Billings, Mont. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has partnered with Allflex, a private multinational firm that manufactures and sells ear tags in more than seven countries, to help Allflex market, promote and sell ear tags to U.S. cattle producers. Both USDA and Allflex contributed $10,000 or more to become “Platinum Level” sponsors of the private industry conference ID∙INFO EXPO 2009 to be held August 25-27 at the Westin Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo. Among the stated purposes of the conference is to further participation in USDA’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a program that would significantly increase the market demand for ear tags.

“This is a perfect example of how USDA is inappropriately using taxpayer dollars to further the interests of private multinational companies,” said R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max Thornsberry, a Missouri veterinarian who also chairs the group’s animal health committee. “This huge contribution clearly shows that USDA is catering to the interests of multinational corporations to the exclusion of the hard-working men and women who are being besieged both by ear tag companies and USDA to force them to comply with NAIS.”

In each of the 14 NAIS listening sessions held throughout the U.S. during May through June, overwhelming opposition was raised by U.S. farmers and ranchers against the USDA’s NAIS program. 

“Despite this overwhelming opposition, and despite repeated pleas from U.S. farmers and ranchers that USDA cease catering to the interests of multinational corporations and begin listening to the concerns of U.S. citizens,  the agency obviously is forging ahead to help its corporate friends,” Thornsberry said.

“Allflex is among a select list of USDA-authorized ear tag manufacturers, so its help from USDA to boost demand for ear tags under NAIS is certain to boost the company’s marketing opportunities,” he added. “We are appalled by USDA’s brazen financial partnership with Allflex and urge Congress to immediately cut all further funding to USDA for the purpose of promoting NAIS.”

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R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALF USA represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on trade and marketing issues. Members are located across 47 states and are primarily cow/calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and/or feedlot owners. R-CALF USA directors and committee chairs are extremely active unpaid volunteers. R-CALF USA has dozens of affiliate organizations and various main-street businesses are associate members. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com  or, call 406-252-2516.   

Op-Ed by R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max Thornsberry 

Billings, Mont. / Richland, Mo. – Everyone knows that many successful cattle operations rely upon the dedicated loyalty of a well-trained cow horse that can anticipate exactly what to do at the appropriate moment to accomplish the task at hand. R-CALF USA, as a trade association for independent U.S. cattle producers, recognizes this fact, and as such, not only do we oppose the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) overall as a violation of each citizen’s constitutional rights, but we oppose NAIS because of its invasive requirements to demand the reporting of each and every movement of our horses, whether such movement is across the county line, to another pasture, or down the road to a roping, show or rodeo. 

Horse owners should know why the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is being forced on their industry. The U.S. signed a World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty and is now submitting to global rules on animal trade established by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The OIE wants the U.S. to accept imports from countries where animal disease problems persist. For example, while the U.S. eradicated Equine Piroplasmosis – a tick-borne protozoal infection, the OIE wants the U.S. to accept imports from countries that have not eradicated this disease. With NAIS, horse movements could be traced from birth to death, thus eliminating the need to disallow high-risk imports because, according to the OIE, the U.S. could manage contagious diseases within its borders.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is not following its mandate to prevent the introduction of foreign animal diseases. Instead, USDA spent over $100 million to entice livestock owners to register their property in an NAIS database and obtain a “free” NAIS Premises Identification Number (PIN). Most equine owners and cattle owners have refused to register for this internationally sanctioned encumbrance to their private property. USDA says a PIN is needed to identify all livestock owners’ property so it can trace the movement of animals in the event of a disease outbreak. 

Yet, in Missouri, and I am sure in most states, a 9-1-1 call will bring emergency officials to your doorstep in minutes. At USDA offices, you can obtain your farm description, including an aerial photograph. On Google Earth you can obtain a satellite photograph of sufficient detail to count the horses in your pasture – and USDA says it cannot find your farm following a disease outbreak?

