Island of Distrust—Island Mentality
by Karin Bergener

So what’s the problem? Well, imagine a herd of cattle dropped on an island and left to breed for a couple decades (yes, that’s how long they’ve been designing the NAIS)—we all know the results of in-breeding. People who run the animal agriculture industry are on their own island. USAHA has gone so far as to characterize anti-NAIS forces as ”opposition by animal owning entities outside mainstream animal agriculture.” So they’re on their island, and we aren’t.

Now, keep in mind that state agriculture agencies receive large amounts of funding from the USDA for various “projects,” just one of which is the NAIS. Research your own state budget; you might be surprised to find out how much. Now employees of the state ag departments go to USAHA meetings and “advise” USDA on policies it should implement to safeguard animal health.

This island of single-minded people produces self-serving results. In USAHA’s October 2006 meeting, a committee recommended USDA adopt an interim rule that would stop interstate transport of cattle from states that do not have “a requirement that all breeding age cattle be officially identified by means of official tag or registration brand or tattoo at each change of ownership, other than movements direct to slaughter, or movements through one approved market and then direct to slaughter.” Adopting such a rule would mean that animals never leaving their local area, much less the state, would have to be “officially identified” or else the entire state would face the economic consequences of restricted interstate trade.

Although no valid health reason or cost-benefit basis exists for such a program, it would certainly create incentives for states to implement at least a partial NAIS. And if it is done by an “interim rule,” the agency can bypass the normal notice and comment period for rulemaking.

We don’t know yet if USDA will follow USAHA’s recommendation, but think about it: USAHA members advise USDA to implement a policy that will increase use of identification technology (with a resulting push for the technology to be easily read, and uniform across all states), and the same people are in NIAA, meeting with microchip manufacturers and database companies. The outcome is fairly easy to predict.

Doesn’t USDA, a government agency established to serve the citizens, know that it’s no longer trusted by independent farmers? It seems not. At public briefings set up by Extension to explain NAIS, farmers are saying, “We don’t trust state ag or USDA, so we don’t want them to have our information.” And the agents are dumbfounded. The island’s inhabitants don’t know what the outside world thinks of them.

USDA has gone too far to regain the trust of many independent farmers. Wanton destruction of property—our animals—by USDA and state officials occurs too often. And with USDA on its own island, with no input from real outsiders, we have little hope for change. With this climate, the NAIS will never work—and farmers cannot support it. And they’ll refuse to participate in other USDA programs, such as answering the Agriculture Survey. USDA has become increasingly irrelevant to the independent farmer—an agency for corporate agriculture.

Can USDA be changed? Do we want it to? Some say abolish USDA entirely. Others say overhaul it. That is up to you to decide. But the fact remains that most of us don’t trust what USDA will do with the information in the NAIS database. If farmers don’t trust USDA, they won’t comply with NAIS and it will never work. And that is why the answer from farmers on NAIS is No NAIS, no way, no how.

Karin Bergener of Freedom, Ohio, is an attorney and a cofounder of the Liberty Ark Coalition dedicated to defeating NAIS. This article appeared in The Evener 2007 issue of Rural Heritage.