August 18, 2006

USDA approves Allflex tags for animal identification

Allflex USA, a global leader in livestock identification, Wednesday (Aug 16) announced the approval of radio frequency livestock identification (RFID) tags by the US Department of Agriculture for use in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The tags conform to International Standards Organisation requirements, the release said.

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service website lists Digital Angel as the other firm currently selling approved RFID tags.

Allflex and Digital Angel are the first two in what is expected to be a longer list of firms with approved RFID tags in the NAIS system, a cattle industry source said Thursday.

Today, ISO RFID tags are the technology of choice in the US commercial market place with tens of millions of them already in use in cattle, sheep and pigs around the world, the Allflex release said. In addition, ISO RFID tags are used as the only official identifier in National ID programmes of important beef export countries like Canada and Australia.

Key groups such as the NAIS Cattle Working Group, IDairy, NCBA and USAIO advocate ISO RFID tags as the technology of choice for the US national ID system, Allflex said.