No Mandatory Animal ID

It's a new year and we still need to keep an eye on the NAIS situation. Maintaining this as a voluntary system is important to all who love freedom and keeping our eye on the government will hopefully maintain it this way.

Of particular interest to me is the recent USDA publication that studied the economic effects to producers of the BSE problems in the US.

Did BSE Announcements Reduce Beef Purchases?

Among the three markets examined—fresh beef, frozen beef, and frank-
furters—fresh beef provided the strongest case for an impact of the BSE
announcements. There is no evidence that the Canadian announcement
altered purchase patterns of fresh beef, but purchases during the first 2
weeks after the Washington State announcement were unusually low. Frozen
beef purchases fell only for the first week after the Washington State
announcement. Frankfurter purchases dropped in the second week following
each announcement, but purchases of no-beef frankfurters also fell,
suggesting that unrelated events were more likely responsible for the
decline.

The magnitude of responses in the market was difficult to estimate
precisely, but the duration was clear: within 2 weeks, consumers were
behaving exactly as they had before the announcements.

The reason I bring this study up is that it has a direct impact on NAIS. How? The driving force behind NAIS was to protect American producer from the economic impact of diseases like BSE. This shows the economic impact of BSE was close to zero. Within 2 weeks Americans were purchasing the same amount of Beef they were before the announcement of BSE. The only problem we have, and still have is our foriegn markets and even with NAIS there is no saying these markets would be open yet. South Korea is doing every thing it can to block US beef and NAIS wouldn't make one difference to this market.

This report just shows how unnecessary mandatory animal ID is. It might be useful in marketing in a voluntary system but I have yet to personally see that come about. The only information I have on an ID system is the buyer of my cattle would pay less for calves if they are ID'd. They cost him more money so he pays less for them. {sarcasm}Quite the advantage for me isn't it?{/sarcasm}

An ear tag never stopped a disease.

USDA RELEASES BSE PREVALENCE ESTIMATE FOR U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced USDA's estimate of the prevalence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States.

"Our enhanced BSE surveillance program has been an enormous undertaking, but well worth the effort," said Johanns. "We can now say, based on science, that the prevalence of BSE in the United States is extraordinarily low. The testing and analysis reinforce our confidence in the health of the U.S. cattle herd, while our interlocking safeguards, including the removal of specified risk materials and the feed ban, protect animal and human health."

Four to seven animals is all they figure have BSE in the US. That's really good news. These statistical analysis always seem a little like witchcraft to me but i know most of the time they are valid.

The bigger question this brings up is, if the prevalence of BSE is so low in the US, why do we need the national Animal Identification System (NAIS) to track all animals? The original justification was the BSE crisis. If there is no BSE crisis, why track all the animals? I will tell you, to benefit the big corporations at the expense of the producers in this country. That's all NAIS is about. Animal health is not the driving force, it is the lie being used by the USDA/meat packers to drive this agenda.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, it's just used to feed bologna to the people of the US.