Current Cattle Market Daily Headlines for Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Mackenzie Johnston

6 years ago

Tag, you’re it: USDA proposes phasing out metal id tags by 2023

In July of this year, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) published a proposal in the Federal Register to phase out the metal clip tags and replace them with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags.
- Under this proposal, the USDA would stop recognizing metal clip tags (including bangs tags) as official identification for cattle and bison, and would only recognize RFID tags by 2023.
USDA published a similar plan in April of 2019, but R-CALF USA and two ranching families sued, and as a result they pulled the rule.
- The lawsuit claimed that the USDA’s proposal constituted a rule change, which required them to take public comment before deciding how to proceed.
  - That comment period is what USDA is now seeking, even though they aren’t referring to the proposal as a “rule change.” Comments are due on October 5^th, 2020. So far 178 comments have been received.
- Harriet Hageman, the attorney for the R-CALF lawsuit opposing USDA’s implementation of a mandatory RFID rule, feels that USDA is outside the scope of its authority to require the use of RFID tags.
  - According to Hageman, in 2013, the USDA estimated that an RFID mandate could cost between $1.2 and $1.9 billion dollars. With that being said, she has been informed that the actual cost would be significantly higher.
  - Hageman also stated that ear tag companies stand to make billions of dollars off this requirement, while producers will only incur additional costs.

On Tuesday, the United States Cattlemen’s Association sent a letter to leaders at the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and Food and Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) regarding concerns associated with contaminated Mexican cattle, lamb, poultry, and swine.
- Recently, 54 people fell ill after consuming meat contaminated with Clenbuteral, a beta2-agonist that promotes muscle mass and meat yield in some livestock.
In the letter, USCA President Brooke Miller explained how it is unacceptable to allow contaminated meat into the U.S. where we have an industry that prides itself in producing the highest quality, most sustainable, and safest beef in the world.
- He went on to ask APHIS and FSIS to reevaluate the public health risks associated with importing beef and meat from Mexico. He also suggested conducting an equivalence verification to confirm that Mexico is still maintaining a regulatory food safety inspection system that is equivalent with the United States’.