The reason USDA wants you to register under NAIS has nothing to do with its ability to find your farm. Instead, when asked why USDA was pushing so hard for NAIS, former USDA Under Secretary Bruce Knight, in September 2007, told a large group of bovine practitioners at our annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada: “It is quite simple. We want to be in compliance with OIE regulations by 2010.”

USDA told Congress that NAIS would have to be electronic to function properly. This means brands, tattoos, or individual color markings or descriptions would be unsuitable. The only acceptable means of electronically identifying equines is a surgically implanted, glass enclosed electronic microchip. This process is not as simple as some believe. When implanting a chip into a horse, I clip or shave the area, scrub it with surgical preparation soap and spray it with surgical site disinfectant. I then inject the area over the implant site with lidocaine to numb the skin and underlying tissues. To maintain sterility of the chips, I surgically scrub my hands and don surgical gloves. Only after this preparation do I implant the chip in the nuchal ligament of the mid-neck area of my equine patient.

The glass-enclosed chips do not always stay put. Like a splinter in your finger, the body often mounts a response to a foreign object, even one as innocuous as a piece of sterile glass. The response may include the formation of a sterile abscess around the chip, or it may remain painful and generate a negative response when the horse turns its neck. Chips are known to migrate within the body, and finding a chip in some animals becomes a major undertaking. A small percentage of veterinary patients have developed a cancerous growth at the site of implantation. While the incidence is low in animals with short lives, an equine patient has more time to develop a cancerous growth around the implanted chip. 

I don’t know about all equine owners, but most cattle producers do not appreciate an international agency telling us what we can and cannot do with our livestock in the United States. The U.S. has spent untold millions of dollars to eradicate many serious contagious animal diseases. Why would we now expose our privately owned animals to contagious animal diseases just to give away access to our marketplace to animals and meat from countries that chose not to invest in resources to control and eradicate diseases within their country? 

We live in the United States, not the WTO. We have a Constitution that directs our legal system, not the OIE. We have a government by the people, for the people, and of the people. It is time for the people to stand up and say, “Enough with this one world government!” 

Unless equine owners join with other livestock producers to oppose this nonsense, NAIS will become mandatory in the United States. It will cost equine owners in excess of $50/head to implant the electronic microchip. You will then be required to report any movement of your horses when they leave your property for any reason. A study released by USDA the last week of April 2009 and completed by KansasStateUniversity shows that the annual cost of identifying horses individually with microchips is $75.51 per horse. You can see my estimate of $50+/head is considerably lower than what this recent study shows. 

Imagine the bureaucratic nightmare and paperwork requirements of reporting to your government every time you go on a trail ride, go to a show or event, or trailer your mare to a stud. There would have to be an NAIS office in every county seat to process all this data, keep track of your information and report any violations to USDA. Just imagine the fines and enforcement actions that equine and other livestock owners would be subject to right here in the United States of America.

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R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALFUSA represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on trade and marketing issues. Members are located across 47 states and are primarily cow/calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and/or feedlot owners. R-CALFUSA directors and committee chairs are extremely active unpaid volunteers. R-CALFUSA has dozens of affiliate organizations and various main-street businesses are associate members. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com  or, call 406-252-2516.   

Op-Ed by R-CALF USA Region V Director Stayton Weldon

Billings, Mont. / Cuero, Texas – Inherent to every competitive industry is proprietary information. If one competitor gains access to the proprietary information of another, then any competitive advantage associated with that proprietary information is at best lost. At worst, the acquirer of that proprietary information could use it to eliminate competitors. Nowhere in the U.S. economy is proprietary information more important to ensuring competitiveness than in the multi-segmented live cattle industry and beef industry. 

USDA’s (U.S. Department of Agriculture’s) National Animal Identification System (NAIS), however, would grant the four largest meatpackers access to proprietary information held by the tens of thousands of U.S. auction yards and video auctions (markets), as well as cattle feeders. NAIS requires every cattle producer to affix a 15-digit identifier on each animal, which associates each animal to the “premises” of the farmer or rancher who raised the cattle and who sells them to feedlot owners through such markets. 

