by BETTER FARMING STAFF
Radio Frequency Identification tags are sticking in the craw of beef producers.
Delegates to the annual Ontario Cattlemen’s Association convention in Toronto Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution to lobby the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to accept Personal Identification Numbers on truck manifests as an alternative to tagging market weight cattle that had lost their tags just before they went to slaughter.
The proposal would apply only to single source lots of cattle being sold directly to packing plants.
The resolution called for the OCA and the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency to take the issue to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. All of the speakers in favour of the PIN number stressed that they were in favour of cattle identification; they just found the use of the tags to be unworkable.
Dan Darling, OCA vice president and a director to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, says it will be hard to sell the federal agency on the use of a PIN number on the trucking manifest. “I personally think a PIN number is a good idea. CFIA does not,” Darling told the convention. Food inspection agency officials “want every animal identified. They don’t view a PIN number as adequate enough under traceability.”
The resolution was brought forward by delegate Doug Scott, who complained the fines for a single untagged steer or heifer can total $1,500, $500 each to the producer, the trucker and the packer. Tagging market weight cattle puts unnecessary pressure on livestock right before they are slaughtered, and it is dangerous for the producer who is doing it, he said.
A producer “has absolutely no control over tag retention” between the farm and the packing plant, Scott said. He calls the current enforcement scheme “an injustice.”
The CFIA refers to the fines as “administrative monetary penalties.” The penalties are imposed under the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act by the Canadian Parliament.
Guy Gravelle, manager, media relations, CFIA, says the penalties were increased last fall to “encourage greater compliance by regulated parties.” Previously the maximum penalty for "minor violations” was $500. It has been increased to $1,300.
Cases can be appealed to the Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal. “Due diligence” is not a permitted defense under the Monetary Penalties Act.
Gorrie feedlot operator Ron Bennett says individual ear tags are “redundant” if all the cattle in a pen at a packing plant are from the same farm, he says. Bennett says the RFID tags come off too easily; 10 per cent of the young cattle he receives into his feedlot have already lost their tags.
On top of lost tags are issues with RFID tag readers, says Chatham producer Mike Buis. A producer can get into trouble if the reader at a sales yard or packer doesn’t “pick up” the tag that is on an animal. “We have the potential of being charged” because a reader failed, Buis said. BF
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