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R-CALF Head Remains Insistent

HAY MAKER

Well-known member
R-CALF Head Remains Insistent
That Animal ID Will Be Imposed

By David Bowser

WOODWARD, Okla. — The new president of R-CALF USA says his organization does not oppose a voluntary individual animal identification program. It does oppose a mandatory one.

Ignoring USDA statements that a visual eartag is currently sufficient in the National Animal Identification System, during a meeting here with some 30 people, R.M. "Max" Thornsberry, DVM, MBA and president of R-CALF USA, said the low frequency electronic eartags don't work particularly well, but more expensive ultra high frequency tags would make the program work.

"We don't mind if they have an animal ID program as long as the keep it voluntary," said Thornsberry, a Missouri veterinarian, "but I can tell you those that are working within the USDA, when they discuss it with veterinarians, it comes out, 'When it becomes mandatory, you'll be prepared.'"

The animal identification program is now voluntary and USDA has agreed to keep it that way, but Thornsberry said agency spokesmen have also told veterinarians that the minute a foreign animal disease enters the U.S., if USDA considers it important enough, they will automatically implement a mandatory animal identification system.

"They say they have that authority," Thornsberry said.

To that regard, R-CALF is worried about premise identification, he said.

To implement an individual animal identification system, Thornsberry said, USDA needs to have premises identified.

"The reasoning behind that," Thornsberry said, "is if they get 50 to 60 percent of all livestock owners signed up with a premise ID, then when they make it mandatory, it will not destroy commerce in this country."

If they do make animal identification mandatory before they have more than half of the premises identified, Thornsberry said it will basically shut down animal commerce in the United States except for a few people.

That is the reason R-CALF policy encourages its members not to sign up for premise ID.

"That's a pretty harsh policy," Thornsberry said. "I think it will pass our membership votes."

That vote is now being conducted in accordance with the organization's policy.

"We believe that R-CALF is the organization that is actually, truly pursuing the interests of cow-calf producers," Thornsberry said. "We represent cow-calf producers and independent feedyards. It is an organization that strictly adheres to the policy of its membership."

He said R-CALF recently mailed out ballots to their membership, asking for a vote on policies concerning animal ID.

"One of those policies has to do with premise numbers and the acquisition of premise numbers," Thornsberry said.

He said that when veterinarians get a presentation from the USDA concerning the National Animal Identification Program, the veterinarians get a different lecture than producers do.

Thornsberry said R-CALF is not opposed to the technology involved in the proposed animal identification program.

"We're not," Thornsberry said. "Animal ID is a phenomenal technology, and it can be used for a variety of reasons. It can be used for collecting feedyard data. It can be used to manage feedyard animals, to manage sickness, to keep health records."

He said that in his home state of Missouri, electronic identification is an official form of legal ownership, like a brand.

"There's lots of really good reasons to be involved with the technology of animal ID," Thornsberry said, "but that is a whole lot different than the government's saying that you must participate in animal ID."

He said producers don't have to buy a computer or other equipment.

"No one's standing over your head saying if you don't buy one, you're going to be in big trouble," Thornsberry said, “but that is the direction we see ourselves going in animal ID."

Initially, Thornsberry said, animal health officials started working with a company in Iowa on a privately administered animal ID program.

"You could buy the tags, send the numbers in to them, they'd maintain the database so you could use those numbers and that type of animal ID to collect feedyard data and carcass data," Thornsberry explained.

About 2002, Thornsberry said USDA became involved, telling veterinarians that the federal government was going to institute individual animal ID for the entire livestock industry.

Individual animal identification involves almost every animal, potentially including dogs and cats, Thornsberry said. It includes cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, llamas, emus, buffalo and horses.

"If it is an animal," Thornsberry said, "it is going to be electronically identified."

While the USDA's first plan called for them to hold the databases, a couple of years ago, the agency decided in the face of objections from producers that the databases would be held in the private sector, including the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

"We progressed in to a movement by the USDA to let the NCBA and various other organizations maintain the database for their particular industry," Thornsberry said. "Now we've come up with a system where R-CALF, if it wants to participate in animal ID, can maintain a database for its members."

Thornsberry said there are basically two types of radio frequency tags, low frequency and ultra high frequency. Each is available in active and passive modes.

Thornsberry said it's a simple system.

"But the number that's on that tag is 18 to 20 digits long," Thornsberry said, "and generally includes a few letters, so maintaining those numbers with a written pencil and paper is nearly impossible. I've tried that, and it doesn't work. It's pretty easy to transpose a number and put down a nine when you think it's a seven. You can imagine what it's like to write down 20 different digits for each individual animal."

Low frequency tags are being used today in the industry, he said.

"There are two kinds of those," Thornsberry said. "There's an active tag and a passive tag."

An active tag has a small battery in it, and it will broadcast data when it's activated.

"It can also contain a little bit of memory as well," Thornsberry said. "You might store a little information in an active tag."

A passive tag, when activated by a signal, simply feeds back a binary code. It only gives the number of that tag. That number has to be plugged into a computer database to pull up a file on the animal wearing that tag.

"What we have in the industry today are low frequency tags," Thornsberry said, "and most of them are plastic. If you go to your local feed store or veterinarian and buy tags, that's what you're going to get."

Thornsberry said computer hackers have already figured how to hack into the active tags and how to infect them with computer viruses.

But more importantly, Thornsberry said the low frequency tags will not work at the speed of commerce. That is, this technology slows down the speed at which cattle are moved through auction barns.

