Now let’s go back to that 1994 technology conference. Nancy Robinson’s remarks make clear that the attending organizations had long been involved in designing an animal identification system. The minutes, posted by NIAA, provide us a stake in the ground—they’ve been at it at least 12 years. At the end of the symposium Robinson led a discussion on what the components of an animal identification system would be. Kenneth Olson, on behalf of the American Farm Bureau, was among those speaking on the record.

Robinson challenged the group to come to a consensus on animal identification. The group complied. Among the aspects participants specified were that animal ID:

• had to be national;
• would be mandatory;
• would be driven by economics (and they needed to figure out how to make it profitable for packers, slaughterhouses, and all other participants);
• had to have a uniform system of identification;
• would access other commercial databases;
• would include both a unique premises ID and a unique animal ID;
• would use a microchip called ISO as the standard for identifying individual animals;
• would have to protect confidentiality, provide for the needs of the regulatory sector, and allow for private enterprise.

During the discussion Nancy Robinson asked, “Do we need a national ID system other than what we already have in place?” The minutes state, “YES—Audience agrees.”

So what was left to develop or decide? Very little.

Farm Bureau was in from the beginning. Farm Bureau knew, by at least 1994 and likely well before then, what the large producers and government were advocating. Farm Bureau helped design the NAIS. Farm Bureau was an active participant and advocate.

Farm Bureau is not, as it implies to its members, just trying to help members follow government policies. Farm Bureau {made} the policies.

For a fun-filled afternoon, try tracing all the interwoven boards among the organizations involved in developing the NAIS, and how their staff move from one organization to another—a consultant one year, an employee of another company the next, and then a government worker. You already have a start with Farm Bureau’s Jim Fraley and David Miller as members of the NIAA board of directors, to which you can add Jon Johnson of Texas Farm Bureau. Another prime example is Kevin Kirk, who began his career with Farm Bureau and is now NIAA treasurer and also the person responsible for implementing premises registration and mandatory radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on cattle, in his job with the Michigan Department of Agriculture, the beginning of NAIS in Michigan.

The same people appear year after year at NIAA meetings and the annual technology conference. It’s a closed group of companies that stand to make huge fortunes on animal ID—microchip and software manufacturers, consultants, and database companies. No meaningful input from outsiders ever occurs; instead, the same people kept cycling among the organizations involved. As a member of this closely knit group, Farm Bureau was there from the beginning—not as an advocate for its independent farm members, but as an ally of multinational agribusinesses. Everyone in this group has been, as one anti-NAIS activist put it, “drinking the same Kool-Aid.” The result is an unwavering dedication to implementing NAIS.

“Fringe groups need to be listened to, but they will not provide meaningful direction to the industry,” said NIAA insider Dr. Holland of South Dakota. If the people making up NIAA have worked together for more than 15 years, without input from the outside—and not even Farm Bureau members were consulted when Farm Bureau established its NAIS policy—then we independent farmers and ranchers must appear to be on the far fringe.

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Karin Bergener is an attorney living in Freedom, Ohio, a former member of the board of directors of the Portage County, Ohio, Farm Bureau, and co-founder of Liberty Ark Coalition. This article appeared in the Holiday 2006 issue of Rural Heritage.