NLSA’s
Brand Committee’s Report and Recommendations on the
National
Animal ID Program
The Nevada Live Stock Association’s objectives in establishing a
national animal identification program include the following:
1) Clarify the intended purpose and need for the ID program with measures
to prevent misuse and abuse of the proprietary information; 2) Evaluate the
costs and benefits of implementing such a program following the completion of a
comprehensive science based cost/benefit analysis.
Specifically who is going to pay and what for?; 3) Evaluate the current
state and regional animal identification methods such as our Nevada Brand Law
that already meet the intended purpose of the national ID program, or that may
be easily assimilated at little cost to no cost; 4)
Ensure that if the overall cost of implementing a national animal ID plan
is considerable, which according to the United States Animal Identification Plan
(USAIP) is the case, those costs are not given to the U.S. live cattle industry
to foot the bill; 5) Ensure that if a network infrastructure is needed for the
national ID program, it is designed to accomplish many other needed services in
Rural America, rather than simply maintaining information about livestock;
6) Ensure that the current rush to implement a national ID program does
not distract the U.S. from its far more immediate responsibility, which is to
protect the United States’ cattle herd from the introduction of Foreign Animal
Diseases that may enter the U.S. through inadequate border controls; 7) To
maintain, as this nations highest priority, the highest standards of health and
safety for our cattle industry and to not compromise our ability to avoid and
prevent the introduction and spread of animal diseases by substituting our long
standing policy in the live cattle industry of “disease prevention” with a
new strategy of “disease management”;
8) To ensure that the U.S. implements and enforces the measures already in place
and readily available, like the hot brand, which meet the objectives of
preventing the introduction of Foreign Diseases, differentiating cattle origin,
and tracing beef and cattle as to their origins.
It
is disconcerting to the Nevada Cattle Industry and U.S. cattle industry that
while mandatory country-of-origin-labeling has been passed by Congress and is
now available to both immediately determine the country-of-origin of cattle and
to trace the origins of beef, at least with respect to foreign cattle and
foreign meat, Congress itself has attempted to postpone its implementation.
It is equally disconcerting that while our current regulations provide
the U.S. cattle industry with the most complete protection against the
introduction of
Foreign Animal Diseases from countries where such diseases are known to exist,
the USDA is working aggressively to relax and weaken these regulations.
This is counter-productive and very dangerous to our industry.
A hot brand is the only truly permanent mark of identification.
A brand cannot be removed until an animal’s hide is removed.
Electronic tags and microchips can either be removed or they can shift
under the skin until they are no longer readable by a scanner.
While electronic tags may sound like a great use of new technology, they
are actually very impractical in Nevada. Ranchers
like many in the NLSA who operate on open range have found that ear tags are
very difficult use, let alone to keep in place and/or read over the years.
In addition, many Nevada stockmen do not have our livestock in a confined
area where they can be easily accessed for tagging or scanning.
Implementation of such a program would be prohibitive to our members
cost-wise as well as logistically impossible.
Until very recently, concerns regarding how market participants could
potentially misuse and abuse information that a national ID system would be
capable of transmitting were largely speculative.
However, Cargill’s recent announcement in Canada that it would refuse
to knowingly purchase cattle owned by members of R-CALF USA has turned this
speculation into a genuine threat with huge economic implications.
Meat packers and commodity groups need to be screened from access to
proprietary information, which could be used discriminatorily and would increase
corporate control over producers.
In general the role of state and/or federal government in developing and
administering a national ID program will be dependent on the amount of funding
these government entities are willing to provide.
Also, once implemented federal law will prevail and government agencies
such as the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management will no doubt want full
compliance with whatever type of ID the Congress comes up with.
In essence, Congress is asking how much independent cattle producers are
willing to pay to implement a program, which is expressly aimed at control and
eradication of Foreign Animal Diseases like Foot and Mouth (FMD) and Mad Cow (BSE),
diseases that are not in the U.S. cow herd!
But, these diseases may be introduced because of our current importation
and border control policies. We are
basically free of these diseases and this is an economic boon worth billions to
our industry.
Therefore, the best thing to do is:
1) Mark all imported cattle with a permanent mark of origin; 2) Identify
all imported cattle already in the U.S. with a permanent mark of origin; 3)
Implement country-of-origin labeling so that in the event of a disease outbreak
in a foreign herd, all foreign cattle and foreign meat can be immediately
identified and quarantined; 4) Maintain current regulations that prohibit the
importation of cattle or beef from any country where BSE and FMD are known to
exist. This must be our first line
of defense!
If this primary line of defense against introduction of Foreign Diseases
were implemented and enforced, cattle producers might be receptive to
considering additional costs associated with the secondary line of defense – a
national ID program. However, at
this time we do not need to implement such a program, which is designed to
eradicate diseases that we have already eradicated or do not exist in the U.S.
until they are brought here! It is
counter productive to implement the secondary line of defense before the
primary! We must have border
control and we must mark imported cattle so they can be traced.
U.S. cattle do not need to be traced other than by the excellent plan
already in place through state and local brand laws.
Additionally, the hot brand is already in place with recording,
transferring, and accessing trace ability information.
A study commissioned by R-CALF USA has shown that the value to the U.S.
cattle industry of tracking foreign cattle that enter the U.S. is, $80,000,000
per year. If a BSE case is detected
in a foreign animal that has been tracked in the U.S., the value is over
$500,000,000 per year to our live cattle industry!
Let’s get the ID program going, but on the right cattle, foreign cattle, and the sooner the better.