NAIS will reduce, if not eliminate, competition in the U.S. cattle and beef industries by granting meatpackers access to proprietary information now held by those markets and feedlots, vis-à-vis the 15-digit identifier. Here’s how: 

There are approximately 757,000 independent beef cattle producers remaining in the U.S. who sell approximately 69 percent of their feeder cattle through auction yards and video auctions to the remaining 87,160 U.S. feedlots that, in turn, sell approximately 88 percent of their fed cattle to just four major meatpackers for slaughter. Business relationships have been built between individual cattle producers and these markets and feedlots and they all compete with other similar businesses to acquire the numbers and type of feeder cattle best suited to their respective marketing and feeding programs.   

Over time, these markets and feedlots earn reputations for sourcing, marketing and feeding the specific quality and type of cattle highly coveted by the concentrated meatpackers. Thus, information about the source of the cattle acquired by said markets and feedlots is the proprietary information they use to maintain their competitive edge – and they often pay premiums to, or secure a higher price for, the cattle producers in order to acquire these cattle year-after-year.

To maintain competitiveness, the feedlots and markets do not disclose to meatpackers the sources of their cattle, as these sources are their proprietary information. NAIS, however, would hand this proprietary information over to meatpackers, enabling them to bypass the auction yard, video auction and feedlots by purchasing the specific quality and type of feeder cattle they want directly from the producer and then placing those cattle in their packer-owned feedlots. This would destroy the competitiveness of independent feedlots and the industry markets. 

 What makes this possible is the 15-digit NAIS number affixed to every head of cattle that is directly associated with the property (premises) of the producer who raised the cattle. The NAIS Business Plan clearly states that distribution records for NAIS eartags are required and also are automatically linked to the cattle owner’s premises identification number. All a meatpacker would have to do is collect the NAIS numbers from cattle they slaughter that are of the quality and type they desire and contact the eartag manufacturer to determine the owner of the “premises” those cattle are linked to. Anyone who thinks the meatpackers are without the means to readily obtain this information is kidding themselves.   

In further support of the accessibility of this proprietary information for purposes other than for official disease investigations, the NAIS Business Plan expressly states that these 15-digit NAIS numbers are a convenient means of verifying the origins of cattle for purposes of complying with the new country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law. Such use, of course, would necessarily require access to this proprietary information upon a claim by a meatpacker or other party for non-compliance with COOL, and access to this information in such instances would be for marketing purposes, not for any disease investigation.   

NAIS is but a veiled, governmental marketing program designed to economically disadvantage independent U.S. cattle producers by reducing what little competition remains in the highly concentrated and quickly shrinking U.S. cattle industry.

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R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALF USA represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on trade and marketing issues. Members are located across 47 states and are primarily cow/calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and/or feedlot owners. R-CALF USA directors and committee chairs are extremely active unpaid volunteers. R-CALF USA has dozens of affiliate organizations and various main-street businesses are associate members. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com  or, call 406-252-2516.   

Billings, Mont. – Western Ag Reporter Editor Linda Grosskopf, in the April 23, 2009, edition, published a headline that reads, “NAIS...Has R-CALF had a change of mind? If so, what about their policy?” (See:http://www.westernagreporter.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1474:nais&catid=3:this-weeks-articles&Itemid=12.) With this headline, Grosskopf publicly – and incorrectly – raises the specter that because    R-CALFUSA supports the expansion of the preexisting brucellosis-type identification system to identify breeding cattle in commerce, the organization has reversed its strong opposition to the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and has violated its member-established policy.

 “This allegation is demonstrably false and is a blatant attempt by the Western Ag Reporter to undermine and discredit     R-CALFUSA and its members,” said R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max Thornsberry. “Western Ag Reporter’s latest attempt to discredit this organization is a tremendous disservice to our members and demonstrates a complete lack of journalistic ethics.
 

