The USDA will require electronic ear tags in cattle and bison crossing state lines, a long-debated policy the agency said will contain disease outbreaks and keep U.S. beef acceptable to other countries.

The electronic ID rule will take effect 180 days after being published in the Federal Register in “the coming weeks,” the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced April 26.

The rule will replace a 2013 rule allowing cattle to be identified with non-electronic metal tags. Electronic tags will reduce transcribing errors and save riffling through paper files in a crisis, according to the USDA.

Rapid tracing of a diseased animal’s movements will limit how long farms are quarantined, prevent illnesses from spreading and keep markets open, APHIS Administrator Michael Watson said in a statement.

The rule will apply to about 11 million cattle annually or 12% of the nation’s cattle herd, the USDA estimates.

Tags will cost $2 to $3.65 per herd and will be given away through state veterinarian’s offices, the USDA said. The tags will cost $25 to $30 million a year, the USDA estimates.

R-CALF to fight rule

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association supported transitioning to electronic tags, according to comments sent to the USDA when the rule was proposed more than a year ago.

R-CALF USA, another national cattlemen’s organization, will look to Congress to repeal the rule. Failing that, R-CALF may challenge it in court, CEO Bill Bullard said Monday.

“We think the USDA has fallen well short of demonstrating the need for this,” he said.

The rule will protect the overseas business interests of meat-packers, but ranchers and taxpayers will bear the costs of buying the tags, Bullard said.

He rejected the idea that people are becoming accustomed to electronic surveillance.

“We still believe in our freedoms and liberties. I don’t think people are getting use to more and more government and that is what this is,” Bullard said.

The rule will apply to sexually intact cattle and bison 18 months and older entering interstate commerce. The rule applies to dairy cattle and cattle appearing in rodeos and exhibitions.

USDA cites ‘mad cow’

Producers will benefit from the swift detection, containment and eradication of diseases, according to the USDA.

Electronic ear tags would have helped reduced turmoil caused in 2003 by a cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or “mad cow disease,” turning up in Washington state, the USDA stated in support of the rule.

The cow’s origin was traced to Canada, but officials were unable to identify all the cattle it traveled with, leading to suspicions more cows were infected and yearslong export disruptions, according to the USDA.

“We believe that a more effective and efficient animal disease traceability program may have prevented those impacts,” the agency states in the rule.

In comments sent to the USDA last year, R-CALF raised concerns foreign-manufactured tags, particularly from China, could put the cattle-supply chain under the surveillance of adversaries.

The USDA, in the final rule, dismissed the concerns, saying no one submitted evidence that the tags would compromise national security or aid sabotaging the food supply.