National Animal ID - Just Another Government Program, or an Opportunity to Improve?

December 2004
Pat Hogue - Okeechobee County Extension, Livestock Agent III

On Thursday, November 4, USDA held it's first listening session on the National Animal ID Plan and program at the Florida Cattlemen's Association headquarters in Kissimmee. This plan and program, as you will remember, was supposed to have gone into effect with the assignment of Premise ID numbers beginning in July of this year. It is ultimately designed to provide quick traceback of animals in the food chain that test positive to a disease so that it's origin and all locations it has been through can be quickly determined. Such a program would have been extremely beneficial with the positive cow that was found in Washington last December and led to a lengthy and time consuming investigation through the early part of this year. However, with all parties involved not being able to reach agreement on the implementation process, the plan and program have been delayed for several months. It is now expected that the premise ID system will be in place by the middle of next year. Earlier this year 33 states received USDA grants to implement premise ID plans and programs, and Florida was one of those states. Currently Florida has a premise ID system that is being tested and should be ready for assigning premise ID's to producers in the near future. The premise ID will be a number assigned exclusively to a location to be entered into the USDA system, and will be unique to each location as to where an animal is or has been. It will not be a unique number for each animal entering commerce, they will have their own number assigned to them once the system is in place.

By now almost everyone has heard all the why's and what for's of implementing a National Animal ID program, and you can get most answers you need by going to the US Animal ID Plan website. The question arises, however, is this just another government program that I have to live with and is going to cost me more money in my operation, or is there an opportunity to realize some benefits from it other than the proposed national animal herd health benefits?

The National Animal ID Plan and Program will most definitely utilize electronic RFID or EID tags as one of the options for individual animal identification, which will be the easiest method during the transfer of animals from one premise to another. It is not the only identification method that can be used, but will be the easiest. Hence the system can operate feasibly in the manner designed using computer tracking to identify all premise locations an animal has been to and provide quick traceback to all those locations and with which other animals they have commingled. Normal flap type eartags or other tags that require a paper trail would be too cumbersome and subsequent sorting through such paperwork will not make it a workable system for quick traceback. Electronic eartags that can be read at each premise location as an animal is transferred by simply using a hand held reader or one of the alley or chute readers, to give animals information, automatically transferred through a National computer system, will provide much quicker and easier records of where each animal has been. This technology is already available and being used quite extensively by some feeders, packers, alliance's and management programs. The technology is used to sort cattle by weight, type and into like feeding groups, and to follow cattle through various stages of production from backgrounding to slaughter, and performance type data gathered on individuals and groups for use by owners and operators at each phase. Several tag companies and management programs have had tags and tagging systems available for a number of years and the technology has advanced dramatically, with tag numbering systems that will not run out in most of our lifetimes.

Panel Reader, Electronic ID Tag, Wand Reader
Panel Reader                         Electronic ID Tag                             Wand Reader

With tags and systems already in place for the National Animal ID program, why then would not a producer want to take full advantage of what an individual animal tagging program has to offer them? The same tag that allows an animal to be tracked and traced back to it's original producer can also provide that original producer and any others that owned them the opportunity to get detailed information on performance such as weight gain, feed conversion, health treatments and costs and carcass data all the way through to slaughter. It would provide producers with the opportunity to make more informed selection and culling decisions, make more informed decisions as to whether to retain ownership on cattle and/or participate in value added programs and in general have more detailed performance information on each cow and bull in their herd and how their offspring performed. The opportunity to make more significant progress in shorter time frames with the information that can be obtained to keep up with changing market demands is within everyone's grasp with these technologies. And this information is only available to you or whoever the subsequent owners are, not the government. Is there an additional cost associated with obtaining this information? Through a data service, of course, at a cost of $ .50 to $ 1.25 per head. However, if you put in the same likeness as the $ 1.00 per head you may pay for implants and the additional gain you make from this practice and consider the progress you could make with the data you gain from a more complete utilization of electronic ear tags, you could realize the same type of return on investment.

Sooner or later we will all have to deal with the reality of the National Animal ID Plan and program, and rather than just look at it as another government program that costs you money, investigate all the possibilities and determine if there is gain to be made with the full utilization of the electronic tags and information that could be at your disposal.

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