Last week congress approved the first appropriations package for fiscal year 2024, including funding for the Department of Agriculture after numerous delays and extensions of the process.
The package included 15 million dollars that would pay for electronic ID tags for cattle producers. USDA is currently crafting a rule requiring electronic ID tags instead of the existing metal tags on certain classes of cattle moving interstate. This money is allocated to cover the cost of EID for cattle producers if USDA’s rule is finalized.
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Past President Todd Wilkinson from South Dakota, says the change is designed to facilitate faster traceability in case of a foreign animal disease outbreak in the US.
“It goes a long ways towards filling a real need if we’re going to advance traceability on a legitimate basis, having the producer, the cow calf operator, and the other people that are involved in the process have to shoulder all that burden is pretty difficult. So the ask from our members and from ranchers across the country was if this is going to come forward, don’t make us have to pay for the whole thing. So the fact that we have 15 million dollars coming through the appropriation side, at least through the house. is a major win.”
Wilkinson says EID is meant to improve the animal disease traceability system in the US, to prevent disastrous outbreaks of foreign animal diseases like foot and mouth disease that could halt movement of cattle nationwide, destroy export markets and cost cattle producers millions of dollars.
“This is like an insurance policy…If there’s an outbreak in Minnesota, a producer like me in South Dakota…my herd is not going to be shut down. From a nationwide perspective, it won’t shut us down for so long that it cripples the beef industry.”
Wilkinson says USDA’s proposed rule doesn’t require any additional information from producers.
“So what we’re doing is we’re literally taking one tag, which is currently a metal tag, which doesn’t have the EID, but does have a unique identifying button, and we’re replacing it with an electronic button that still has the same unique number system on it. So we’re not giving anybody any more information. We’re just putting it in a means of electronic identification so that it can be quickly disseminated from the point of origin to the state health people that need that information for tracking purposes.”
He also says that private information from cattle producers is protected by the Freedom of Information Act and limited animal health information collected for disease traceability would not be available to the public.
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NCBA
