Commentary by Bill Bullard, CEO, R-CALF USA
At the behest of lobbyists representing global beef packers, Congress appropriated $15 million to buy millions of electronic identification (EID) ear tags the Department of Agriculture (USDA) will now force America’s cattle producers to affix to their cattle.
Let’s say that another way. Global corporations just received a huge gift from Congress in the form of taxpayer dollars that will be used to force America’s farmers and ranchers to help those global corporations export beef.
And, oh, I forgot to mention that Congress has been forcing American taxpayers to pay way more than $15 million to help these global corporations – the total amount is well over $150 million since this devious plan was first incepted.
Some of you might think my summation is an over exaggeration. So, I’ll defend what I said.
It started over two decades ago, around 2002. Back then, the global elites (including global beef packers) determined that all nations should mandate a government-run national animal identification system (NAIS) to facilitate more trade. So, the global elites asked Congress to mandate one.
But at the time, Congress was instead helping American farmers and ranchers and consumers by forcing global beef packers to put labels on meat to inform consumers as to where the beef packers were sourcing their beef. In other words, Congress was working to require mandatory country of origin labeling (MCOOL) on beef.
The global beef packers didn’t like this, but they wanted a government-mandated NAIS even more. And so, they tried to convince Congress to require NAIS as a condition for MCOOL. But Congress refused. And that’s why the MCOOL statute still states, “The Secretary [of Agriculture] shall not use a mandatory identification system to verify the country of origin of a covered commodity.”
Failing their global trade objective, the global elites changed their tactics, shifting their focus of NAIS away from trade and toward animal disease traceability. They breathed new life into NAIS after BSE was detected in an imported Canadian cow. And in 2004, then Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman announced a framework for the implementation of the National Animal Identification System or “NAIS”.
For the next six years, the USDA and the global packers convinced Congress to appropriate a total of $148 million taxpayer dollars to force NAIS upon America’s cattle farmers and ranchers, but they failed. And they failed because the elitists could not demonstrate the need for such a costly system that would strip America’s cattle farmers and ranchers of their freedoms and liberties.
And the system would be costly. The Congressional Research Service estimated it would cost the cattle industry more than $200 million each year.
It’s noteworthy that America’s cattle farmers and ranchers – the last bastion of independent livestock producers – refused the government’s taxpayer-funded efforts to get them to capitulate to more government control. For example, in the U.S. poultry and hog industries, which are already nearly completely controlled by multinational meat packers, from egg to plate and birth to plate, respectively, the producer sign-up for NAIS was as high as 80 percent for hogs and 95 percent for poultry. But it was only 18 percent for independent cattle producers.
And so it was that the government backed off from the cattle industry and began searching for an alternative that, while it didn’t appease the global beef packers trade goal of mandating EID ear tags, it did meet the needs of animal health officials who conduct disease tracebacks.
That alternative was finalized in 2013, in the form of a final rule that promised America’s cattle farmers and ranchers that they would not need to register their properties or premises with the government, and they could choose among various forms of identification. In other words, they could choose to register their premises with the government and use electronic identification ear tags, or they could choose not to register their premises with the government and use nonelectronic identification ear tags.
And here’s what the USDA said about how this nonelectronic identification mandate would impact the nation’s animal health officials: the USDA said, “Our new approach to animal disease traceability provides a flexible solution that is endorsed by the animal health officials who conduct disease control programs.”
But now we’ve all learned that we can’t trust our government, as it’s now back to helping give the global beef packers what they wanted all along – mandatory EID. Here’s what the USDA says is the greatest benefit to their gift of a mandatory EID they just gave to the global packers: The USDA said “the most significant benefits of the rule” is to maintain foreign markets.
Oh, and by the way, only 11 percent of the beef produced in the U.S. is exported. So, thank you Congress for helping the global beef packers at the expense of about 90 percent of America’s cattle farmers and ranchers!
