VIEWPOINT

Data in the information age must be created, managed and used wisely
By Don Copenhaver

Animal identification has been cussed and discussed for five years in this country. It’s a contentious issue. Producers line up on both sides. But worldwide forces are driving the process. Look no further than bird flu, foot-and-mouth disease and BSE. We’re going to have animal ID whether we approve or not. That’s because the issue is driven by consumers, by public health officials, by the Department of Homeland Security, by international trading partners.

It won’t be driven by agriculture—unless we take the initiative. If we don’t take that initiative, we risk the process becoming overly intrusive and overwhelming. The questions facing us are: How do we implement it? How do we pay for it?

To start, we must unite in support of private ownership of the ID database. That’s the lynchpin of the process. Do we want animal ID driven by government or by the private sector? If government gathers this information, we have in-depth records accessible by interest groups with malicious intent.

I don’t discount privacy concerns. I understand them in this information age. Sure, we benefit from access to information. The United States leads the world in freedom of information, despite crocodile tears from a self-serving media. At the same time, this historically unparalleled access to information makes me nervous. Right here in Columbia, I can access county assessor information on my neighbor’s homestead. I can visit a Web site and find the location of an anhydrous tank. If I can see that, think what thieves can see. I’d say the odds are good that thieves use the Web to plot the best route to and from otherwise hidden cattle pastures.

There is a downside to freely accessible information. That downside prompts many in agriculture to oppose a national ID effort. It’s understandable. But ultimately, whether we think this is a good or bad idea, it is a process already begun and looks inevitable. Our decision must be whether to be on the saddle or under the saddle.

In terms of identifying animals, the poultry and swine sectors are more simple to navigate. Around a dozen poultry companies raise 95 percent of the nation’s poultry. It’s easy enough for these companies to say these chickens came from farm A-3, section aa-34A, building aaa-34Ac-12. It’s much the same with swine. Both species are identified in lot numbers.

On the other hand, beef, goat and sheep ownership is more difficult to track. You can make a reasonable scenario of a steer moving to five different operations between the original farm and the feedlot. In each move, the steer is co-mingled with different animals.

Such was the case in the United Kingdom where government actions at the time of the BSE crisis are now seen to be inept. The result was wholesale quarantine of British beef, large-scale slaughter and bonfires of carcasses on the evening news. So one immediate goal of national ID is to quickly track disease. That allows specific areas to be quarantined while the rest of the industry stays open for business.

Cost has been tremendously understudied. At $4 a tag times 90 million cattle, that means just one section of this issue accounts for $360 million. That figure doesn’t include the cost of the electronic readers scattered across the industry. Nor does it include the cost of putting in those tags. Our livestock division estimates $20 a head considering labor, tags, tag-reading equipment and transfer of information.

Information isn’t free. Reading these tags at the speed of commerce adds costs up and down the line. Those running an electronic wand in a chute can handle small numbers well. But transferring that to a huge number of animals at a sale barn will involve bringing calves in two and three days prior to the sale simply to record their electronic information.

The government’s approach to date has all the earmarks of assuming producers will bear these costs. That’s unacceptable. But it’s inevitable if we don’t take control of this process. At the least, this has to be set up with tax credits driving the process. If you buy $5 worth of tags, you should get an automatic tax credit. The sale barn that buys a computerized system should get a tax credit. We absolutely cannot have these costs borne by the producer and the cattle industry.

In the same vein, with the database in the private sector, there needs to be competition among providers for databases, equipment and compliance. If we’ve learned one thing well in the past 30 years, it’s the benefits of private enterprise. With government control, there is no competition and costs tend to escalate continuously and astronomically.

Health Track fits a lot of these scenarios. That’s where critics like to say that MFA is rooting for national ID simply to promote Health Track. They’re wrong—dead wrong. As I’ve said multiple times over the years, MFA Health Track was created by farsighted employees, corporate board members and customers who understood the importance of information. Health Track was designed to track numbers and gather data that is beneficial to producers both in terms of management and profit. As a natural benefit of these people’s foresight, it is comprehensive enough to cover all the requirements of national ID.