Animal ID and the Government’s Plan to Control Farms’ and Ranches’ Emissions

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

— Thomas Jefferson

By Jim Mundorf

On January 18 the USDA introduced their latest rule in what now is nearing a 20 year effort to get Electronic Identification, EID, into the ears of all U.S. cattle. These are tags that can be read with electronic reader that is hooked to computer software that can access and store information about the animal. After being rejected by cattlemen for 20 years the USDA’s latest plan is to get their toe in the door by only requiring animals over 30 months old that are crossing state lines to have the tags. According to the USDA’s own report this is only 11% of the U.S. cattle herd. Most cattle over 30 months old are breeding animals, meaning they are primarily used to reproduce and not for their meat. This is significant because the people who care for breeding animals are also the people who tag all the new calves. So if you’re skeptical of USDAs motives, it’s not hard to imagine that this is a way of getting ranchers used to using these tags, so that it will be easy to force them to use them on everything, which has always seemed to be the end goal.

The reason the USDA has always given for mandating the EID’s is to be able to trace and prevent the spread of diseases. If this is true why only require older animals to carry the tags when younger animals are moved around much more frequently? Also, why require EIDs at all when, according to the USDAs own study, “When state officials are given an official identification eartag (visual or EID)…over half the states can trace animals through any one of the traceability performance measures in less than 1 hour.”

So what the USDA themselves have proven is that visual, or regular tags with numbers, can be used to completely trace an animal within an hour, why push so hard for EIDs? The cattlemen who have successfully fought against the mandate in the past believe the EIDs are being pushed by beef packers who will use them to expand export markets by having an official age and source verification on each animal as well as a vaccination history that some foreign markets require. The ranchers will pay for the tags,(proposed rule will cost ranchers $26 million) and the packers get the profits. In the USDA’s report they write about the positive impact the EIDs could have on trade, but I believe there is a new and much more dangerous threat that is coming for all producers confidential information.

ESG

Last May the SEC proposed an insane rule that would require all publicly traded companies to file reports on how they are working to reduce their impact on the climate. The report would be a replica of ESG reports that many corporations, including the second and third largest beef packers, Tyson and Cargill, already currently have in place. ESG stands for Environmental, Social, Governance, in simple terms it is a score for how, “woke” your corporation is. Are you reducing your greenhouse gases? Do you have a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion department? Who is on your board and how are you enforcing the E and the S? The SEC rule mainly focused on the environmental part of ESG. The proposed rule is still out there, waiting to be written into law, even after a massive bi-partisan backlash against it.

Scope 3

The backlash against the SEC plan came from including what ESG calls Scope 3. Scope 3 is when all companies doing business with the public corporation, will also be required to calculate and submit their greenhouse gas emissions and their plans to reduce them. For example if you sell cattle to Tyson Foods according to Tyson’s own ESG plan you will soon have to calculate and report your cattles’ greenhouse gas emissions and your plan to reduce them, or you will not be doing business with Tyson. For cattle these reports will include what the cattle were fed and if that feed was grown in a sustainable way. According to Tyson Foods own ESG report, “Tyson Foods will also refine Scope 3 estimates and goals as supplier data and standardized methodologies for calculations across industry sectors become available.” Turns out that, “supplier data, standardized methodologies, across industry sectors ” is exactly what EID could, “make available,” and according to Tyson, that is what is needed to force suppliers of cattle and report their greenhouse gas emissions.

Tyson Gets Brazen

On March 6 Tyson Foods announced its new line, Brazen Beef, that according to them would be raised with 10% less greenhouse gas emissions. (So the company that lobbies against having a country of origin label on their beef, is now labeling their beef climate friendlier than any other beef.) Like all things ESG, it’s blatantly obvious BS. 10% less than what? Tyson’s partner in raising the, “climate friendly beef” is the cattle feeding corporation Adams Land and Cattle. Adams works, “on the databases and technologies used to track cattle bound for Tyson’s facility in Lexington, Neb” Adams has developed their own EID software that according to their website, “allows us to collect data on individual animals and make data-based decisions.” That sounds a lot like a standardized methodology to collect supplier data across industry sectors. Sound familiar?

Why?

There are a lot of questions around everything ESG, the answer to nearly all of them is one word…. control. There are three main investment firms pushing the ESG movement, Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street. Together those firms control around $22 trillion, (U.S. GDP is $23 trillion.) They are the top shareholders in many of the worlds largest corporations, including Tyson Foods. They have pushed ESG into these corporations so that they can control the corporate culture of each company and they can force that culture to match their own ideology. Through scope 3 they will control the culture of every company that does business with the corporations they own.

Maybe the USDA really is scared of a disease outbreak, but I doubt it, and in the end, I don’t think it really matters. What does matter is that both Tyson Foods and Cargill have stated plans to force their suppliers to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions and report their plans to reduce them. According to Tyson’s own ESG report, what is holding them back is that, “supplier data and standardized methodologies for calculations across industry sectors” aren’t available. What would make that data easily available are EID tags in every animal. Once cattle producers are mandated to use the tags by the USDA and mandated to report emissions by the SEC, then the corporations can easily tell farmers and ranchers how they have to raise and feed their cattle. There are many reasons why EIDs should not be mandated, but they can be summed up in one word… Freedom.

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