The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently awarded contracts to purchase up to eight million low frequency radio identification ear tags. The agency believes that will help increase overall animal disease traceability in cattle and bison. The South Dakota Stock Grower’s Association opposes that move. Executive Director James Halverson says the current id program isn’t broken and instituting a government mandate without public input isn’t a good idea.
He says having a mandate put in place and pushing liability onto producers with the RFID tags is also a bad idea.
Halverson says the present identification system is working well, doesn’t need fixing and any efforts to improve animal disease traceability should focus on imported cattle.
APHIS in their efforts to increase traceability in cattle and bison distributed more than 1.1 million RFID tags to 38 states between January and July of 2020. Each state veterinarian distributes the tags in a way that best serves their industry.
