Some Sanity Maybe

Knight backs simpler voluntary national animal ID system

The Senate Ag Committee held a hearing Wednesday on the nomination of several top agriculture officials. Among them is, Bruce Knight, the current Chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, who has been nominated for the post of USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs.

If confirmed, Knight will oversee key USDA agencies, including the Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards Administration, the Agricultural Marketing Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. In that role, Knight will also be the administration’s point man on national animal ID.

So there might be a new guy in charge of the NAIS program. What does he have to say.

Talent invited Knight to share his views, and Knight agreed with Talent that national animal ID should be a voluntary program. Knight also said national animal ID would be among his top priorities, and should be simplified to increase its adoption by livestock producers. “There is room for improvement making this touchable, tangible and understandable for farmers and ranchers,” Knight said. “We need a voluntary program that’s very easy to understand, and a program that is very apparent to producers why it’s important to both themselves as an individual and to the industry good as a whole,” he added.

Knight said such an approach could make a big difference in USDA’s approach to national animal ID. “And I think those precepts could be transformational in how we’re working with the national animal ID program at present,” said Knight.

It should be voulantary and it should be simpler. I can't agree more. These are the things I would like to see.

The big question in all this is does he truly beklive what hw is saying, or is he just saying it to be confirmed. Only time will tell.

An ear tag never stopped a disease.