With all this talk of a mandatory National Animal Identification System resurfacing, the USDA recently released a complete NAIS benefit-cost analysis, created by a research team at Kansas State University, so you finally have some hard numbers to consider.
First, there are a couple of terms to get familiar with, that relate to different ways to participate in NAIS:
- Bookend: identifying animal individually or by group/lot at birth, then ending the record when animal is processed, with no tracing/recording of animal movement
- Full tracing: Bookend method, with addition of tracing/recording movements through the production cycle
The bottom line
The final calculations on costs for cow-calf producers average $4.91 per head for animals you plan to market, and $3.92 for the bookend method and $4.22 for full tracing for animals not marketed, on an annual basis. The numbers do vary some depending on herd size, and your current tagging and record keeping methods.
What about the small producer?
The benefit-cost analysis showed costs for producers with 50 head or fewer would be $3.30 to $5.22, depending on how you currently tag and record your cattle.
Here’s a look at the full chart of costs, by herd size:
They did find out that the cow-calf sector would be the hardest-hit sector in the industry, since other segments will just have costs associated with replacing lost tags or scanning for full tracing.
You can take a look at the full analysis in the NAIS library. For a shorter version, they also put together an overview for you, which just explains the key points and highlights in the benefit-cost analysis.
Just a reminder, any cattle records you have in CattleMax CS are fully compliant with the released requirements of the system so far, in the event the USDA does decide to implement NAIS.
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