Decision makers agree on the necessity of an ID plan. Details slow the process.

Coming up with a national ID program that is both workable and fair is not as simple as it might sound," said Dr. Kent Haden, vice president of MFA livestock operations. "It has been an interesting--and productive---process, but it's a long way from being a done deal yet. At this point, I don't see any way to get the first phase of the program in place by July."

"We don't need to rush into an ID program that may not work as well as it was intended," added Mike John, manager of MFA's Health Track Beef Alliance.

Both Haden and John are members of a USAIP (U.S. Animal Identification Plan) team. More than 100 representatives from the livestock industry and state and federal government agencies have been working on a national ID plan for 2 years or so. The team, divided into "working groups" by animal species, drafted an initial outline for a national ID plan in 2003. The goal was to have the ability to issue premise ID numbers by July 2004, but that target date may be optimistic.

By way of background, in the 2002 farm bill, Congress charged USDA to establish a national animal ID program. With help from allied industry organizations, USDA went to work at designing an efficient and effective plan.

The work took on new urgency in December 2003, when a case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or so-called "mad-cow" disease) was detected in Washington state. The infected Holstein was in a Washington dairy herd and had been imported from Canada, so she had a substantial paper trail behind her. Even so, it took animal health specialists more than 4 days to trace the cow to her place of birth. That's too much "traceability" time if you are battling a truly virulent disease.

USAIP sets 48 hours as the maximum traceability time for a disease outbreak. The team also decided to include all meat animals, horses, alpacas, llamas, deer and elk--eventually even poultry and farm-raised fish--whether the animals are produced for commercial purposes, seedstock, show or pets.

"All animals will be identified," said Dr. Bob Larson, University of Missouri extension veterinarian. "We don't want some exotic disease in goats or llamas that we cannot track quickly."

Ironically, our success in combating some animal diseases has made the U.S. herd more difficult to track. For example, several states have eradicated brucellosis (Bang's disease) from cow herds, eliminating the need for calfhood vaccination of heifers. When heifers are officially calfhood vaccinated, they are fitted with a permanent ID tag. Now that fewer are being vaccinated, there are fewer ways to track a possible disease infection.

Some animal ID programs have been in place for several years. Most sheep and goats are identified in the national scrapie eradication program. The swine industry has had mandatory ID requirements for market animals for the past 15 years. Market hogs are identified back to their owner at all federally inspected plants. USAIP takes these programs further, into a uniform, standardized system that can quickly identify individual animals (or groups of animals), the premises where they are located, and when they entered or left those premises.

"The program will be implemented in phases," said Mike John. "Phase I identifies all premises that manage, raise or hold animals. With cattle, each farm, ranch or feedlot will be identified by the standards of the U.S. Animal Identification Number System. Each animal will be tagged with this premises ID information, as well as the name, address and telephone number of the manager."

In Phase II, each individual animal will be identified with its own "Social Security" number that stays with the animal from birth to meat box. Animals that are typically kept together in groups during production and marketing (such as swine and poultry) may be identified by group-lot, rather than individually. The USAIP-recommended target date for Phase II to begin is July 2005.

In all cases, animal ID will take the form of a radio frequency identification device (RFID). The ID mechanism may vary with animal species. Some ID systems may use RFID microchips implanted beneath the skin; others may use a ceramic bolus implanted in the animal's stomach. The cattle industry plans to use RFID technology as a small "button" ear tag, usually in conjunction with a larger visual ear tag on which herd management information can be entered.

"The type of device used is not as critical as making sure the system complies with USAIP standards," said John. "A 34.2 kilohertz RFID chip is standard in most of the industry, and most programs will use this standard."

Once in place, the system will electronically track all animal movements and send the information to central databases. Only information essential to tracking animals will be collected and maintained in the databases.

How and where central databases are established has been a point of contention with the USAIP team. Some states argue for each state department of agriculture to maintain databases on animals within that state. Dr. Haden questions this approach.

"Having databases kept by each state would mean 50 different jurisdictions, with 50 different sets of laws and rules," he noted. "Above all, the ID system needs to be standardized and uniform; it needs to work the same way in Alabama as in Wyoming. With 50 states maintaining ID databases, there's simply too much opportunity for errors to be made."

Mike John also is troubled by the idea of states maintaining databases, but for a different reason.

"The national ID program should be strictly for disease detection and intervention," he said. "The databases should be accessible only by animal health scientists who are charged with the health and safety of the nation's herd, and by no one else. This should not be used for any other purpose--not for proof of animal ownership, market enhancement, surveys or even food safety. If databases are maintained by 50 different state departments of agriculture, it will be harder to keep the ID program limited solely to animal health."

Another sticking point with the USAIP team is: Who's going to pay the considerable cost of getting a national ID program up and running? Estimates put the total cost at $500 to $600 million.

"This program is designed to protect the nation's herd. The cost of establishing the entire program should be borne by everyone in society," said Dr. Haden. "It [national animal ID] will benefit the whole economy. The general costs associated with getting a program going--and maintaining it--should be paid by public funds from state and federal governments."

Some people have suggested that the national ID program be largely funded by a surcharge on packers or retailers. These entities have better opportunity to pass along higher costs of doing business in the form of higher selling prices, they maintain.

"But we know from experience that things don't always work that way," observed Dr. Haden. "Retailers are as likely to pass their higher costs back down the production chain, in the form of lower prices, and the cow-calf producer is at the end of that chain.

"Calf producers can--and should--pay the cost of ID-tagging their own animals," he added. "But it's unfair and unreasonable to expect producers to pay most of the cost of an ID program, whether directly or indirectly."