE Asia is contributing to the spread of AI.)

Article: The price of cheap chicken is bird flu By Wendy Orent, LA Times, 3-12-06.
(How global trends toward factory farming threaten small farmers and public health.)
Article: Poultry business too serious to be left to industry By Sunita Narain, Down To Earth, India, 3-15-06.
(An editorial that puts the onus for animal disease threats on the growing poultry industry.)

Article: Flying in the face of nature By John Vidal, The Guardian, UK, 2-22-06.
(Why experts agree that large-scale animal farming is a primary factor in spreading new diseases.)

Article: Wild Claims about Avian Flu By Grant Sheppard, The Tyee, Canada. 3-29-06.
(Analysis of how media have hyped wild bird threat without clear evidence.)

Article: Coming Home to Roost: Bird Flu, a Virus of Our Own Hatching By Michael Greger, M.D. 2004.
(A summary of how factory farms can cause benign viral strains to become extremely virulent. Michael Gregor is also coming out with a full-length book titled, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching in Summer 2006. It will provide extensive documentation of how animal concentration in factory farms is exacerbating threats of zoonotic diseases -- animal diseases that can be transmitted to humans.)

Press Release: High geographic concentration of animals may have favoured the spread of avian flu: Around 25 million birds culled - international assistance needed By FAO Bangkok, 1-28-04.
(In contrast to many recent statements from FAO blaming the spread of H5N1 on small farmers, they came out with a press release at the beginning on 2004 with a statement that pointed toward the role of big industrial animal operations)

Article: Avian influenza goes global, but don't blame the birds The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2006;6:185.
(A prestigious medical journal in England adds its voice to the growing consensus that factory farms are exacerbating the bird flu crisis, and that what's getting in the way of policy makers realizing this is that it implicates the practices of some companies and governments.)

Article: Poultry Flu - Factory farms in Asia blamed for pandemic By Jonathan Brown, The Independent Online, 4-8-06.
original: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article356440.ece

Article: From the Chickens' Perspective, the Sky Really Is Falling By Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times, 3-28-06.
(This article explains that wild Birds are just the natural reservoir of the bird flu, but not a significant vector of the disease. The most important factor in understanding how the disease mutates and thereby poses serious health threats is the conditions in which it evolves.)

Article: Bird Flu Virus May Be Spread by Smuggling By Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times, 4-15-06.
(New doubts are cast upon the "Wild Bird" Theory of H5N1 transmission as the role of trade and smuggling, which are routine features of the global poultry economy, become clear.)

Article:Migrating Birds Didn't Carry Flu By Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times, 5-11-2006. (Highlighting scientific ambiguity, this account shows that the widely publicized theory that wild birds are primary vectors of highly pathogenic AI fails to explain why the virus hasn't spread back to Europe this Spring along with regular migration patterns.)

4. Regulatory Threats to Pastured Poultry

Article: All cooped up: Bird flu scare prompts Quebec to ban free-range bird farming By Kristian Gravenor, Montreal Mirror, Quebec, 1-19-06.
(For the first time in Canada or the States, Quebec farm authorities have banned free-range bird farm techniques in the province.)

Article: All poultry may have to be moved indoors By David Derbyshire and Charles Clover, The Telegraph, England, 7-04-06.
(In the UK, government officials are considering requiring poultry to be kept indoors. The article states that birds kepts indoors are safer because they go through the production process so quickly while birds kept outdoors are more vulnerable.)

Article: Bird Flu in India : Whose chickens are they anyway? >By Joseph Keve 2-26-06. Die Wochen Zeitung (Zurich)
(Factory farm expansion has led to reduced poultry biodiversity, which makes the animals more vulnerable to the current pandemic of influenza in birds.)
http://www.woz.ch/artikel/rss/13021.html (in German)

Article: The flu that made agribusiness stronger By Isabelle Delforge, Focus on the Global South, Bangkok, 7-5-04.
(As small farmers in Southeast Asia drop out of production, the market share of multinational meat conglomerates like the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand Group, which models the massive scale and centralized control of the U.S.-based Tyson Foods, expands.)

5. Reports on General Health Problems with Factory Farming:

Report: Industrial animal agriculture the next global health crisis? By Danielle Nierenberg, Worldwatch Institute and Leah Garcs, World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), 2004.
(A review of factory farms and zoonotic diseases.)

Report: Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry By Danielle Nierenberg, Worldwatch Paper 171, Worldwatch Institute, September 2005.
(Analysis of factory farming's deleterious environmental and health impacts.)

6. Articles, Blogs, and Press Releases on Pet Animal ID Chipping

Blog: New Jersey Raises Privacy Concerns & Eyebrows -Task Force Wants Country's First Pet (Owner) Database 7-26-05.
(Dogpolitics.com is a blog that among many other topics tracks the issue of using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips in pets and especially dogs.)

Blog: The PAWS Bill - Show Me The Money, Microchips and Political Power 9-22-05.

Blog: The PAWS Bill PART II - Money, Microchips & Big Brother 10-6-05.

Blog: NAIS - U.S. Govt Mandates Mass Animal Surveillance By 2008 1-9-06.
(Report that neither the USDA nor the Senate Ag Committee would rule out inclusion of dogs, cats or bunnies in the NAIS)

7. Public Events and Displays of Opposition to NAIS

Premises ID proposal draws critical crowd in Montpelier By Jedd Kettler, County Courier, Vermont, 4-13-06.
(Vermont Ag Secretary Steve Kerr has been trying to separate premises registration from animal tracking, but farmers are rejecting this spurious point, and vowing non-compliance.)

Big Brother on the animal farm? Animal ID system raises Orwellian concerns for some By Jedd Kettler, County Courier, 4-13-06.
(Article contains strong statements of opposition from Vermont Farmers to implementation of the National Animal Identification System as proposed.)

Hay Raised Over Livestock Tracking By James Straub, The Elsworth American, Maine, 3-16-06.
(Tells how many farmers are voicing their opposition to the proposed implemtation of NAIS in Maine.)

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