October 27, 2006
US animal tagging programme faces staunch opposition from smaller farms
The USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is facing a growing national grass-roots movement against it as thousands of small-scale farmers say it would add unnecessary financial burden on family farms while doing nothing to stop diseases.
The system, meant to provide assurance to consumers by tracking animals from birth to the processing stage, is currently voluntary but opponents fear it may be changed or that processors may refuse to accept untagged animals from these farms.
The USDA, however, is strongly defending its plan, calling it an insurance against the devastating health and economic consequences that could follow if foot-and-mouth, bird flu or any other disease strikes the US farming landscape.
The USDA hopes to achieve a goal of animal identification so as to be able to stop the spread of disease within 48 hours by identifying the animals affected. These would include the places they have been before and other animals they might have come into recent contact with.
Animal owners are taking their fight online to websites such as non-ais.org, stopanimalid.org and noanimalid.com, as well as in publications such as Countryside and Small Stock Journal.
Small scale owners see the measure as a system mainly benefiting big producers wishing to restore their credibility with a public increasingly concerned about tainted food. Big producers also see the system as the key to gaining reassurance from international markets who are concerned about mad cow disease, something which is far removed from the concerns of small-scale owners, who do not export.
Small-scale farmers worry that costs will rise and they would be driven out of business by the programme, while animal lovers lambasted the system for driving a wedge between individuals and livestock.
The USDA would soon begin an education campaign to try convince farmers to adopt the programme to counter misperceptions such as chickens required to be tagged.
