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Texas Agriculture Archive

March 19, 2004

National animal I.D.
plan moves a step closer

By Mike Barnett
Editor

Although the United States Department of Agriculture has yet to come up with a formal plan, the U.S. livestock industry moved one step closer to a national identification system with the Ag Department announcement that animal identification numbers will be issued starting this fall.

The announcement came on the heels of House and Senate hearings on the subject the first week of March. Under the proposed system, farms, ranches, feedlots, sale barns and packing plants would receive "premises" ID numbers this fall and individual animals would each be assigned their own ID numbers in the future.

Undersecretary Bill Hawkes told a Senate agriculture subcommittee that USDA prefers a voluntary ID system and that they plan to gather data from private groups to get the program started. He also said that USDA does not anticipate that federal funding will be provided for the ID program.

Hearings' highlights

Implementation of an animal identification system would be an enormous task. The U.S. has 95 million cattle and calves owned by over 1 million cattle producers. The U.S. livestock industry also includes some 60 million hogs, 6 million sheep and lambs and over 700 million chickens and turkeys. And that doesn't even count the dairy cow numbers.

Industry consensus and USDA testimony indicates USDA appears to support use of the data standards developed by the United States Animal Health Identification Plan (USAIP), as well as the general plan concept (see details on that plan on page 22. Also, Jon Johnson, TFB associate director of commodity and regulatory activities, was attending a beef working group session in Kansas City, Mo. on the plan at press time. Details of that meeting will be in the next issue of Texas Agriculture).

Highlights of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee in Washington, D.C. and House Ag Committee hearing in Houston, as compiled by the American Farm Bureau Federation, include the following:

•USDA plans to support a voluntary ID system at the beginning and move to a mandatory system sometime in the future. There was no consensus among members of the committees on the issue of voluntary versus mandatory.

•USDA plans to have a complete list of farmers and ranchers by late fall so that a premise ID system can be implemented this year.

•By the summer of 2005, each animal (or group of animals) will possess a unique ID number.

•The USDA working team will submit their initial report on the issue to Secretary Ann Veneman in the near future. USDA will recommend a system that allows producers the flexibility to use current ID systems or to adopt new ones. USDA will attempt to implement a system so that producers are not burdened with multiple identification numbers, systems or requirements. The working team will also recommend a system that is "technology neutral" so that all existing forms of effective technologies and new forms of technologies that may be developed in the future may be utilized.

•USDA believes they already have the legal authority to implement either a voluntary or a mandatory animal ID system via the Animal Health Protection Act.

•The Administration's fiscal year 2005 budget requests $33 million to fund that year's activities for system implementation. No funds have been appropriated for FY 2004 but USDA is considering using Commodity Credit Corporation funds this fiscal year. USDA said it "does not envision any significant Federal funding being used for individual animal tags or other such services; however, funding of select electronic readers could be accompanied under the agreements with some cooperators."

Confidentiality

Confidentiality of a National ID system was a huge concern among the limited number of industry groups testifying at the Houston Ag Committee Hearing.

Under questioning by House Ag Committee members, USDA representatives said case law indicates information submitted voluntarily by producers could be kept confidential—unless another court case proved otherwise. However, they said information that is mandatory would likely be subject to Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests. In addition, USDA is still uncertain as to whether other Federal agencies could access the information.

"Uncertainty over the confidentiality and accessibility of information in a national animal identification database may cause some livestock producers and processors to delay participation in a national identification system until these issues have been resolved," said USDA Chief Information Officer Scott Charbo at the Houston Ag Committee Hearing. "Federal legislation addressing the confidentiality and accessibility of information in a national animal identification database may be needed to address the concerns of livestock producers and processors and expedite the implementation of a national animal identification system."

National Cattlemen's Beef Association President Jan Lyon testified at the Houston hearing that producers are extremely concerned that the information that becomes part of an animal ID program could fall in the hands of those who would use it illicitly.

"For these reasons, NCBA believes that any information provided by producers for an identification system should be exempt from release under FOIA," Lyon said. "Making the Privacy Act apply to data provided under this system would be an additional layer of protection for producer privacy."

That feeling was echoed by Charles Beckendorf, chairman of the National Milk Producers Federation.

"NMPF recommends that every effort be made to restrict public access to any data gathered," Beckendorf said. "Limited access can be provided to only those state or federal government officials who need to conduct animal disease surveillance or to track animal movements in the event of an animal health emergency."