Animal ID ban dead this year

State vet pleased, but stockgrowers hope to revive issue next year.

By Steve Miller, Journal staff | Saturday, February 16, 2008

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A proposal to prevent the state from taking part in a national animal identification system for livestock is apparently dead in the 2008 South Dakota Legislature.

The state House defeated the bill 40-29 on Tuesday. A similar bill was killed in committee in the 2007 legislative session.

Rep. Mark DeVries, R-Belvidere, the bill's prime sponsor, said the issue is done for this year, but he would probably revisit it in the 2009 Legislature.

Dr. Sam Holland, the state veterinarian and head of the South Dakota Animal Industry Board, said the bill was soundly defeated and would have forced the state to drop important animal-disease safeguards currently in place.

Holland said the bill, backed primarily by the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, would have stripped the Animal Industry Board of the authority to participate in animal-identification systems such as the one it has used for years to demonstrate that South Dakota's cattle herd is free from brucellosis.

He said the bill would prohibit the state from participating in any component of the National Animal Identification System. The state has been using federal money and databases to track change of ownership of breeding cows for years, Holland said.

"It would have jeopardized our ability to maintain free status for brucellosis and other animal diseases," Holland said about the failed bill.

Holland said the current law has the backing of the poultry, pork, dairy and sheep industries, as well as the South Dakota Cattlemen's Association, the South Dakota Veterinary Association, the South Dakota Farm Bureau and the South Dakota Association of Cooperatives.

DeVries said the original bill had been amended to allow continuing current programs and would have banned only further state participation in the national animal ID program after July 1 this year. "We just wouldn't implement more programs on top of what we already had," DeVries said Friday.

The Stockgrowers Association and its national affiliate, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, have battled for years against a national animal-identification program that has been advocated, in fits and starts, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

USDA officials a few years ago vowed to have a mandatory system of identification for every livestock animal by the end of this decade. Since then, USDA has backed off that effort and is now saying it wants only a voluntary national ID system.

But DeVries said he submitted the bill because the USDA now has signed cooperative agreements with state agencies such as the S.D. Animal Industry Board, which would result in pushing a mandatory system. "Those cooperative agreements called for the same objectives and deadlines for meeting those objectives as the original National Animal Identification System did when the feds were looking to fully implement it as a mandatory program at their level," DeVries said.

The Stockgrowers and R-CALF USA have contended that a mandatory national animal ID system would require ranchers to put electronic implants or ear tags on every animal and keep extensive computer records, all at great cost.

They also have said that the information in the animal ID databases could fall into the hands of meatpacking companies, which could use it to manipulate market prices.

But Holland said confidentiality hasn't been a problem so far with large databases that USDA already handles, and USDA has specifically put confidentiality language into the new farm bill.

And he said an individual animal ID system wouldn't necessarily require electronic chips but could use the cheap metal ear tags already in widespread use. Holland said the ID system should also accept the use of electronic ear tags, which cost between $2 and $4 each. "We've got a lot of people using them now."

Holland said about 5,000 farmers and ranchers in South Dakota have voluntarily registered their farm or ranch with a national premises registration. Of those, 4,000 are beef producers, he said.

Many of them are using the premises registration as a way to get better prices for their cattle from a meatpacking industry increasingly catering to consumers who want to know where their meat comes from, he said.

Holland mentioned one rancher who called him and said he had a chance to receive another $3 per 100 pounds for cows he had raised on his ranch over cows he had bought. "He just had to sign an affidavit with his premises number with this group, and there was no cost to him," Holland said.

DeVries said he knows of only one marketing program that requires premises registration other than the state's South Dakota Certified Beef program. He said the bill would have exempted South Dakota Certified.

Holland said he understands the concerns of the Stockgrowers but he doesn't agree with them.

"R-CALF and the Stockgrowers have taken a fairly narrow position," Holland said. "They fail to see that the National Animal Identification System offers various tools, from a premises system to individual animal ID, database tools and animal tracking tools."

Although the animal ID ban failed, Stockgrowers committee member Chris Harvey of Valentine, Neb., said the effort raised awareness of the issue.

"The Stockgrowers have always believed in a viable traceback system, which is what we have now. We will continue to work toward that end and to expose the problems and dangers of NAIS," Harvey said.

The Stockgrowers point to the brand system used in the western half of the state as an effective way to track movements of animals that are sick or that have been exposed to sickness.

Proponents of a national ID system say individual states' brand programs sometimes overlap and that not all states require brands.

Harvey said his group plans to bring the ID issue back to the Legislature next year.

For more information

For information about premises registration in South Dakota, call the South Dakota Animal Industry Board at 605-773-3321 or go to its Web site, www.state.sd.us/aib/Animal%20ID.htm

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com