National Animal ID System Goes Down

In a victory for small farmers, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced last week that the USDA would all but abandon the much-maligned National Animal Identification System. 

Intended to help track food outbreaks, NAIS would have required every single livestock animal in the country to be electronically tagged and its movements on and off your property reported to the government within 24 hours, even if you only had one animal, and even if it was only a pet. 

Besides being incredibly burdensome to small farmers, the program would have done very little to improve food safety, as most contamination occurs at or after slaughter, when NAIS would no longer be in play. Even worse, large producers would have been able to class entire groups of animals under a single tag, spreading their cost while small producers were driven out of business. That this plan has been effectively scrapped is big news for sustainable farmers and ethical eaters everywhere.

You may have noticed that little "all but" in the first sentence. Vilsack still plans on going forward with some kind of animal tracking framework, and it remains to be seen exactly how this new system will be implemented and what its effects will be. However, there are some encouraging signs from what the USDA has released so far.

The USDA addressed a lot of the negative feedback it received about the unfair burden the system would place on small farmers, and it's encouraging to see a notoriously pro-agribusiness agency acknowledge those concerns. The new plan would require only that animals involved in interstate commerce be tagged, which should effectively exempt most small farmers and hobbyists. Officials also talked about encouraging lower-cost alternatives to microchips and radio tagging. Vilsack will re-establish a Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health with representatives from "States, Tribal Nations, industry groups, local farms, organic farmers, and underserved communities" to help develop disease-tracing guidelines.  The new program would be enacted on a state-by-state basis, theoretically allowing for more flexibility — but possibly leading to more confusion. Exact plans have yet to be developed, so it's still anyone's guess whether this is mere lip service or whether small farmers' concerns will be taken seriously this time around.

With so few details to go on, questions of course remain. We'll keep you updated as more information is revealed, as this issue is likely to deeply impact anyone who cares about sustainable food.

Photo credit: foxypar4 via Flickr