Overview

Worldwide and in the United States, animal identification promises to be one of the largest implementations of RFID (radio frequency identification) outside of the retail environment over the next five to ten years. Now, the US National Animal Identification System (NAIS) – a cooperative effort between federal, state and tribal governments and the US animal agriculture industry – is fast moving from the planning phase to implementation. The first phase of the animal identification plan is to register all premises in the US – defined as any location where livestock and/or poultry are raised, held, or boarded. Over a quarter of all US premises – totaling almost 400,000 separate locations – have been registered by state and tribal authorities to date. By 2009, the Department of Agriculture hopes to reach a “critical mass” of participation amongst all actors in the animal agriculture industry, from major beef processors and distributors down to individual farmers and ranchers, in order to build an effective animal trace-back capability in the case of a serious animal disease outbreak.

Fast Control of Disease Outbreaks

The overall goal of the NAIS is to build the capability to gain control over any outbreak of foreign animal disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE, commonly known “Mad Cow” disease, or a host of other maladies), within 48 hours of the identification of an infected animal. Under the NAIS, with premises identified and the animals housed on them being tagged with group and/or individual unique identifiers (using RFID tags in the case of cattle, horses, etc.), the animal tracking databases of states and private groups can be queried in the event of a disease outbreak to trace where infected animals may have been, and thereby pinpoint the specific animals and places that would be impacted.

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The importance of having such rapid trace-back capability cannot be understated, as it is vital to minimize the impact of the discovery of cases of maladies such as Mad Cow disease. With a fully operational NAIS, if such a case is discovered, the damage to the American beef industry could be far less serious than in the past. US beef exports have yet to recover from the initial discovery of an isolated case of “Mad Cow” in December 2003, both in terms of the metric tons of beef exported by producers, or the dollar value received for that product. The two times in the past when such cases have been discovered (December 2003 and March 2006), countries around the world have routinely suspended their importation of US beef for months at a time. According to statistics compiled by the US Meat Export Federation, US beef exports to its largest market, Japan, fell from 375,455 metric tons in 2003 to just 13,736 tons in 2006, a decline of over 96%. Likewise, US beef sales have yet to recover across Asia, with exports to South Korea falling by 99% and shipments to China declining by 91% in this three-year period. All told, this has meant losses totaling several billion dollars to the US beef production industry.