Cattle producers and pasture managers have offered a scathing assessment of RFID tags.They suggested during a June hearing in Saskatoon that the mandatory plastic ear tags are poorly designed and fail to meet producer and industry expectations.Radio frequency identification tags were introduced in Canada in 2005 as the central component of a nation-wide effort to improve cattle traceability.The tags become mandatory July 1 for all cattle that are moved from their current location or leave their herd of origin. Failure to use the tags before moving an animal can result in fines of up to $500.However, producers who testified at a Saskatoon tribunal at which such a fine was being appealed said the tags do not stand up to the harsh conditions encountered by Canada’s commercial cattle herds.They said the tags routinely fall out or are ripped out during processing activities, penning and transportation.The button-shaped tags are also hard to see once they are applied in an animal’s ear, and reapplying lost tags is a costly, time-consuming exercise that exposes producers to unnecessary risk and animals to unnecessary stress.“They’re not good, that’s for sure,” said Ross Sigfusson, a community pasture manager from Elbow, Sask.“Pretty much 100 percent (of community pasture patrons) are unhappy and none of them are fighting the idea of traceability. It’s the retention of the tags in adult animals that’s a concern.”Sigfusson, who has been running the community pasture at Elbow for 12 years, said lost tags are common, not only when producers arrive with cattle but also when cattle are taken off pasture in fall.To make matters worse, community pasture employees have been told that untagged cattle coming off pasture cannot be tagged in the pasture’s corrals and handling facilities.“You’ll find tags laying around the corrals and you won’t know whether they’re this year’s or last year’s, but they’re there,” Sigfusson said.“And because we’re not a tagging site, we can’t use our facilities to tag animals, and the CFIA says you can’t legally transport them (off the premises). The bottom line is retention.… When they were introduced, they were telling us that the life expectancy of these tags was 10 to 12 years, the life expectancy of a cow. Well, they’re not even close.”Roy Rutledge, a long-time cattle producer, auctioneer and former owner of the Assiniboia Livestock Auction, agreed that retention of the tags is a recurring concern.“If people tag their calves at branding time, by the time they reach the (packing) plant, 10 to 30 percent of them have been replaced at least once, maybe twice,” said Rutledge, who ranches near Kayville, Sask., southwest of Regina.“What can you make for a dollar that’s going to stand up to the rigours of 40 above all the way to 40 below, sun beating on plastic, frost on plastic.… What are you going to make for a dollar that can stand up to that?”He said penalizing producers who are not in compliance with RFID tagging requirements is ill-advised.Even if the tags are applied properly, no producers can be certain that their tags will remain in place, he added.“I think it would be like trying to enforce a speed limit if we didn’t have speedometers (that offered) any degree of accuracy,” he said.“We don’t have anything that will stay in, but we have people policing it. If we’re expecting 100 percent compliance, it’s impossible.”Calvin Knoss, a cattle producer from Rockglen, Sask., said retention is better with RFID tags than it was with the old bar-coded dangle tags.However, he said losses still occur, as many expected they would.“Going back to the original concept and the design of an animal identification system … I was very supportive of the program at the time … but I did have concerns that any system designed around ear tags would be limited,” said Knoss, who is also president of the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association.“Tags are not a 100 percent proven permanent identification system.”He said loss rates for RFID tags on his ranch vary depending on the age of the animal: one percent for spring calves that are marketed in the fall, closer to two percent for yearling animals and five to 10 percent for cows.“They’re not 100 percent,” he said.“As far as the Saskatchewan Stock Growers is concerned … our position and our policy … is that we feel they’re quite successful and they’re the best we have so we’ll support the use of them at this point, but because they’re not 100 percent retention, we would be opposed to strict enforcement.”Steve Primrose, past chair and acting director with the Canadian Cattle Identification Association (CCIA), agreed tag retention is not perfect.However, he said the move from dangle tags to button style RFID tags has vastly improved retention.The CCIA has also taken steps to address retention issues and ensure that producer complaints are heard and investigated, he added.Primrose said CCIA does not make enforcement decisions and has always promoted a flexible approach to dealing with non-compliance.“There are always going to be some concerns over retention,” he said.“As a board, we’ve always advocated the use of some common sense when it comes to enforcement.”
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