Animal ID Update

<a href="http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content.asp?contentid=62914" title="Who Are These People?">Livestock Industry Panel Favors US Animal ID System</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Livestock and meat industry experts said Wednesday they generally were in favor of having a national animal identification program for disease control, but articulated concerns with the current, developing program.</blockquote><br />n<br />nSo industry leaders are all for animal ID, but are they for mandatory ID or Voluntary. It looks to me like more and more voluntary is coming out on top. I favor that, give me a choice. Turn back the mandatory program and give us a choice. Here in Montana the brand laws and market permits give very effective tracking information and it should be enough for in state. That and a simple metal ear tag would be cheap, effective and easy for producer to implement. Why go all high tech to do this.<br />n<br />nThe push for high tech comes from the <acronym title="United States Department of Agriculture, Bought and Paid for by The Big Meat Packers">USDA</acronym> and the meat packer. Somehow they feel the higher the tech the better it works. More and more people are finding out that RFID tags can be infected with viruses, or otherwise disturbed with to not work properly. Sometimes the older ways, like brands, are better.<br />n<br />nCan I ask a reasonable question? What is stopping there from being a tracing system now? If it will make us so much more competitive why does the <acronym title="United States Department of Agriculture, Bought and Paid for by The Big Meat Packers">USDA</acronym> or the Government need to get involved? If this were going to help say Tyson sell more beef overseas or in the US why don't they just require it. All Tyson would have to do is say they will no longer slaughter beef that doesn't have a trace back to birth involved with it. Then, if there is such a demand for it they can just sit back and rake in the money, pure and simple. No government involvement, no mandating it under penalty of law. Just a producers decision whether they want to participate or not and letting the market decide. SIMPLE.<br />n<br />nThis trace back system could then be used in case of an animal disease outbreak with a simple warrant from the government to see specific records they are interested in. We would then have disease and age trace back. What the government and the meat packers want. It's easy for the meat packer to do this. Why haven't they? They want their shills in the <acronym title="United States Department of Agriculture, Bought and Paid for by The Big Meat Packers">USDA</acronym> to do it for them so they don't appear to be the bad guys.<br />n<br />nI did have to laugh at the guys comment about one case of <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> will devastate the industry. He must have missed it but we've had three and while it has caused problems, it hasn't devastated the industry. Maybe he needs to keep up on current events.<br />n<br />n<strong>Man alone resists the direction of gravitation: he constantly wants to fall-upwards. Friedrich Nietzsche</strong>