The National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is an idea whose time should never come. When Karin Bergener heard about NAIS, she was “outraged they would do this without a statute. It’s illegal and unconstitutional.”

The corporate lawyer from Ravenna, Ohio, says, “My legal career has not been spent crusading.” But she joined the battle against NAIS, teaming up with a property and constitutional rights activist, a former military man who teaches government in Texas, and a lawyer and organic farmer working on sustainable agriculture. In March 2006, this four-member steering committee formed Liberty Ark Coalition.

They launched a wonderful website packed with useful information about NAIS: the program’s description and history, current news briefs, talking points, email links to legislators, and an anti-NAIS petition to sign and/or distribute.

Karin brought her expertise to Horse Progress Days, where she manned the Rural Heritage display, which had been turned over to her to educate visitors about NAIS. Well-informed and articulate, she explained NAIS to those unfamiliar with it, talked in depth to the more well-informed, and signed up pages of petitioners. By Friday evening, of all the people who stopped by her table, only three favored the program.

That’s three more than you’ll find in the Amish community, where every family that owns a buggy horse would fall under NAIS’s jurisdiction. Some Amish are concerned that tagging each head of livestock could be a precursor to tagging each person.

Most people regard NAIS as unwarranted government regulation. The consensus is that the program would be intrusive, expensive, and a paperwork nightmare. Many consider it unnecessary and likely to be ineffective. People who are familiar with the details of NAIS regard it as a serious threat to the small farmer because the program favors big operations.

NAIS will cost much more than the price of the implanted chips. According to Karin, estimated compliance costs in Australia are $37 per head. In the United Kingdom, $69 per head. Multiply that by the number of head of livestock on the typical small farm and it adds up to real money.

And NAIS would affect more than small farmers and the Amish: 4-H club members raising livestock to show at the county fair; livestock hobbyists like Karin, who owns a horse and raises chickens and ducks; self-sufficient families who raise animals for milk and meat. The more these people learn about NAIS, the more they oppose it.

Liberty Ark Coalition now has coordinators in about half the states to inform the public about the program and gather signatures on anti-NAIS petitions. The coalition organizes these signatures into a database that may be broken down by congressional district to tell legislators how many of their constituents oppose NAIS.

Karin predicts that if NAIS doesn’t pass at the national level, the federal Department of Agriculture will “give money to the states where cash-strapped state departments of agriculture will do anything to stay alive.”

The battle would then move to the state level.

How long will the coalition keep up their efforts? “Till we win,” says Karin.

Those are fighting words.

Mary Ann Sherman raises dairy beef in Fresno, Ohio. This article appeared in the Autumn 2006 issue of Rural Heritage.