Have you submitted your comment telling USDA not to mandate unnecessary, expensive electronic ID for cattle? You have until midnight TONIGHT, Monday, October 5, to speak up for small farmers and ranchers!

FARFA has submitted comments, pointing out the problems with the program as well as the legal flaws in how the agency has acted. Read FARFA’s comments to the USDA HERE.

You can submit comments to USDA online HERE.

If you don’t have much time, you can simply write a comment that says, “My name is ____ and I am a _______ [farmer, rancher, concerned citizen, however you want to describe yourself]. I urge the agency not to proceed with its plan to allow only RFID tags as “official identification” for cattle. I support the comments submitted by the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance.”

If you have time, writing your own personalized comment will have a greater impact! Add even just 2-3 sentences about how the issue impacts you: 

• If you are a cattle producer, talk about the difficulties that electronic ID would pose for you – both the tags and the system as a whole (the readers, etc). Do you sell at a livestock auction that isn’t equipped to handle everything electronically? Or does your vet not have the equipment and a laptop to enter electronic data? Point out the impacts on you and the businesses that are vital for your farm/ranch.
• If you are a consumer, write a little about why this matters to you (you buy meat from local producers, you don’t want small farmers having to pay more for a program that benefits the large exporters, or whatever it is).

Given USDA’s improperly close relationship with the meatpackers and technology companies, getting the agency to change its mind will be difficult. So also send your comments to your U.S. Representative and Senators and urge them to stop USDA from spending taxpayer dollars on this bad program. 

Email: You can look up who represents you and send a message online at https://fiscalnote.com/find-your-legislator.   

Calls: You can look up your U.S. Representative at www.house.gov and your Senators at www.senate.gov, or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to their offices.

For more background on Electronic Animal ID, go to https://farmandranchfreedom.org/electronic-id-hurts-small-farmers/.