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Farmers and ranchers may be able to take it easy when it comes to worrying about whether or not they will be required to register their premises and livestock. State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst recently announced she has co-authored two bills, prohibiting the state from implementing a mandatory animal identification system.

The proposed National Animal Identification System (NAIS) was a three-step process created to identify all agricultural animals and track them as they come in contact with other animals not in their herd in hopes of providing the ability to identify animals exposed to disease within 48 hours of its detection.

HB 461, written by House Agriculture Chair Rep. Sid Miller, makes NAIS a voluntary program and removes the civil and criminal penalties from incompliance with NAIS. HB 637, written by Rep. Bryan Hughes, also makes NAIS a voluntary program but includes protections to ensure the program really is voluntary.

"Not long ago, the USDA announced that they're backing off their federal plan for pushing a mandatory animal ID program," Kolkhorst said. "There is no need for (the state) to be a national leader on this issue right now. Now if the feds are backing off of it, then why would we even consider it?"

Kolkhorst said she does not agree with the program and has heard from her constituents that they do not want the program to be a mandatory requirement.

"I think it's an infringement on civil and personal liberties," Kolkhorst said. "I'm frustrated with the fact that you have to do premise ID. Everyone already knows where your property is through the appraisal system. I don't think we need to be tracking all our food sources too."

Marty Lindner of Giddings Livestock Commission said making NAIS a mandatory program would create a negative impact.

"If they implement a mandatory ID program, the cost to the farmers and ranchers and the cost to the public livestock auctions would be drastic," Lindner said. "Some of our customers, it would be very hard for them to comply because they're just not set up to tag and identify every animal. To implement the tags and the reading programs to handle the ID system, it's going to cost the ag industry a lot of money."

Kenny Richardson of Four County Auction Center could not agree more.

"A mandatory ID system would cost too much to implement," Richardson said. "The cost to the small producer would be high enough to where it would cause me to lose some customers and business. It's a good program if you're a big rancher and want to keep track of your cattle, but the cost factor of it is going to be a real expensive thing for the smaller ranches, which would be the volume of my business.

"A lot of my customers bring calves in here, and they haven't been processed yet because a lot of people don't have the facilities required to put them to a shoot. So what would happen is I would have to try to figure some way to implement that at the barn, and I would have to charge a lot of money for time and labor. It'll also put a lot of stress on the animal."

Richardson suggested the federal government should implement a program for foreign livestock.

"It just seems to me that we can take that money and protect our borders. We're probably raising the safest animals out there because most of these farmers and ranchers take a lot of pride in their animals," Richardson said. "A lot of the problems would come from the border. If we're going to have a health problem from the cattle, it'll be from something we're bringing in.

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