Overview of USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

The Department of Agriculture's cattle tagging system, known as the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), was initiated in 2004, after the 2003 discovery of a mad cow case in the state of Washington. The system works by using small radio-frequency identification tags in the ears of beef and dairy cattle to virtually keep a real-time census of the country's cattle population. Should there be a disease outbreak, the NAIS will make it possible to identify which animals are involved, where the infected animals are located and what other animals, if any, might have been exposed to the disease (all within 48 hours), thereby protecting the nation's cattle population.

When the first spring calves arrived on our Minnesota farm to be pastured during the summer months of 2004, I was intrigued by the tags in their ears. Since then, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal about the NAIS, including its purpose and intent.

According to the government and those in favor of the NAIS, tagging and tracking American farmers' beef and dairy cattle will allow animal health officials to quickly obtain all the information they need to identify, locate and trace the movement of diseased cattle. The goal is to not only trace the movement of diseased and exposed cattle, but to greatly minimize the spread of bovine diseases such as mad cow disease, bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis.

The NAIS is made up of three parts: premises registration, animal identification and tracing. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), nearly 450,000 premises (anywhere cattle are raised or kept, such as feedlots, ranches and farms) were registered as of Feb. 19, 2008. That may sound like a large number, but it's actually less than a third of the more than 1.4 million premises estimated to be in existence. At this point, participation is voluntary on the Federal level, but states are free to determine individually whether to make it mandatory.

From the beginning, there have been skeptics and those who outright oppose any kind of Federal tracking system. Out of this, rumors and myths abound, including the rumor that the USDA is going to use the NAIS to identify and track every animal in the country, including our pets.

The primary focus of this article is America's beef and dairy cattle. However, the intent of the NAIS is to encourage tagging or banding of all agricultural animals, meaning both poultry and livestock. Livestock includes not only dairy and beef cattle, but also bison, swine, sheep, goats, deer, elk, equine (horses, mules, donkeys and burros), llamas and alpacas. The key word here is "agricultural" animals.

The USDA does not recommend any type of registration or identifying tagging of any animals that aren't moved from their premises. Even then, it depends on what the movement from the premises involves. In other words, what is the risk of contracting and spreading disease? Animals that participate in parades, trail rides and county fairs, for example, are not high on the list of recommended animals for tagging through the NAIS. Local authorities may have their own requirements, but any identification through the NAIS is not recommended.

As already stated, the goal of the USDA and its NAIS is simply to trace the movement of diseased and exposed livestock and poultry and minimize the spread of any number of diseases. It is in no way intended to be a surveillance system on American farmers or to be used to manage people's pets or domestic animals or non-agricultural or non-commercial livestock or poultry.

Resource:

USDA; http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/premises_id/update.shtml