Senate Cuts Animal ID Funding By Half

by Natasha Chart

categories: Farm Economics, Food Safety, Health, Livestock, Policy

Published August 05, 2009 @ 02:05PM PT

Woohoo! I get to say nice things about the Senate!

I'm pleased to report that my usual causticity can be suspended for the duration of this post to applaud the Senate's unanimous consent vote to cut funding for the National Animal ID System. Go, Senate!

Jill Richardson at LaVidaLocavore has reposted the press release by R-CALF USA, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, and I think that the most salient point in the entire debate is encapsulated in this paragraph of their statement, here:

3) No food safety benefits. NAIS will not prevent food borne illnesses from e. coli or salmonella, because the contamination occurs at the slaughterhouse, while NAIS tracking ends at the time of slaughter. Thus, NAIS will neither prevent the contamination nor increase the government's ability to track contaminated meat back to its source. In addition, NAIS will hurt efforts to develop safer, decentralized local food systems. ...

If the program fails in its main, stated goal, if it is in fact structured such that failure is inevitable, what are we spending all this money for? As a liberal, progressive, believer in the possibility of government to do good, I have a deep and abiding interest in money given to the government not being wasted. When it's wasted, it creates an instant opportunity cost against something good and useful being done with that money.

Of the money that remains in the program, the Senate directives limit its use to rule-making activities, and on that front, I have a suggestion: lay the groundwork to institute premise ID, instead of animal ID.

I was talking a couple months ago with Margaret Krome, my former internship supervisor and policy program director at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, about how NAIS implementation has gone in Wisconsin. She said that at this point, they've just done premise registration, which sidesteps many of the concerns raised directly by Amish communities and does actually provide a public health benefit.

Krome explained that when there were animal disease outbreaks, the premise registry let public health officials target their notification efforts to the right people. This registration simply lets officials know that there are livestock on the property and what type. That's actually useful to know should there be an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease, scabies, or what have you. It also isn't burdensome to farmers, needing to be neither expensive nor time-consuming. See? Useful.

Anyway, cheers again to the Senate for showing such good sense. It seems in short supply these days.

(Photo credit: kimberlyfaye on Flickr.)