Island of Distrust—Agriculture Survey
by Karin Bergener

In early January 2007, animal owners around the country received a mailing from the USDA called, “2006 Agricultural Identification Survey.” Many people wanted to know what it meant and what would happen if they didn’t answer it. The unanimous consensus among the farmers who know about NAIS was, “this is being used to put me in NAIS.” Why would people think the Ag Survey was designed to find people for NAIS? The timing couldn’t have been more perfect: announce NAIS is voluntary, then do aggressive data gathering on farmers at the same time states are dumping farmers’ data into the NAIS database.

Many of the people who received the Survey were stumped why it had been sent to them. Recreational horse owners received it. Many small farmers with flocks of chickens or herds of sheep didn’t. A number of people called the USDA to inquire why they received the survey and were told USDA had bought mailing lists from livestock and recreational horse owners’ magazines [editor’s note: Not from Rural Heritage!]. Nothing is illegal about this, but it rankled people.

USDA told recipients who received multiple copies of the Survey they should return the extras with a note, so USDA could correct its database. USDA didn’t even bother to polish its mailing list A city might have multiple homes at the same address where there are apartments, but the probability of having multiple livestock farms with the same address is zero. The USDA is obviously haphazard and disorganized. It spread a big net to bring in as many fish as possible.

Add to that, the Survey stated you were legally required to answer. It didn’t say you were legally required to answer only if you sell more than $1,000 in farm products annually. Most recipients who found out they didn’t qualify were even more angered at the deception.

Many copies of the Survey went into the trash, even though the statutory penalty was $100 for failing to answer. These folks said they’d take the chance on not answering. They didn’t feel most of the information requested was USDA’s business.

• Why Distrust?
• Who Controls USDA?
• Island Mentality

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.