Senate May Restart Mandatory Animal ID Talks

[wilds of pa]

NATIONAL AFFAIRS:
Senate May Restart Mandatory Animal ID Talks - Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) told reporters the massive ground beef recall sparked by video footage of abused downer cattle shows the importance of having a "comprehensive" animal ID system that covers all animals and provides 48-hour traceback to the farm or ranch. While that statement likely wouldn't raise too many eyebrows, Harkin didn't stop there. When pressed by reporters on the issue, Harkin said he wouldn't rule out congressional action to make national animal ID mandatory. "You know USDA could make it mandatory," Harkin noted. "Whether or not we're going to do that in law, that remains to be seen." Harkin also promised to hold hearings on national animal ID this spring and said such a program "wouldn't cost that much, either."

Ohio Farm Bureau Federation

http://ofbf.informz.net/admin31/con...ptid=218&brandid=3191&uid=754437871&mi=273342

 

[speckledhen]

Oh, geez, here they go again. What a crock. All they need to do is quit allowing dead diseased cows to be ground up and fed back to cattle and POOF! No more mad cow. What a bunch of morons. Don't even get me started on this garbage! Seems to me to be about tracking the people and their activities and keeping the small farmer from competing with Big AgriBiz, who seems to be the puppetmaster of the USDA. The people wanting this consist of Big AgriBiz plus those who have never met a chicken or a cow and are afraid of their shadow, IMO.

 

[chickenannie]

What are the implications of this if it went into affect?

 

[texaschickmama]

I have complete confidence that those politicians won't go through with this because they are all too busy with prostitutes to worry about the business of the people that elected the losers to begin with.

 

[speckledhen]

This website is quite comprehensive and very informative with pages and pages of current information:
http://nonais.org/

 

[Betsy]

Um...why not the enforce humane butchering and safe meat laws already in the books? Just because some sadist abuses downer cows before butchering them at a slaughterhouse doesn't mean that I have to have a number for each of my hens and tell the government every time they get out of their pen and go into the neighbor's field!

 

[luvzmybabz]

Sound like another uneducated politician being a ventriloquist dummy. Many of the large companies that send cows to butcher will not be required by nais to ID each of their animals just the herd as a whole, When I was younger and worked on the family feedlot a lot of times part of a pen would go to butcher and then more later. Many of those who raise meat birds and butcher themselves ( my plan within the next year for now) there would be no point in IDing my animals, as they would be raised from day olds and never leave my property unless some of my septic leaches a little further than I think it does. I have also worked with microchips before ( in the ostrich business ) and had some issues with stress of animal possible slight infection at insertion site, even then what is to say you have 2 RIR roosters and you could change out chip #s when you go somewhere and who is going to pay for the tracking of these animals already big AGBIZ gets millions from farm aide that was meant for the little guy what the hell is next. Sorry for my vent back to rregular programming now.

Kasi

 

[kstaven]

This isn't just a US issue. Our fools up here in Canada are likely to put it through under the guise of the National Animal Health Strategy. Have been on this one for months and the big boys are portraying smallholders as the biggest threat to agriculture because animals are moved all over the country with no tracking.

And as USUAL canadians have their heads in the sand and don't want to make a stand. Our largest poultry groups in Canada refused to get onboard with the stakeholders groups. Yet they will all cry when it goes through because there was no opposition.

 

[kj7ty]

I think the politicians should RFID chip themselves, and maybe their spouses could keep track of 'em easier... Just a thought.... Mike

 

[unionwirewoman]

Quote:
Sounds like one of the best ideas I've heard of in along time ! It's all about who scratches whose back the most anyway . Politics are politics , it's just sad that many seem to be so blind to what is right in front of their faces at the time . Then years later , they curse the fool who was elected . I think we would be better off going back to the basics . Just my thoughts on the subject .