A Troubling Farm Proposal Emerging

Anyone who eats meat (and that’s most of us), needs to know about Electronic Animals Identification tags for cattle, especially if you think groceries are really expensive these days.

The United States Department of Agriculture is still pushing Mandatory Electronic Animal Identification (EID). If electronic tags are adopted, it would be disastrous for the small rancher and will cost Fayette County and the State of Texas millions of dollars in lost revenue. Unless stopped by Congress, this regulation will go into effect on November 9 of this year. A program like this was defeated in the past and we need every rancher to step up and defeat it again.

Under this regulation, cattle crossing state lines will have to be tagged with electronic tags. Doesn’t sound like a big deal? By itself, perhaps not. But it’s the first step towards a far bigger program that USDA pushed a decade ago under which small ranchers would have to tag and report every movement of their animals. Move a cow to a pasture away from its birthplace and you pay a fee. Move a cow across the road to graze on land that you lease, and you pay a fee. Move a cow to the auction house and you pay a fee. A cow jumps the fence or gets on the road, YOU PAY A FEE. Small ranchers will have to pay through the nose for the privilege of raising cattle.

Electronic tags are the first cost a rancher must pay if USDA succeeds in pushing through this regulation and the ones it has planned. If you are not skilled in placing the tag in the ear of the animal, you will need to pay an installer. Then you will need an electronic tag reader, a computer and an internet connection to upload all the data. You will need to keep the data up to date or pay a fine. Then, of course, new software updates are not free and neither is buying a new computer every few years to keep up with all the electronic requirements and changes.

So how does the state and the county lose money? When ranchers go out of business, so do the equipment dealers and suppliers who sell tractors, haying equipment, chutes, barb wire, cattle panels, troughs, and more. Fertilizer dealers will lose money, as well as auction houses, veterinarians, feed store dealers and more service providers. Don’t expect the sale of pickup trucks and trailers to increase. That adds up to a lot of lost sales tax revenue.

Since EID was proposed to make a safer beef industry nothing has changed. Cattle health is still traceable! If the USDA is worried about foreign animal diseases, then they should stop allowing the import of diseased cattle. It doesn’t take long to identify sick animals even when shipping them across state lines.

Supporters of EID say the law will increase exports. The US only exports 11% of US raised animals. Would EID increase exports? I doubt it. Most countries want our organic grassfed, grass finished beef, not our grain-fed feedlot cattle. People who will pay for export beef, want the best. Will the small farmer benefit. Probably not. The grassfed, grass finished supplier usually sells most of their beef in the US. But EID could put them out of business.

Don’t think this can’t happen in Texas cattle country. In Michigan where it is mandatory to have electronic identification, the state lost 4,445 of its farms with fewer than 500 head of cattle, 28% more small farms lost than the national average. During this time, large cattle farms grew by 37% while increasing the number of cattle on these farms by 64%. These are agricultural census statistics.

From the numbers above, it looks like the only farms and ranches that profited from electronic identification were large producers. I wonder how the suppliers and service people fared. The numbers from Michigan look even worse when you realize that nationally large farm numbers decreased by 1% and cattle on those large farms increased by 11%. Follow the money.

Who benefits from this gold rush scheme? Well from what we can see from Michigan, the big winners were the EID technology suppliers and large meat packing corporations. Is that what we want for small ranchers in Texas and Fayette County?

So how can we stop electronic identification? First, I suggest you join the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA). FARFA was founded to stop this type of program over a decade ago. And they won back then. I am a proud member. They work for small ranchers.

Second, with the help of FARFA, two joint resolutions have been introduced to prevent the USDA from mandating EID. They are House Joint Resolution 167 (HJR 167) and Senate Joint Resolution 98 (SJR 98).

I urge you to call Ted Cruz at (512) 916-5834 or (202) 224-5922 and John Cornyn at (202) 224-2934 to support SJR 98. Then please call Mike McCaul at (512) 473-2357 or (202) 225-2401 and ask him to support HJR 167. They need to hear your strong objections to EID. And we need a massive outcry from all who don’t want higher beef prices. Everyone who eats meat needs to know how they can help.

While I am certain that no Texas Congress Representative would support EID, they need to hear from you in order to step forward and stop this program. The meat packing industry has spent millions of dollars trying to convince legislators that this is important to them. It means millions more for them to win.

This fight is long from over. Even if we win, it will rear its ugly head again and again. There is too much money at stake for large corporations. Make the call today.

David E. Will is a local rancher and consultant. He can be reached at 830-6299876 or by email at dwill207@satx.rr.com.