More Opposition

Stockmen don’t cotton to livestock registration

The government’s drive to register places that house livestock to guard against disease and bioterrorism is meeting resistance from stockmen.

The Department of Agriculture is pushing everyone from farmers to veterinarians to register. Officials say the information would help them slow or halt the spread of mad cow disease, avian flu or another killer infection.

It’s the first step toward individual animal identification and tracking, which the government says will speed a response to disease or bioterrorism targeting food supplies.

More Ranchers just like me opposed to NAIS and for the same reasons.

For Rob Alexander, a cow-calf rancher in Elbert County, the program could be just another drain on his already wafer-thin profit margin.

“I have to buy this new tool to put a tag in the ear, and then I have to buy new software to scan the tags,” he said. “Will it make my life more complicated? Yes. Am I excited about that? No. To the producer who’s on the short end of the stick, this smells like a rat, because most of the burden is going to be on us.”

Yes, cattle ranching is a business for a lot of us and this mandate is a little too much for us. There is no guarantee it will give us any extra profit, in fact the packer my calves go to charges the producer to read the tags, so why should we do it.

With the change in Congress it is more important than ever to let our voices be heard in opposition to NAIS. Write, call, we can stop NAIS.