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Ranchers Rebel Over National Animal ID Plan

nytimes.com — Small-scale family farmers and other agrarian advocates oppose the national animal identification system, a plan first broached five years ago by the Bush admin. Underlying the opposition is the fragile economics of ranches and small farms, which are already disappearing. The extra cost of radio tags would be crushing, some smaller producers say.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 29, 2009

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  • Richandler, on 06/29/2009, -0/+45A plan more than likely proposed by mega-subsidized farming giants.
  • jrm125, on 06/29/2009, -0/+22Not cool megafarmers, not cool.
  • casek, on 06/29/2009, -2/+23Big Govt. is trying to weed out the little guy. The rfid's actually get cheaper if you have more cattle. Who has more cattle? Big industry.
    ***** RFID, ***** BIG GOVERNMENT, ***** CORPORATE CATTLE "FARMS".
  • Barackalypse, on 06/29/2009, -0/+21Why bother wasting all the effort to track the animal while they are alive when you could just test every animal being slaughtered instead?
  • tgc1, on 06/29/2009, -0/+19Because that would be logical and cost efficient. The point of this, I suspect, is to create yet another layer of bureaucracy to get through, which means paying more. Farmers have to pay to get certified and tracked, the customer has to pay more to buy their food.
  • Meor, on 06/29/2009, -3/+21Never in history has food been safer to eat. If you have an irrational fear of food poisoning, I suggest you grow your own.
  • JordanTW90, on 06/29/2009, -0/+17When will we realize that regulations create more problems than the problems we're trying to fix?
  • JYoungest1, on 06/29/2009, -2/+17Isn't that from uncooked meat...how would IDs help that. Tell your restaurant to cook their food right.
  • zephc, on 06/29/2009, -0/+15How about taking your animals out of the high-density feed lots where disease and sickness abound, and stop feeding them things they can't process, before you start forcing costly and superfluous technology.
  • tonyteetime, on 06/29/2009, -0/+10“Tracking cattle now, tracking you soon.”
  • Moonkeeper, on 06/29/2009, -0/+9Regulation helps big business capture market share by making it too tough for small business to stay in business.

    '“My main beef is that these proposed rules were developed by people sitting in their offices with no real knowledge of animal husbandry and small farms,” said Genell Pridgen, an owner of Rainbow Meadow Farms in Snow Hill, N.C'

    '“I feel these regulations are draconian,” Ms. Pridgen said, “and that lobbyists from corporate mega-agribusiness designed this program to destroy traditional small sustainable agriculture.”'
  • alamedaman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+9they want to ID us humans, I'm not shocked they want to ID animals also
  • marmotjmarmot, on 06/29/2009, -0/+8Well, aren't we next ?
  • Benno, on 06/29/2009, -0/+8This would encourage more factory-style farming which in turn would exacerbate meat safety problems. This program would be costly for ranchers and make meat less safe.
  • Ymeg, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7Animals are tools and property.
  • urgeigh, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7Because that won't put independent farmers and ranchers out of business.
  • com2, on 06/29/2009, -0/+7So what happens when people start selling bargain priced diseased livestock with cloned RFID tags?
  • coreman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+6the current method being used to implement this is the frog-in-hot water method. Slowly increase the heat until it's a fait acompli to implement the thing across the board, because by then the people who could most effectively object to it will already be on the program.

    Funny, I haven't seen mention of any E. coli or Listeria breakouts from steakhouses or other places at which people mostly consume non-hamburger meat (i.e., steaks, chops, etc). It always seems to be some form of more processed meat, like hamburger, sausage or packages of deli meats. If you've seen commercial-scale hamburger processing, you'd understand why.


  • inactive, on 06/29/2009, -2/+7The Government wants to control everything and make you pay for the technology and services.
    Big Brother just got to the farms. When you get your chickens, expect to find an RFID chip in your Roast.
    To put it there cost you $2.80
  • MooseOfReason, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5Let's not sink to their level.
  • jrm125, on 06/29/2009, -0/+5Yea it could, something I hadn't thought of. Good call.

    Unfortunately the other side to that coin is it wouldn't do much good if it drove the little guys out of business. Ugh.
  • coreman, on 06/29/2009, -1/+6Also, the meat probably did not come from locally grown and processed meat, raised on the idyllic family small farm. If it came from beef, it finished the last few weeks of its life on a feedlot, before being trucked probably hundreds of miles to the slaughterhouse. If it was hamburger, there is no way the new animal plan will help in tracking the source of the contamination, for what should be obvious reasons (hint: think of how hamburger is made...). Even if it was from a cut of meat (like a steak), still no way, as there will be no ID tracking on the individual piece of meat (chances are, the ID stamped onto the fat would be trimmed off anyways, either at the restaurant or by some intermediary between the slaughterhouse and the restaurant). Best case is back-tracking shipping lots, as they currently do now.

    Because the factory farms and processors are excluded from the requirement to track every individual animal, this is just an epic fail for those who think it will improve traceability and "safety".

