R-CALF and the National Pork Producers Council have submitted comments to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) regarding a proposed rulemaking to restructure its livestock indemnity regulations when it destroys animals infected by or exposed to foreign animal diseases, emerging diseases and program diseases (such as bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis).
APHIS intends to require ID requirements for such animals, and stated that for disease programs that do not already have ID requirements, it would refer to the requirements under the Animal Disease Traceability regulations. In its comments, R-CALF expressed concern about ID requirements being expanded in scope.
“The agency’s Animal Disease Traceability regulations only require identification of certain livestock moved interstate, but impose no identification requirements on those certain livestock until and unless they are moved interstate,” R-CALF’s comments read. “Our concern is, therefore, that the agency may inappropriately attempt to expand the scope and purpose of its Animal Disease Traceability regulations by incentivizing livestock owners to incur the expense of identifying their livestock in circumstances not required under current law.”
The issue has been one of recurring focus for R-CALF. In 2019, APHIS attempted to mandate exclusive use of RFID eartags when adult cattle are moved interstate, prompting an R-CALF lawsuit. In response to the lawsuit, APHIS withdrew its RFID mandate, and has not proposed a rulemaking to amend its Animal Disease Traceability regulations.
In June, a separate R-CALF legal petition to the beef checkoff program was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was originally filed against the Montana Beef Council in 2016.
On the other hand
APHIS submitted the new plan in the Federal Register in September and solicited comments from affected parties through last week. The proposal seeks to “harmonize how APHIS determines animal values and deals with costs associated with transportation, cleaning, disposal and other points” in the wake of animal loss from disease or other causes, the filing noted.
NPPC cheered the proposal, saying the APHIS proposal provides “important feedback on indemnity value determination, applicability and eligibility” in the wake of animal losses from disease.
Current regulations for setting a value for animals vary from species to species and in some cases disease to disease within an animal species. NPPC provided information to USDA on how the proposed changes could affect the nation’s pork industry, adding that the more standardized approach could lead to more timely and complete appraisals during an animal health outbreak. APHIS also is preparing a list of covered foreign and emerging diseases for online distribution that also will be updated on a regular basis, the NPPC comment added.
