UPDATE Animal Disease Traceability (Branding)

[Livestock-D]

Hello everyone,

The USDA has made an update on the rules they want to impliment for the new Animal Disease Traceability.
They said Branding would be acceptable identification for livestock, but...

There are is also a grey area of branding for the ADT, which no one seems to discuss, I raised the question on the blog,
becuase it is an important one, that would have a major impact. Read more...

http://livestock-id.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... sease.html

 

[baleflipper]

I am concerned about this natl ID program. Do we as producers want the govt to know how many of what we each own?
The idea of RFID tags worries me greatly. The makers of the tags can give the total sales of tags to speculators,who then will manipulate the market.
I have seen manipulation of the grain market based on the govt planted acres reports,ETC.
As to RFID tags only being able to be read up close, I can only say a few years ago cell phones were unheard of.
RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identifcation Data. The tags contain a reciever that charges up a capacitor on a given frequency. When a certain voltage is reached the tag then transmits a signal,usualy a number. The first RFID tags I saw were the size of a dinner plate and an inch thick.Today the same tag is less than the size of a dime. The range that enables tag reading will increase with time. In a few years it will be possible to read the tags from a satellite.
Are we ready for this?