“The Western Ag Reporter made no effort to contact R-CALFUSA before it issued its unprovoked public attack and it chose to selectively publish only one of R-CALFUSA’s nine separate policies that address animal identification and NAIS,” he pointed out. “Also, it unethically rearranged and manipulated the article written by Steve Bjerklie, published April 17 at www.meatpoultry.com, to deceptively fabricate and then exaggerate its erroneous claim that R-CALF USA’s position was not grounded in member-established policy. This action is an irresponsible and dishonest attempt to further the interests of pro-NAIS agribusinesses and to undercut the interests of hard-working U.S. cattle producers.” 

R-CALF USA is nationally recognized as the most formidable opponent to the NAIS and is the only organization in complete opposition to the program that has been called on by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry, and called on by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, to provide both oral and written testimony to express its members’ views.

 “The Western Ag Reporter’s attack on R-CALF USA plays right into the hands of USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) and its NAIS supporters and could potentially weaken the credibility and momentum R-CALF USA has gained in our fight to defend the rights and privileges of independent cattle producers by stopping NAIS,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “In addition, R-CALFUSA is the only organization that, since 2006, has offered a complete alternative to NAIS as a means of enhancing our nation’s disease traceback capabilities without adopting the invasive NAIS program.” 

In 2006, R-CALFUSA’s board adopted interim policy to support a nationwide expansion of the preexisting brucellosis program-type identification system to enhance our nation’s disease traceback capabilities, which identifies breeding animals with a metal postal-code eartag that does not require premises registration or the report of animal movement.
 

Western Ag Reporter was made aware of this recommendation as early as December 2006 when R-CALFUSA issued a news release announcing it had sent a letter to then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns urging him to adopt R-CALFUSA’s proposal in lieu of pursuing NAIS. 

Yet again, in May 2007, the Western Ag Reporter was informed that R-CALF USA’s membership had adopted the 2006 policy when the organization issued a news release titled “Members Approve Two Animal Health Resolutions.” And in June 2008, the Western Ag Reporter received the group’s news release titled “USDA Urged Yet Again to Reallocate from NAIS Budget Funds to Continue Brucellosis Vaccination, Surveillance.” 

And, in March 2009, the Western Ag Reporter was apprised of R-CALFUSA’s member-established policy in a news release titled “Promise for Change? Not for U.S. Livestock Producers when it comes to NAIS.”

In 2007, R-CALFUSA members overwhelmingly voted to request that USDA use the brucellosis-type identification system currently being used on breeding stock to enhance animal disease traceback. R-CALFUSA has advocated this alternative to NAIS for nearly three years in letters and formal comments submitted to USDA. Specifically, R-CALFUSA member-established policy requests USDA to:

* [C]ontinue brucellosis testing, vaccination, and surveillance in states where such action already occurs, and to implement brucellosis surveillance in all other states where cattle are present but no formal testing program is in place, and to fund all such programs.

* Maintain a nationwide brucellosis surveillance/vaccination program, which would be a means to provide a proven method of animal identification for livestock disease traceback purposes, with minimal financial burden or recordkeeping burdens on independent U.S. livestock producers and related livestock marketing facilities.

*[Use]USDA funds presently appropriated for an animal identification program to be redirected to fund ongoing and existing brucellosis surveillance/vaccination programs.

 R-CALF USA’s animal identification member-established policy passed in 2008 reiterates this animal health position: 

R-CALF USA recommends that USDA-APHIS continue the funding of ear tags and systems pre-dating NAIS for federal disease control programs for livestock and an animal health traceback identification program, in conjunction with brand laws. All data would continue to be held by the states and APHIS, as it is currently. R-CALF USA opposes harmonization of these existing systems with, or the use of, these existing systems to implement or promote NAIS.  

In addition, R-CALFUSA perhaps has the strongest policy against NAIS of any organization, as it expressly opposes registration of private property as a premises and any requirement for producer participation in NAIS.
 

