Partnerships

I know, it has been a long time since I posted here. I've been monitoring things and maybe I should have commented earlier but I didn't so here goes.

Earlier this year the American Angus Association partnered up with the USDA on premise registration efforts. What I didn't know is that the USDA is paying money to them to do this. No wonder the Angus people went for it. I understand though that it might be backfiring on them a little bit. Members of the Angus association were going to try to bring up the issue at their annual meeting and get it repealed. Whether they were able to or not I haven't been able to find out but it does show that there is opposition to the leaders of the Angus Association on this issue and rightfully so.

What really brought my attention to this was the announcement that the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) was partnering up with the USDA for the same reason. Do you know how much the USDA is giving the NCBA for this "cooperative agreement?" Two million dollars. Yes, 2 million dollars of our taxpayer money so that the NCBA can try to con more people into registering their premise for animal ID.

I think the American Angus Association and the NCBA are both going to pay for this in members. They are going to lose members over this because so many people are opposed to NAIS.

I guess the question becomes, why is the USDA pushing premise registration so? Why are they spending all of this money for registration? If they get enough premise registrations are they going to go back to mandatory NAIS? This is what I am concerned about. We will have to wait and see and I will try to keep an eye on things. This issue hasn't gone away, it just is quiescent right now. What really worries me is what is going to happen with a new administration. That is definitely a wait and see.