Subject: How much $ has NCBA spent on Animal ID?
NCBA's latest "talking points" on animal i.d. appear to be an effort to bolster its internal support for the "consortium" managed animal i.d. database. One has to wonder how NCBA membership felt when they discovered that USDA was within just a few months and about $50,000 from completing the construction of the public NAIS database when NCBA has reportedly spent a couple of million in dues dollars hiring a nearly bankrupt consulting frim to develop its own private database.
Any NCBA member worth their salt will, during the February annual meeting, ask the hard questions about exactly how much money has been spent thus far to develop, and advocate for, its privately owned and run database. How much funding from the national beef checkoff has been interwoven into this effort? Will there be a full and honest accounting at the mid-winter meeting?
It hasn't gone unnoticed by producers that several of the brochures developed by NCBA touting the privately held animal i.d. program carry the beef checkoff logo.
Perhaps when Montana Stockgrowers hosts Secretary Johanns at their mid-winter meeting, they can ask USDA about how the checkoff "government speech" is permitted to market a privately held animal i.d. program?
NCBA's latest "talking points" on animal i.d. appear to be an effort to bolster its internal support for the "consortium" managed animal i.d. database. One has to wonder how NCBA membership felt when they discovered that USDA was within just a few months and about $50,000 from completing the construction of the public NAIS database when NCBA has reportedly spent a couple of million in dues dollars hiring a nearly bankrupt consulting frim to develop its own private database.
Any NCBA member worth their salt will, during the February annual meeting, ask the hard questions about exactly how much money has been spent thus far to develop, and advocate for, its privately owned and run database. How much funding from the national beef checkoff has been interwoven into this effort? Will there be a full and honest accounting at the mid-winter meeting?
It hasn't gone unnoticed by producers that several of the brochures developed by NCBA touting the privately held animal i.d. program carry the beef checkoff logo.
Perhaps when Montana Stockgrowers hosts Secretary Johanns at their mid-winter meeting, they can ask USDA about how the checkoff "government speech" is permitted to market a privately held animal i.d. program?