R-CALF USA’s 8-Point Plan clearly states that “R-CALF USA urges Congress and USDA to immediately and completely abandon the flawed National Animal Identification System,” that Congress and USDA should “focus on targeted solutions to the legitimate livestock disease-related challenges faced by U.S. livestock industries,” and, “Under no circumstances should the Federal government maintain a national registry of U.S. livestock or require the national registration of producers’ real property.” This plan would enhance disease traceability without infringing on the rights and privileges of independent U.S. cattle producers. 

In its 8-Point Plan, R-CALF USA combined its member policies: on international trade to call for increased import restrictions to prevent disease introduction as well as permanent branding of all imported live cattle; on animal health to call for identification of breeding stock under a national brucellosis-type identification system, to require tuberculosis testing and quarantine of Mexican cattle, and to focus on disease eradication efforts in wildlife populations; on animal identification to call for a complete end to NAIS, including premises registration; on food safety to require that all imported cattle and beef meet identical – not equivalent – U.S. health and safety standards and to call for increased enforcement of food safety standards in U.S. slaughterhouses. 

“There is nothing even remotely inconsistent with our members’ fierce opposition to NAIS and our strong support for an expanded brucellosis-type system to restore our once-high level of animal identification in our U.S. breeding herd,” Thornsberry pointed out. “In fact, NAIS would completely supplant the brucellosis-type program, eliminating the local veterinarian’s control over what contact information is needed to associate tagged animals with their owner, as well as eliminate the metal postal-code eartag. 

“Every recommendation in R-CALFUSA’s 8-Point Plan is fully and completely supported by member-established policies developed by the thousands of R-CALFUSA members who own cattle,” he continued. 
 

“We can only hope the Western Ag Reporter has not destroyed R-CALFUSA’s efforts to completely block NAIS and to redirect USDA so the agency can strike off on a more responsible course to address the legitimate need to continually improve our nation’s disease traceback capabilities,” he concluded.

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R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALFUSA represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on trade and marketing issues. Members are located across 47 states and are primarily cow/calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and/or feedlot owners. R-CALFUSA directors and committee chairs are extremely active unpaid volunteers. R-CALFUSA has dozens of affiliate organizations and various main-street businesses are associate members. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com  or, call 406-252-2516.   

In a roundtable discussion today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack listened to concerns about the agency’s proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) from representatives of various U.S. livestock industries, including R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. 

“NAIS is a radical departure from the highly successful, preexisting disease programs and represents an unwarranted expansion of government agency power that R-CALF USA believes is prohibited under our Constitution,” Bullard asserted. “We believe NAIS is an invasive and unlawful encumbrance on commerce, and its effect is to impose additional production costs on every livestock producer, whether or not they are affected by a disease event, without affording livestock producers any means of recovering those additional production costs from the marketplace. 

“R-CALF also is concerned that NAIS would subject U.S. cattle producers to enforcement and compliance costs associated with the third-party management of a colossal database within which culpability would be difficult to determine – yet producers would remain subject to a command-control relationship with the third-party administrator, the federal government,” he pointed out. “In addition, USDA has provided no analysis that contradicts the effectiveness of the preexisting systems that did not require producers to register their property in a federal database, nor has the agency provided any basis for asserting that such registration would function better than preexisting systems.” 

During the discussion, Vilsack said it is important for USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) to listen and learn and that his conversations about NAIS are only beginning. He also mentioned upcoming listening sessions to be scheduled around the country, as well as more opportunities for producers to file comments about NAIS.

Note: To view/download a copy of R-CALF USA’s submission at the NAIS roundtable, please click here.

Op-Ed 

NAIS Will Hamper Cattle Disease Traceback Efforts 

This 671-word piece is authored by R-CALF USA Animal Identification Committee Chair Kenny Fox, a 3^rd generation cow/calf producer who has fought tirelessly against NAIS since 2003.  

