USDA to require electronic ear tags in cattle, bison crossing state lines
Capital Press
Don Jenkins
The USDA will require electronic ear tags in cattle and bison crossing state lines, a long-debated policy the agency said will contain disease outbreaks and keep U.S. beef acceptable to other countries.
The electronic ID rule will take effect 180 days after being published in the Federal Register in “the coming weeks,” the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced April 26.
The rule will replace a 2013 rule allowing cattle to be identified with non-electronic metal tags. Electronic tags will reduce transcribing errors and save riffling through paper files in a crisis, according to the USDA.
The rule will apply to about 11 million cattle annually or 12% of the nation’s cattle herd, the USDA estimates.
Tags will cost $2 to $3.65 per herd and will be given away through state veterinarian’s offices, the USDA said. The tags will cost $25 to $30 million a year, the USDA estimates.
R-CALF to fight rule
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association supported transitioning to electronic tags, according to comments sent to the USDA when the rule was proposed more than a year ago.
R-CALF USA, another national cattlemen’s organization, will look to Congress to repeal the rule. Failing that, R-CALF may challenge it in court, CEO Bill Bullard said Monday.
“We think the USDA has fallen well short of demonstrating the need for this,” he said.
The rule will protect the overseas business interests of meat-packers, but ranchers and taxpayers will bear the costs of buying the tags, Bullard said.
“We still believe in our freedoms and liberties. I don’t think people are getting use to more and more government and that is what this is,” Bullard said.
The rule will apply to sexually intact cattle and bison 18 months and older entering interstate commerce. The rule applies to dairy cattle and cattle appearing in rodeos and exhibitions.
