No Mandatory Animal ID

It looks like the Government is fighting back against people like me talking about NAIS. Check out this grant being offered by the USDA and why it's being offered.

Document Type: Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number: USDA-GRANTS-051106-001
Posted Date: May 11, 2006
Original Closing Date for Applications: Jul 25, 2006
Current Closing Date for Applications: Jul 25, 2006
Archive Date: Aug 24, 2006
Funding Instrument Type: Cooperative Agreement
Category of Funding Activity: Agriculture
Category Explanation:
Expected Number of Awards: 111
Estimated Total Program Funding: $10,882,000
Award Ceiling:
Award Floor:
CFDA Number: 10.025 -- Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: Yes

Eligible Applicants

State governments
Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)


Additional Information on Eligibility:


Agency Name

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Description

USDA initiated implementation of the NAIS in 2004. The Department’s first priority with the initial funding in FY2004 was to have the components of the national premises registration system in place in every State by July 2005. With this accomplished, the next step was to use FY2005 funds to increase the number of registered eligible premises in each State. As of April, 2006, over 245,000 premises have been registered nationwide, or approximately twelve percent of the estimated number that are eligible. Funding for FY2006 will be provided to State and Native American Tribal governments to support the continued implementation and maintenance of the national premises identification system and NAIS within their respective areas. We would like to achieve a national target for premises registration of fifteen percent by July, 2006, twenty five percent by January, 2007, and thirty five percent by July, 2007. Since the majority of premises will be registered in a voluntary system, it is critical that we provide all individuals, business, and organizations a correct and consistent message about how they will benefit from NAIS and their responsibility to participate. Misinformation and adverse publicity has been somewhat detrimental to the adoption of NAIS in many areas of the country. USDA is working with States, organizations, and other stakeholders to develop appropriate educational and outreach materials. Applications for cooperative agreement funding must include an aggressive plan for education and outreach, including effective use of existing outreach resources such as cooperative extension, state AVIC offices, and state industry organizations, to stakeholders at all levels within the state or tribe. This funding opportunity does NOT include funds for conducting pilot projects to develop solutions for animal identification and/or collecting animal movement data. Similarly, funds are not to be used for the purchase of animal identification devices, animal movement data recording hardware or software, or the development of animal tracking databases. Animal movement tracking will be developed, implemented, and funded within the private and/or State/Tribal sector.

Over 10 million dollars being offered to fight "Misinformation and adverse publicity has been somewhat detrimental to the adoption of NAIS in many areas of the country. USDA is working with States, organizations, and other stakeholders to develop appropriate educational and outreach materials." My-O-My. They are sure running awful scared from the truth being spoken by people such as me doing this all on their own with a shoestring budget.

I guess the truth spoken with conviction outweighs legions of money, or so I hope.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, but the Government hopes tons of money will stop me.

Some more interesting information on the "wonder tags," the RFID tags that the Government wants us to use on our cattle for the National Animal Identification System.

BeefTalk: Electronic identification - Two steps ahead, one back

Attempts to implement a national identification program for animal trace-back have been noticed. News about the outbreak of a disease with notable impact has increased the pro and con discussion, but the lasting outcome is far from defined.

The Dickinson Research Extension Center is involved in a project that is designed to monitor cattle in transit and locate cattle during shipment. This research involves evaluating the ability to read calves going on and off a truck using low-frequency RFID (radio frequency identification) tags.

So, what did their research show?

For the optimist, the trial was 94.4 percent successful. For the practical cattle producer, only four of the six runs actually resulted in a 94.4 percent or higher success rate. In reality, only 66.7 percent of the runs actually achieved a realistic outcome, while 33.3 percent failed. One tag failed twice, requiring three reads to achieve a 100 percent read for this set of data.

ONLY 66.7% ACHIEVED A REALISTIC OUTCOME. That's horrible. The Government wants us to rely on a technology that is only effective 2/3 of the time. Sorry Charlie, that's just not going to work. How much more work and labor is this system going to entail with these kind of numbers? I don't even want to think about it. Running the cattle and reading the tags time and time again because the system doesn't work right. You start running over 500 cows with these kinds of numbers and the chances of getting a good read on them are slim to none.

This whole NAIS system needs to be scaled back a whole lot. A herd ID system with permanent metal tags would be the easiest, low tech solution that could be made to work for all. I still wouldn't like it particularly, but it would work.

An ear tag never stopped a disease, but it sure entices the government to foist off a failed technology on us, the producers.