Cattle Group Says USDA EID Rule Falls Short

The USDA Electronic Identification ear tag mandate for certain classes of catalyst set to take effect on November 5. USDA says a mandate aims to enhance disease traceability. However, according to R-CALF United Stock Growers of America's CEO, Bill Bullard, the rule falls short of its intended purpose.

“While it requires the installation of electronic identification tags, it does not mandate that these tags be scanned and tracked throughout the entire supply chain, limiting the effectiveness of the system in improving disease traceability, and the only way the government can improve disease traceability better than what we have now is to make it more efficient by causing those chips being read to be electronically inputted into a database. And that is not part of this rule. So the only right way this rule can be effective is if USDA writes another rule, another rule to require the interstate certificate of veterinary inspections, the health certificate, to be read electronically and the reason that this rule doesn't do that is because it's cost prohibitive to require the purchase of the the wands necessary to read those tags and then all the infrastructure necessary to carry that electronic data throughout the entire system.”

R-CALF USA CEO, Bill Bullard.