Judge Rejects Farmers' RFID Lawsuit

A federal judge quashed a lawsuit by Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), a national nonprofit organization representing small farmers, that the group filed against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA). The group had argued that USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS) violated federal laws, and that the MDA's cattle-tracking program, which requires all Michigan cattle farmers to identify each animal by means of an RFID tag, is a financial burden to small farmers and violates the religious freedoms of cattle owners who believe that God prohibits their participation in any sort of governmental regulatory system that imposes upon them a "mark of the beast," as described in the Bible's Book of Revelations. The FTCLDF also claimed that rules under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) were violated, namely that the environmental, economic and social impacts were not properly evaluated before Michigan's and the USDA's cattle-tracking program were established. What's more, the suit contended that the USDA unfairly pressured the state of Michigan into adopting a mandatory cattle identification program. The judge determined in a July 23 decision, however, that the MDA's program was not influenced by the USDA, noting the USDA does not require any state or rancher to use RFID technology to track cattle. She ruled that the MDA program was instead a state regulation subject to the laws of Michigan State, rather than the federal government. For that reason U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled that the suit against the MDA was invalid. In her decision she noted that with NAIS, states "may choose to keep premises registration voluntary or not, based on local needs." The judge also ruled that "each of plaintiffs' six counts against USDA hinges on the erroneous assertion that NAIS requires the registration of PINs and the use of RFID tags.... NAIS is neither 'federal law' nor 'federal regulation.' It is an identification and tracking program developed by USDA and adopted by state agriculture departments on a voluntary basis." The judge, therefore, dismissed the plaintiffs' counts against USDA...RFIDJournal