09/05/06 Politics and animal ID

American Rancher September 5, 2006 More than 80 percent of participants at the recent National Institute for Animal Agriculture annual conference regarding animal identification suggested the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Identification System implementation is behind expectations. Further, 78 percent of the more than 100 respondents said NAIS should be a mandatory program. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, who gave the key note address at the meeting, stressed the program will remain voluntary under his watch. He believes the market place will drive the implementation of NAIS through premium opportunities for producers. While cost and confidentiality have been two of the greatest hurdles to implementing a national ID program, National Institute for Animal Agriculture board chairman Scott Stuart, says the meeting survey found something else. Stuart: "But in the survey, far and away the number one response to what is really slowing this whole process down was political posturing. Everybody jockeying for position in this whole issue instead of really collectively working to establish a national system that is going to work for everybody involved." Conference participants agreed that using an easy, single-source tracking solution would be the best option to help improve implementation of a National Animal Identification System. I'm Bob Hoff.