Billings, Mont. / Belvidere, S.D. – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants cattle owners to register their real property, as well as each animal they own, in a new federal database. This is the first step in USDA’s plan to implement a National Animal Identification System (NAIS). USDA claims NAIS would reduce disease spread by shortening the time it takes to identify the birthplace of cattle suspected of disease.  

If it sounds too good to be true, it generally is.

After USDA forces producers to register their property and cattle in its federal database, the agency will replace the numbering systems now used on existing disease-oriented identification devices with a new numbering system that includes an “840” prefix. This “840” prefix is the international number assigned to the United States of America. Under NAIS, all cattle born in the U.S. would be identified with a string of numbers beginning with the “840” prefix. To determine where in the United States an individual animal was born, however, health officials must first access the federal NAIS database – and hope there are no errors in the database, which would contain 100 million or more “840” prefix numbers for U.S. cattle.  

If an answer is found by following the money, it’s generally right. 

This “840” system benefits multinational meatpackers who now must pay premiums to U.S. cattle producers so they will voluntarily participate in value-added programs that verify the U.S. origin of their cattle. This value-added service makes the beef from their cattle eligible for export. But, under USDA’s mandate, all cattle born in the U.S. would officially be verified as having a U.S. origin, and no longer would meatpackers have to pay any premiums to U.S. cattle producers. What a deal!   

If something smells fishy, it generally is. 

But, what does this international “840” prefix – which is paramount to the government’s NAIS – have to do with shortening the time to trace a suspected diseased animal back to its birthplace? Nothing.   

The most important component of USDA’s NAIS scheme – the “840” number assigned to all U.S.-born livestock – has no value in tracing an animal suspected of disease back to its birthplace. How could it? Every bull, cow, heifer and steer in the U.S. that does not have an official foreign import marking, as is presently required for all cattle imported from both Canada and Mexico, is already known to originate in the United States. The “840” prefix provides U.S. health officials with no information they do not already have.  

If you suspect your government is lying, quit supporting its nonsense. 

NAIS is designed to increase the profitability of multinational meatpackers that want cattle producers to pay the market cost of verifying the U.S. origin of beef destined for export. NAIS accomplishes this by eliminating the current disease-oriented numbering system that uses 50 different prefixes to identify which of the 50 states the animal is from and the numbering sequence that identifies the local veterinarian who applied the identification device to the animal.   

Under the existing system, a cow suspected of a disease anywhere in the U.S. would bear a metal eartag with a prefix number that identifies the state from which the animal originated. With a phone call to that state, the identity of the local veterinarian who applied the eartag and the location of the original owner could be found. Quarantine and other containment measures, if necessary, could immediately be initiated – no waiting to access a computer to access the NAIS database, no worry that data in the NAIS database may be corrupted, and no need for the federal government to maintain private data on citizens.   

I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and Representative to tell them to put a stop to this NAIS nonsense. The role of government is to protect, not to give multinational meatpackers an advantage in the international market. To learn how the government can improve our nation’s ability to prevent and control livestock diseases without infringing on the rights and privileges of cattle producers, visit www.r-calfusa.com and click on “Animal ID.” 

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R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America) is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALF USA represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on trade and marketing issues. Members are located across 47 states and are primarily cow/calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and/or feedlot owners. R-CALF USA directors and committee chairs are extremely active unpaid volunteers. R-CALF USA has dozens of affiliate organizations and various main-street businesses are associate members. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com  or, call 406-252-2516.   

A printable version is available here.

