Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is talking with the president and CEO of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Ben Weinheimer, about electronic ID and traceability.
TCFA represents feedlots in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
Our coverage from the 2023 Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in San Diego is being powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater.
“Our longstanding support for efforts to move the cattle herd to an electronic identification system is important for TCFA members,” Weinheimer said. “This move by USDA to have that proposed rule out here recently to transition the adult cattle identification traceability program from one that uses physical tags to electronic tags is an effort we support.”
There are costs associated with this switch from physical tags to electronic tags, Weinheimer said, as these electronic tags will also require reading devices.
“I think our expectation here is that we let this adult cattle ID program transition to electronic ID and then work from the learnings of that program to see how we can lift that over to the entire herd so that we have a really robust traceability system utilizing electronic ID for both adult cattle and feeder cattle,” Weinheimer said.
Regarding livestock mandatory price reporting, Weinheimer said the TCFA supports reauthorization.
“We would sure like to see LMR be renewed for a full five-year term,” Weinheimer said. “It is one of the reasons here why we brought forward a directive to encourage the state affiliates at NCBA to repackage and refresh all of our recommendations when it comes to LMR. That way, when the opportunity presents itself for a five-year reauthorization, we can put some of those things into the conversation and continue to improve what we have within the LMR program.”
For the time being, Weinheimer said it appears that there will have to be another one-year extension to keep LMR up and running past September 30.
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