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Animal Disease Traceability Electronic Identification 2023

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Independent Cattlemen of WyomingThe Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming is a producer, grass roots organization organized to protect and promote the future viability of the Wyoming Family Livestock and Ranching Industries. ICOW is the John Wayne among cattlemen—strong, no-nonsense, common sense, and straight forward.  It is a powerful organization that provides a check and balance for Wyoming producers when other organizations get heavy at the top and forget their members.

The bureaucrats of USDA have pursued mandatory ID tags for over 20 years and have been consistently opposed by the American producers.  This proves the USDA is not listening to the American people most affected by the burdensome mandate.  The USDA has an agenda and it is not about protecting animal health or American freedoms. 

In the long battle to prevent government over reach, we now know the reason for the mandatory tags is the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB).  GRSB is nothing more than a war on free enterprise, private property and individuals and has absolutely nothing to do with animal disease protection or traceback.

Mandatory ID is not about national security, animal health tracking, property rights, or marketing, it is about power and control.  It benefits the packers while producers pay for it.  Nobody wants mandatory ID except the USDA, mega feeders and the big packer cartels.  If the continual uprising against these various mandatory ID ideas has been heard, then it ought to be dead—never to raise its ugly evil head again.

All of the chips for the ID tags are all made in Communist China who is not a friendly country and has a penchant for stealing data to the detriment of American citizens.  This is a national security issue.  The Communist Chinese would be in a position to make all U.S. cattle unmarketable by refusing to sell the chips.  We know criminals can use cell phones to hack into chips to steal cars.   Court decisions  have already been made that Americans have a right to privacy of property.  Using chips for surveillance is malfeasance.  RFID technology can elicit and transmit information from any RFID TAGS in the area, such as from clothing, appliances, vehicles and etc. This technology places a great deal of personal information at risk.

Only authorized companies are allowed to furnish the tags, which means the government will be choosing winners and losers among the tag making companies.  Will they have to be members of the GRSB to get the contracts?  It is totally un-American.    The potential problems of data storage and who can access it and who maintains it leaves a lot of doubt as to the integrity of the whole system.  With data in one place hacking will be easy for crooks and enemies of our country.  It is important to note, the packers want the data to further control the market place and of the 4 big packers, 3 are foreign owned!

The remedy to animal disease is to not import it through the border from countries known to have disease.  The USDA needs to go back to the “no risk” on imported meats and live animals.  Controlled risk is a joke. If the USDA wants producers to believe they are all about protecting the U.S. cattle producers from disease, they must show an effort to prevent it from importation.  Tracking every move of an animal between the states will not prevent disease.  It is foreign imports from countries like Brazil with known foot and mouth that pose the risk of disease.  If the USDA is really about disease control, they need to stop it at the borders, and eradicate it from the wildlife such as brucellosis and tuberculosis in deer, elk and bison.

”The livestock industry knows exactly what disease is most likely to infect the cattle and we even know from which country it is most likely to come—Brazil.  There will be no excuse for not being prepared to address foot and mouth disease.  The only way to stop such a disease is to be prepared with the proper vaccine.  That vaccine bank is nearly empty because of the Ear Tag Boys obsession with requiring RFID tags—a useless mandate.  Once FMD is here, tracing an infected cow back to her home of origin is irrelevant because what needs doing is to look for symptoms and respond accordingly.”  As stated by Gilles Stockton

States and Tribal Nations must be free to adopt the traceability plans that work for them and that they can feasibly afford.  An expensive boondoggle that is failing Australia and other nations does not need to be copied in the USA, especially when the economy is struggling.  We recommend allowing all forms of ID, and not setting restrictions on the States.  In Wyoming, current disease programs and brands are working and accepted by other States with which we trade.  Back tags in the market place move at the speed of commerce, especially for cattle going directly to slaughter.

We suggest that USDA APHIS go back to the agreed upon guidelines of 2013 and leave us to the business of feeding America.

The state of Wyoming has statute law that prevents mandatory RFID tags being forced on Wyoming producers.  Federal rules are not supreme over State Statute law, especially a rule that is arbitrary and capricious as is this particular rule.  Wyoming producers can refuse to affix Chinese Communist ear tags in Wyoming cattle The minimalist rule with only 11% of the animals is insufficient to trace back leaving the question as to the lack of trustworthiness of the USDA.  Is this the foot in the door rule to trick us?  The lack of property or premises ID also leaves the question exactly what has the USDA got up its sneaky little sleeve since it obviously has nothing to do with traceback or disease prevention.

ICOW opposes eliminating the hot iron brand as an official form of identification.  We understand that many states do not have hot iron brands, but in the west where cattle often get mixed and run on common allotments, it has been the most effective way to identify cattle.  It stays with the cattle for their lifetime, unlike tags that fall off in the sagebrush and shrubby trees.  Which leads to the question, what about the cattle that lose their tags?  Do they go into the witness protection plan and get a whole new identity with replacement tags?

ICOW submits that these rules support the packers’ efforts to obtain U.S. raised premium cattle at low cost by eliminating the current age and source programs that cost above market average.  If these rules are implemented all cattle will be age and sourced and all premiums will be gone.  While these rules will benefit packers, the financial implications for the producers are in every aspect of the proposed rule, from the tags to the higher costs of the handling facilities and labor costs.  The shortage of large animal veterinarians needed to comply with the rules, will affect the cost as well as the speed of commerce. There is a total disassociation by the USDA on the real costs to producers and there has been no economic analysis on the cost of bangs vs. RFID tags.  The USDA is asking producers to increase their production costs with no way to recover the cost in the market place.  Again it looks like the packers wrote the rules via NCBA to their advantage. 

The USDA must recognize that cattle are private property and as such are not federally owned as a “national herd”.  Wyoming cattlemen are citizens of the State of Wyoming, and as owners of private property, are not “stakeholders”.  Our private properties are not “premises”.

There is no federal statute that authorizes the USDA to mandate electronic tags so we see this as bureaucratic overreach. It is a costly mandate for farmers and ranchers.  The IRS has taught us well, that government mistakes are paid by us, so we know who will pay if the great mandatory ID program fails.

Hugh Turk, President

Taylor Haynes, Vice President

Judy McCullough, Secretary

Kay Jensen, Treasurer