(meatingplace.com) -- A coalition of 100 agricultural groups have sent two letters -- one to USDA and one to Congress -- urging that the National Animal Identification System be dissolved, according to a release by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America.

Pointing out that the 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Bill reduced NAIS funding to $5.34 million, without specifying how those funds were to be spent, the coalition asked Congress to "refocus [USDA] on measures that truly improve animal health and … respect the interests of both livestock owners and consumers."

R-CALF and other organizations oppose the NAIS program, saying it will burden small farmers with high costs of implementation in favor of a larger, vertically integrated system.

: With all due respect for organizations like “American Goat Society,” “Cattlemen’s Texas Longhorn Registry,” and “The Cornucopia Institute,” members of this letter-writing coalition probably shouldn’t get too cocky about their political clout as the current version of the NAIS is allowed to fade into the sunset.

The voluntary approach to national animal identification has been dying a slow death almost since the proposal first took shape in 2002. Indeed, the naively ambitious scheme has actually bled to death from a thousand cuts, slashed by concerns ranging from cost to privacy to freedom of religion.

Earlier this year, the USDA launched a series of dog and pony shows called “listening sessions,” as if some basic problem of communication and clarification was the only thing holding the NAIS back. I thought it was like dragging a corpse around the country and asking for volunteers to perform CPR or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

My guess is that Secretary Vilsack has finally figured out where the smell is coming from. Furthermore, advocates of animal identification will probably stay underground for the foreseeable future. Between health care and Afghanistan and the economy, the Obama Administration is not likely to spend any political capital in this direction anytime soon.

Yet if the government has been naïve about selling a voluntary program, I think critics of NAIS are fooling themselves if they think these issues are just going to blow away. Those inside and outside the livestock industry with legitimate worries relative to animal and human health, homeland security and foreign trade will eventually put this matter back on the public table in a different form.

And if that form is “mandatory,” the good folks at “Freedom 21” and ”Paso Fino Horse Association” are sure to like the idea even less.

For more Harrington comments check out www.feelofthemarket.com.

(KM)

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