Welcome to the Friday edition of the HOT BARN REPORT
Heard ONLY on American radio stations across the nation and online at hotbarnreport.com!
Karina Jones, Field Director for R-Calf USA joins us each Friday from her ranch in the heart of Nebraska covering new and important cattle industry news and policy.
Will there be mandatory RFID in 2023? Oh brother, here we go. Thanks for tuning in to a special Friday edition of the Hot Barn Report.
All I can say is the battle is back at our door. Anyone who raises, handles, or moves cattle better get on their toes and pay attention to this issue.
In 2017, the USDA implemented a strategy for mandating the exclusive use of RFID ear tags whenever a cattle producer chose to ship adult cattle across state lines. The USDA put together a private committee to develop a more detailed plan for an RFID mandate and their documents reveal the supporters of the RFID mandate created a catchy marketing slogan to describe its long-range plan: “RFID by 2023.” Their progress was slow and frustrating. So, USDA so it took the bull by the horns and announced in early 2019 that it would mandate RFID by January 2023.
R-CALF USA immediately filed a lawsuit alleging the Secretary of Agriculture and his USDA agencies broke the law. They knew they were caught! And lickety split the USDA folded and withdrew that mandate.
We knew, this would not be the end of the story. Well, the plot thickens! The Office of Management and Budget has completed a review of the USDA’s new proposed RFID rule and the rulemaking process is being allowed to go forward.
Happening now is a public comment period on the Federal Register where every cattle producer needs to go a and leave their opinion of this new impending mandate. It wouldn’t hurt to call your Senators and Representatives and tell them to pass legislation to STOP this mandate!
It is not about traceability; it is about control! When I read the RFID Impact Analysis Study from the USDA, they must think I just fell off the turnip truck. They say that the reason this is needed to stop the spread of disease, which we all know that a tag cannot stop a disease. I think the recent pandemic just disproved that theory. But at the end of the analysis, they say that they expect this mandate to only affect or need to be applied to 11% of the nation’s herd. First of all, I don’t believe the 11%. ALOT more than 11% of the nation’s cowherd move interstate. But, to use THEIR data, 11%….they think tagging 11% of the nation’s cowherd with an RFID tag, that has been issued by the USDA, will stop the spread of disease. Reminds me of an ole George Straight song and Ill end this Hot Barn Report with, “If you’ll buy that I’ll throw the Golden Gate in free.”
These Diamond Dozen Hot Barns are ready to serve your cattle marketing needs in 2023: Stockmens Livestock, Lemmon Livestock, North Platte Stockyards, St. Onge/Newell, Platte Livestock Market, Tri County Stockyards, Torrington Livestock, Creighton Livestock Market, Bassett Livestock Auction, Mobridge Livestock, Ogallala Livestock Auction Market, and Presho Livestock. Catch them all on CattleUSA.com.
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