 For a printable version visit http://www.r-calfusa.com/animal_id/090331-eight_point.pdf

Eight-Point Alternative to NAIS

A Practical Solution to Improve Animal Disease Prevention, Control and Eradication,
As well as Meat Food Safety in the United States

R-CALF USA

March 31, 2009 

R-CALF USA urges Congress and USDA to immediately and completely abandon the flawed National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Instead, R-CALF USA recommends that Congress and USDA focus on targeted solutions to the legitimate livestock disease-related challenges faced by U.S. livestock industries, and take steps to meaningfully address legitimate food safety challenges, as are evidenced by recent and massive recalls of meat produced in U.S. slaughtering plants. Specifically, R-CALF USA recommends the following eight-point alternative course:

 1.      Prevent the importation of serious cattle diseases and pests from foreign sources by: 

a.       Prohibiting the importation of livestock from any country that experiences outbreaks of serious zoonotic diseases, including pests, until scientific evidence demonstrates the diseases and/or pests have been eradicated or fully controlled and there is no known risk of further spread. This recommendation includes a request for an immediate ban on live cattle imports from Canada, which harbor a heightened risk for BSE. 

b.      Requiring all imported livestock to be permanently and conspicuously branded with a mark of origin so identification can be made if a zoonotic disease or serious pest outbreak occurs in the exporting country subsequent to importation. 

c.       Requiring all livestock imported into the United States to meet health and safety standards identical to those established for the United States, including adherence to U.S. prohibitions against certain feed ingredients, pesticide use on feedstuffs, and certain livestock pharmaceuticals. 

d.      Requiring TB testing of all imported Mexican cattle and further requiring that all Mexican cattle remain quarantined in designated feedlots until slaughtered. 

e.       Reversing USDA’s efforts to carve out regions within disease-affected foreign countries in order to facilitate imports from the affected country before the disease of concern is fully controlled or eradicated. 

f.        Increasing the testing of all imported meat and bone meal to prohibit contaminated feed from entering the United States. 

2.      Adopt the surveillance and identification components of the preexisting brucellosis program, including the metal eartag and tattoo that identifies the state-of-origin and the local veterinarian who applied the identification devices, and require breeding stock not otherwise identified through breed registries to be identified at the first point of ownership transfer.     

3.      State and Tribal animal health officials should be solely responsible for maintaining a statewide database for all metal tags applied within their respective jurisdictions and should continue to use the mailing address and/or the production unit identifier determined appropriate by the attending veterinarian to achieve traceback to the herd of origin should a disease event occur. Under no circumstances should the Federal government maintain a national registry of U.S. livestock or require the national registration of producers’ real property. 

4.      The Federal government should enter into agreements with State and Tribal animal health officials to pay for the States’ and Tribal governments’ costs of identifying breeding stock and maintaining the State and Tribal databases, as well as bolstering disease surveillance at livestock collection points such as livestock auction yards and slaughtering plants, including increased surveillance for BSE. 

5.      The Federal government should coordinate with the States and Tribes to establish electronic interface standards and to establish improved communication protocols so it can more effectively coordinate with the States and Tribes in the event of a disease outbreak. 

6.      The Federal government should coordinate with the States and Tribes to establish improved protocols for the retention and searchability of State and Tribal health certificates, brand inspection documents and other documents used to facilitate interstate movement of livestock.   

7.      Establish specific disease programs and focus increased resources toward the eradication of diseased wildlife in States where wildlife populations are known to harbor communicable diseases. 

8.      To address the challenge of increased incidences of tainted meat products, Congress and USDA must substantially reform the current hands-off inspection system known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP).  HACCP has fundamentally failed to ensure adequate sanitary practices at major slaughterhouse establishments.  As part of the HACCP reform, Congress should implement a requirement that meat sold at retail and at food service establishments be traceable back to the slaughterhouse that produced the meat from live animals, not just back to the processor that may have further processed tainted meat. This simple improvement would enable investigators to determine and address the actual source of meat contamination – primarily the unsanitary conditions that allow enteric-origin pathogens, such as E. coli O157:H7, to contaminate otherwise healthful meat.

R-CALF USA - P.O. Box 30715 Billings, MT 59107 Phone: 406-252-2516 Fax: 406-252-3176
Website: www.r-calfusa.com
E-mail: laurelmasterson@r-calfusa.com