He said that in talks with the person in charge of a large livestock sales operation, he found the system is not working. The sale barn manager said they have readers on the sides of alleys and overheard, but they are reading, at best, 74 percent of the tagged animals going through.

"That means that you've got 26 percent of the animals that aren't reading," Thornsberry said.

He said this technology is not meant to be used at the speed of commerce.

"They're meant to catch the animal unit in the chute, past the reader right by the tag, let the reader read it and then record the data," Thornsberry said.

They don't operate fast enough or accurately enough, but that's what the USDA is attempting to do, he said.

"There's a second kind of tag, however, that for the government holds great, great promise," Thornsberry said. "That's called the ultra high frequency tag."

Instead of operating at a frequency on which a radio would operate, Thornsberry said the ultra high frequency system would operate at a much higher frequency.

"You can read an ultra high frequency tag from a long way off," Thornsberry said. "Maybe from an airplane, possibly from an over-flying satellite. There is one company that now sells a package of 25 tags and a reader for $3300 that you can read the calves out in the pasture by simply passing the reader across the field, and if there is nothing between you and the calves as far as a quarter of a mile away, it will read that number."

Those tags, he said, will work at the speed of commerce.

"Their read rate, running cattle through a sale barn, is in the high 90 percent range," Thornsberry said. "Very high 90s. Almost perfect."

The problem is that those tags are expensive.

I don't know exactly what the price is right now," Thornsberry said, "but they're somewhere between $12 and $25, and they're probably going to get cheaper."

If those tags become routinely available, Thornsberry said that from the experiments he has seen and what work he has done with them, he thinks the ultra high frequency tags are the answer to animal ID.

"They will be able to be read with high, high accuracy," Thornsberry reiterated.

The National Animal Identification System was initially based on radio frequency tags, but USDA has backed off that, saying that for now visual tags, which cost a few cents, are the standard.

Thornsberry said the reason USDA wants to go to RFID tags is because they want to be able to manipulate the data electronically.

"They don't want people writing the stuff down," Thornsberry said. "They want it in a database. They want to be able to enter it on the Internet. They want to be able to work it on a computer."

That's why writing down tag numbers, taking and recording brands and marking colors has no meaning for the USDA.

"Although they have allowed us to consider the use of brands in western states," Thornsberry said, "I can assure you that's not going to go. They want to be able to have that data in electronic form."

Thornsberry said that only two countries right now have mandatory electronic identification. They are Australia and New Zealand.

In those countries, he said, producers are required by law to electronically identify their cattle.

They're using low frequency tags, he said, and they are having problems with the system.

"They can't read them all," Thornsberry said. "They run 300 or 400 head through and it'll say they ran 500 head through."

Thornsberry said they've had people from Australia attending R-CALF conventions who are opposed to the Australian and New Zealand systems.

"They have just a fraction of the cattle industry that we have," Thornsberry pointed out.

The U.S. government, Thornsberry said, claims that Australia and New Zealand are ahead of the United States because of their mandatory system.

He said the proponents of the National Animal Identification System claim that Australia and New Zealand have the Japanese, South Korean and other international markets because of their mandatory animal identification systems.

"They don't say anything about opening the border to Canada," Thornsberry said, "and that BSE is the reason we don't have any markets."

Thornsberry said the USDA maintains it wants an identification program is for animal disease traceback.

"We recently wrote a letter to the USDA," Thornsberry said, "asking them to continue to use the brucellosis program and the tuberculosis program as a source for disease trackback."

He said Under Secretary of Agriculture Bruce Knight wrote back, saying USDA planned to replace those programs with individual animal identification.

Thornsberry said there are a number of ways to identify animals.

"Canada for a long time had a bar-coded tag," Thornsberry said.

An eartag was used that had a bar code on it similar to the bar codes at grocery stores.

"Imagine how well those work in muddy and nasty environments," Thornsberry noted.

Ear notches have been used. A lot of breed associations use ear tattoos. There are hot iron brands and cold iron brands. There are nose prints and iris scans.

"The one that we've been using for the last 50 some-odd years," Thornsberry said, "is the brucellosis silver ID tags placed in the ears of cattle tested for brucellosis."

That system, he said, is the most effective system for identifying an animal.

"It's worked beautifully."

He said he tested a cow from Colorado that had been brought to Missouri two years ago during a drouth. She showed positive for brucellosis in a blood test.

"Within two hours," Thornsberry said, "I knew where she came from, who owned her, what vet had vaccinated her and what vaccine he'd used. That's pretty good disease traceback, yet the USDA is planning to remove that program from the entire United States."

The premise identification number is a key component of the National Animal Identification System, Thornsberry said.

The number on the individual animal tag has to be crosschecked against the premise number.

"You have to have a premise ID first before you can participate in the animal ID program legally," Thornsberry said. "Before you put can put an ID number in and it can be considered a legal form of individual ID, you have to have a premise number."

Thornsberry said R-CALF worked with USDA to move the agency from a mandatory to a voluntary program.

"We were successful in that," Thornsberry said, "along with several other organizations."

He said he understands that registered breeders, feedyard operators and others who may want carcass data may want to be able to track their cattle.

"You can utilize the electronic technology that's out there without a premise ID," Thornsberry said. "There's nothing that keeps you from using it without a premise ID."

What premise ID does, he said, is register producers with the government.

"It registers you with your department of agriculture," Thornsberry said. "If you're going to use electronic ID, fine and dandy, but think twice before you get a premise ID."
 

Econ101

Well-known member
If they force an ID system for the U.S., every imported product needs to have the same thing. U.S. farmers shouldn't be required to do it if our global importers don't have to do it.
 
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