USDA Announces that the NAIS Will by Replaced with New Animal Tracking Rules

The USDA has announced that its much-criticized National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is no more. In its place will be new rules that will focus only on tracking livestock animals used in inter-state trade and commercial operations. The new rules will evolve over the next several months and the USDA is requesting input from affected parties.

The old NAIS was introduced in April 2005 and was originally designed to be a mandatory program to register and tag every livestock and farm animal in 29 species in the country, a monumental task encompassing over a half billion animals. The purpose of the NAIS was to track animals in a disease outbreak situation in order to contain it sooner.

Critics of the program decried the cost of tagging and reporting which would be borne by all animal owners, whether their animals were being sold for consumption or not. Questions about how effective such a program would be at reducing public danger were also raised. It was noted that the two largest beef recalls in history would not have been prevented by NAIS rules.

The largest backlash to the NAIS program came from small organic farmers. The cost and time-consumption required to comply with the program would have put many small farmers out of business. As small farmers are at the forefront of the organic movement, this had the potential to result in a reduction of organic choices for the consumer.

Because of opposition, NAIS was deemed to be a voluntary program starting in 2006. However, many state and local regulations began to require NAIS certification for showing or selling animals.

The USDA will allow those producers currently registered with NAIS to retain their registration numbers. However, only large commercial producers will be required to register under the new program.

In March 2010, the USDA will begin to meet with State and Tribal authorities to begin defining the program. The agency will also convene working groups to deal with issues such as confidentiality of data and implementation. A public comment period will also be announced as the rules are being forged to give consumers and other interested parties input into the process.

The USDA has not yet set a final deadline for the implementation of the new animal traceability rules.

Sources:

USDA Animal Traceability Rules- FAQ
Liberty Ark Coalition