Animal ID system has foes

Even with her 164 cattle under quarantine because tuberculosis was detected in her neighbor’s herd, Bassett, Neb., rancher Jo Stec remains suspicious of a USDA proposal to identify and track livestock as it moves through the supply chain.

“It’s not going to control disease,” she said Tuesday. “It’s just another way of keeping track of producers.”

Stec was among about 50 people who turned out at the La Vista Convention Center for a “listening session” about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposed National Animal Identification System, or NAIS.

The system would assign identification numbers to cattle, hogs, horses and other livestock and would use electronic devices, such as ear tags with computer chips, to track their whereabouts.

Farms, livestock barns, fairgrounds and other places where animals congregate would be assigned an identification number as well.

In videotaped comments, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said such a system is necessary to trace infected animals and locate other animals that might have been exposed to illness. He said it’s also needed to reassure consumers and U.S. trading partners about the safety of U.S. food.

“It protects our livestock markets and the livelihood of producers,” he said. “It allows us to market our livestock as the highest quality and best in the world.”

The La Vista session was the 14th such meeting held in recent weeks at locations across the country. Attendance has ranged from about 30 people at a California meeting to more than 400 at a South Dakota meeting.

Kris Harvey, a South Dakota rancher who lives just across the border from Valentine, Neb., said of the proposed ID program: “This will be the end of independent livestock production.”

Harvey and other critics, many affiliated with the Independent Cattlemen of Nebraska (ICON) or the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), said the program would be costly, intrusive and redundant.

They worry that information provided to the USDA could be used to manipulate market prices and that packers would use registration as a reason to shut out independent producers from the market.

Already, the critics say, 4-Hers are being required to show that their animals were raised on registered premises before the animals can be exhibited at livestock shows.

Jason Hansen, 29, a farmer from Norfolk, said he feared that the requirements would increase the consolidation of agriculture and make it more difficult for young people to go into farming.

Annette Vinton, 16, an Omahan whose extended family ranches in Grant County, said she was concerned that the program would make it difficult to become a small producer in the future. “Will these regulations prevent me from keeping a horse, feeding a steer or having a few chickens for their eggs?” she asked.

Nebraska already has a voluntary system for farmers to register their premises for animal tracking purposes.

Since that system’s inception in September 2004, 17,474 farm premises, or about 57 percent of farms in the state, have been registered with the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, said spokeswoman Christen Kamm.

State law requires the system to remain voluntary. It was unclear what would happen if the USDA were to establish a mandatory animal identification system.

Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen said his organization supports the concept of national animal identification, but he said USDA missteps have heightened farmers’ mistrust of the program.

Farmers need to be reassured that their information will be kept confidential and that animal ID data will not be used for private profit, Hansen said. Farmers need to be protected from liability in a disease outbreak, and taxpayers, not producers, should pay for the program, he said. Contact the writer:

402-473-9581, leslie.reed@owh.com

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