State Conspiracies Don't Change Federal Policies

State Conspiracies Don't Change Federal Policies
Editorial by Eric Jennings, SDCA Past President 

It’s puzzling how much attention the new traceability rule that requires electronic identification (EID) tags is garnering now that it has been fully implemented. I am puzzled because the time for attention would have been during the comment period when the rule was proposed. To recap, disease traceability rules have been in place since 2013, and the current version of the rule, updating the type of tag required, was proposed in January of 2023 and wasn’t finalized until April of 2024. Those15 months would have been time to get involved in the rule making process, not after it has been implemented.

Now that the rule has been finalized and fully implemented, some cattle and marketing associations held rallies and asked county commissions to pass resolutions opposing the use of EID tags. They can’t dispute that EIDs will greatly improve the speed and accuracy of disease traceability. Their reasons against the use of EID tags have little to do with the facts. Instead, they’ve created conspiracy theories involving climate change and price manipulation. Passing local county resolutions or spreading anti-EID propaganda will not persuade the federal government to change the current disease traceability rule.

This opposition movement to the United States Department of Agriculture’s update to EID as the official identification by certain associations can only be described as a marketing ploy to gain membership instead of working for the cattle producers they claim to represent. The South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association (SDCA) and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) have been engaged in the traceability rule making process from the beginning. We worked with USDA’s Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service to ensure secure data storage, provided input on which class of cattle should be subject to the rule, and lobbied to secure funding for the program. After the final rule was published, the SDCA hosted meetings across the state to educate producers on how to comply with the updated rule and worked with the South Dakota Animal Industry Board, USDA, and NCBA to address tag distribution issues. We also shared information with producers about how using EIDs can benefit their operations. In other words, SDCA worked on behalf of the producers instead of serving our interests.

Don’t be fooled by the fear mongering -- EIDs are not a new or novel product. EID tags are widely used by the dairy industry, beef breed associations, and value-added programs. EIDs have been around since the 1970’s, and as with all technology, they have continually improved to the product we have now. One of the improvements the manufactures have made is the plastic used. Many of the stories you hear about poor tag retention are from the older tags that used a plastic that didn’t snap together as well as the current tags. The retention rate of the tags we have now is very similar to the metal clip retention rate. The EID readers will also improve and become faster to process large groups of cattle going through sale barns more efficiently. 

As with all technology-based products we use, EID tags will continue to get better and more widely accepted. As the acceptance level goes up, we will embrace the fact that EID tags are making our industry more efficient and represent a time and labor savings. The quicker we reach that level of acceptance, and stop inventing reasons to oppose them, the better off our industry will be.

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