Federal budget for livestock RFID falls short of expectations

Computerworld - In its fiscal 2005 federal budget, the Bush administration has allotted $33 million for a national animal identification system -- far short of the $600 million industry groups estimate it would cost to develop and deploy an RFID-based livestock tracking system (see story).
Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, said in a speech last week at the Cattle Industry Trade Show and Convention in Phoenix that the money would enhance the agency's bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) prevention program and marks an administration commitment to "protecting public health and the safety of our food supply." BSE is the formal name of mad cow disease.
Scott Stuart, president of the National Livestock Producers Association in Colorado, said that the $33 million allocation falls "far short" of the $600 million budget envisioned for such a system in the U.S. Animal Identification Plan (USAIP), which is backed by industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Robert Foudraine, chief operating officer of the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium, which is developing a livestock ID system in Wisconsin, said it's hard to know whether the USDA will fully fund the Animal Identification Plan based on the proposed 2005 budget "since it's a five-year plan." But if funding were to remain at $33 million a year over five years, he said, that wouldn't meet the plan's budgetary requirements.
The USAIP calls for using RFID tags on all 200 million head of livestock (cattle, sheep and pigs) in the U.S., with the movement of the animals then tracked by RFID readers from farm to feedlot and then packing house. Information on individual animals would be stored in state or national databases, allowing the USDA and producers to quickly trace the origin herd of BSE-infected cattle.
While the industry plans to pick up its "fair share" of the cost of a national livestock ID system, Stuart said, it believes infrastructure costs for the system should be a government function, and the $33 million in proposed funding doesn't come close to those costs.
Stuart said his association has also asked the USDA to provide it with funding details for the livestock ID program in the current fiscal year but has so far been unable to get those details. A USDA spokeswoman said she didn't have full funding details of the national livestock ID system readily available today.
Ken Kayser, director of demand chain management at Clarkston Consulting in Durham, N.C., which is developing a livestock ID system for the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium, said $33 million could cover development of a nationalpremises ID system -- a database that records the physical location of all farms and livestock producers in the country.
He said the money would also cover development of a national livestock movement database, key to the quick location of potentially infected animals in the food chain. Kayser said he was surprised the USDA hadn't pumped more money into a national livestock ID system, including supplemental funding in the current fiscal year.