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Veterinarians ask USDA for electronic cattle ID tags

Wisconsin’s state veterinarian says the USDA has been asked to move towards electronic ID tags for all cattle.  Dr. Paul McGraw says, “The (recent) United States Animal Health Association met, and the animal ID committee there had a resolution that would recommend the USDA set standards by 2019 and move toward electronic ID for those cattle that do have to be identified by 2021.”

McGraw says the need for better traceability and faster, more accurate tag reading is needed for both disease tracking and for marketing.  He tells Brownfield the old metal tags could use an upgrade.  “You know, the NUES (National Uniform Eartagging System) tag has been a good tool for us for a long, long time.  It puts official ID in that animal, and if we had it put on at the farm of origin, it would give us traceability when it shows up at slaughter, but it’s not really a tool that can be read easily in a market or at the speed of commerce, so electronic ID is the way to go.”

McGraw says complete traceability is a requirement for more and more export markets.  Canada recently announced they will also require electronic “840” tags for breeding cattle beginning in February of 2018.

In McGraw’s home state, the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium manages the states premises ID and livestock ID data under contract with the state’s ag department.  They also manage the data for Michigan’s mandatory livestock ID system.  McGraw says this has been a great tool and has really helped during past avian influenza outbreaks.

He says, “Moving forward, I think we do need to get an official ID on livestock at the farm of origin.  I think that would really help our traceability.”

McGraw says there are several identification tools, but he would like to see uniform standards.  “I think we need to figure out what standards we’re going to use and then we need to have those standards in place.  There’s some great electronic records of veterinary inspection out there, but if they don’t record the identification appropriately, then it’s not really electronically searchable for us, so we need to have those standards in place and make them work better for us.”