Preventing a devastating disease outbreak is always top of mind for the cattle industry as well as the USDA. It is why the Texas Cattle Feeders Association says they are on board with a proposal to make electronic ID tags mandatory.
“I think our expectation here is that we let this adult cattle ID program transition to electronic ID and then work from the learnings of that program to see how we can lift that over to the entire herd so that we have a really robust traceability system utilizing electronic ID for both adult cattle and feeder cattle,” said Ben Weinheimer.
The group does understand the costs associated with the switch to electronic tags, especially because they will require reading devices as well. NCBA says ID programs should be voluntary, mainly due to the added financial burden on producers.
