Spring time on the Farm: we tag our calves but only for our own records. 

Shannon Hayes just wrote a stirring op-ed  in the New York Times about how the proposed National Animal Identification System would devastate small farmers, and especially grass-fed producers. Shannon Hayes has become an eloquent advocate for grass-fed farming and the health benefits of grass-fed beef.  She is the daughter of an agricultural professor and farmer and has moved back with her husband and has started a family on the family farm all the while maintaining a writing career.   I am a great admirer of her work and all that she has to say about grass-fed farming.

In her op-ed she explains why a federally mandated identification system would be devastating for her family’s farm:  “These ID chips are estimated to cost $1.50 to $3 each, depending on the quantity purchased. A rudimentary machine to read the tags may be $100 to $200. It is expected that most reporting would have to be done online (requiring monthly Internet fees), then there would be the fee for the database subscription; together that would cost about $500 to $1,000 (conservatively) per year per premise. I estimate the combined cost for our farm at $10,000 annually — that’s 10 percent of our gross receipts.” 

I think the same would happen for my family’s farm. I shudder to think of all the time and headache the identification system would represent to us. Not only would it hurt small farms but it would benefit factory farms making their product more valuable and to make matters worse, feedlots would be given an exception because they can catalog a thousand animals as one unit. The horrible irony of the whole system is that foreign buyers do not only object to the fact that “downer” cows might be used for exported beef but the manner in which we produce our meat. Foreign buyers are as suspicious of big beef producers as we are. It is not an identification system that we need it is a new system.

I feel very deeply for the family run cow and calf operations that are being hurt by a decrease in exports. It has been devastating but an identification system would only exacerbate their plight because it would give big agribusiness and feedlots the upper hand.  It would make small producers like my family waste money and time when the way we raise our animals---on pasture---in a manner that is safe.   The beef industry has been successful in pitting small ranchers against the sustainable movement. I feel that there needs to be more cooperation between grass-fed producers and traditional family ranchers that are trying to hang on. I think our interests are shared.

 Please Check it out Shannon Hayes Op Ed here.

To voice your objections please visit this site:

http://www.nofamass.org/news/naisalert.php

 More on REAL food safety here!