    (yes, I'm a small-scale sheep rancher).
  • linagee, on 06/29/2009, -0/+4Couldn't this National Animal ID thing be used to NOT buy meat from mega farmers and only buy meat from farmers who take cave of their livestock and don't overcrowd? Just saying. Choice is a good thing. Anonymous mystery meat FTL.
  • vbullinger, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3Can we all vow that, if this does occur, that we'll only buy from the local guys, no matter the cost?
  • biggestprick, on 06/29/2009, -3/+6The guy just passed away for god's sake!
  • coreman, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3No, Big Govment isn't doing this per se, but to benefit, er, that's what is best for the paragons of food safety Con-Agra, Foster Farms, Perdue, et al. want.
  • joebagodonuts, on 06/29/2009, -0/+3"The 2005 draft plan stated that the program would be mandatory, phased in over several years. "

    So if it does pass, recommended changes to mandatory.
  • WilliamDavis, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2Meanwhile, people ID plans don't bother them a bit. Who do they think pays for those?
  • urgeigh, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2I don't think this has anything to do with things like E. Coli or Salmonella from mishandled food, but more so diseases that could threaten livestock and potentially people. Like mad cow disease. Not saying I agree with this, at all, just clearing it up for you.
  • Samurai77, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2No
  • ZenMojo, on 06/29/2009, -2/+4Dont' forget to thoroughly cook your mad cow meat. Just saying, it helps to know where the meat came from.
  • bipolarruledout, on 06/29/2009, -0/+2At least if you eat a steak you know it only came from one cow.
  • com2, on 06/30/2009, -0/+2Depends on who gets to market first.
  • vbullinger, on 06/29/2009, -1/+3Wow, look at this guy! Apologizing for Big Brother all over the place! Who are you, O'Brien?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Brien_(1984)

    But seriously. He's right. I mean, we all know that millions - maybe even billions - of people die every year from diseased meat. And we should absolutely decimate all small ranchers and farmers in order to save those millions - or billions - of lives every year. The fact that this would benefit giant multi-national uber conglomerate agri businesses is just a happy, super awesome coincidence.
  • linagee, on 06/29/2009, -1/+3Because heat kills all diseases? No.... It does not. It kills MOST.
  • adamk0310, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1I love that a meat farmer has a "beef" with the situation.
  • Jlaugh, on 06/29/2009, -1/+2We should ID the politicians, army officers and bureaucrats and track them.
  • gn84, on 06/30/2009, -0/+1But you see, they've come up with a process to sanitize the infected feedlot beef with ammonia. Don't you want an ammonia burger?

    http://www.beefproducts.com/the_process/index.cfm
  • DivisibleByZero, on 06/29/2009, -2/+3"What they were emphatically not doing, said Jay Platt, the third-generation proprietor of the ranch, was abiding by a federally recommended livestock identification plan, intended to speed the tracing of animal diseases, that has caused an uproar among ranchers."

    Am I the only one who saw the word "recommended" in there? It's not like the law is requiring them to buy the tags.
  • pauleric, on 06/29/2009, -0/+1Bacteria is only on the outside surface of meats. It doesn't get into the center of a hunk of muscle tissue (like a steak) until it's ground up for hamburger or sausage. So all the government has to do is outlaw all processed meats, and hand out some bail out money to help them make the transition. Then they'll have authority to put in place CEOs picked by Geithner who will slowly phase out meat production in favor of growing grain in the prairie. That will cause a return of the dust bowl and consequent giant dust storms over Washington DC... which actually I wouldn't mind seeing, if it were limited to the Capitol Building and Whitehouse.
  • vbullinger, on 06/29/2009, -0/+1That was yesterday.
  • LouisCipher777, on 06/29/2009, -0/+1actually heat kills ALL diseases, but the illnesses that are not killed by heat is because it is not the bacteria themselves that cause the problem, it is the waste product of those bacteria, which are typically not changed by heat below 500 degrees.
  • linagee, on 06/29/2009, -1/+1What if an animal processor / retail store scanned the RFID tag and when a duplicate is scanned it sends of a big red siren that says "WARNING! WARNING! RETURN MEAT RIGHT AWAY! FRAUDULENT!!!!"
  • dusanmal, on 06/29/2009, -2/+2Instead of gated community news naturalpapa have directed us to see (one needs to sign-up to be allowed to see it), similar completely accessible content can be found at

    http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming ...

    Please do not Digg stories behind sign-up walls. Idiots who think that can be a good on-line news model might get encouraged.
  • kviepr, on 07/01/2009, -0/+0i don't understand why issues like this aren't in the fore front in todays politics. Farmers are the ones responsible for feeding america and I've seen a lot of documentaries talking about pesticides and non-organics destroying the human body. Why isn't the Obama administration more concerned about these issues? I found some cool video's of some farmers who are trying to stay independent and organic so please take the time to show them some support and watch their video and see the plight of their cause:

    http://www.americasheartland.org/episodes/episode_ ...
  • gn84, on 06/30/2009, -1/+1I already only buy beef from local grass-only sources. You don't need an ID tag to know that your meat doesn't come from the factory.
  • linagee, on 06/29/2009, -1/+1Because RFID tags are very hard to detect and not meant to let you detect them...
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