A US FEDERAL judge has dismissed a Michigan farmer-led lawsuit seeking to halt a national program that identifies individual livestock and poultry to track the movement of diseased animals.
US District Judge Rosemary Collyer in Washington, DC, wrote in a decision that the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is neither a federal law nor a federal regulation.
It is instead, she wrote, an identification and tracking program developed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and adopted by state agriculture departments on a voluntary basis.
The civil suit was filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. The Falls Church, Va.-based legal group represents farmers and consumers who follow the sustainable-agriculture movement promoting the production of healthy and affordable food using environmentally sound farming practices.
The group’s president, Pete Kennedy, expressed the group’s disappointment with the ruling.
Kennedy says the group still believes the NAIS will drive many small farmers out of business.
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