We're already tagged...now the animals?

If I am any kind of activist, I am a food activist, with a rather selfish approach, as I mainly care about the quality of the products that I put into my body three to five times a day. This was one of the driving forces behind choosing a strict vegetarian diet (no dairy, no eggs, no fish - almost vegan were it not for my affinity for leather hiking boots).

Could tagging farm animals protect consumers? Small farm advocates say no, for two reasons. One, while registration into the system is free, the tags that go onto the animals will cost $2-3 a piece. Two, small farmers don't need a system to track sick animals back to their farm, because they pay attention to the animals while they are ON the farm, and keep them healthy.

Large chain grocery and discount stores buy questionable meat because they are generally not in the position to look their consumer in the eye. When your customer is a VISA credit card number and not a name and a face, you don't really care if you are selling them meat laced with feces. If your customer is your neighbor, you tend to be more careful, because there are a greater repercussions for selling them bad product.

We don't need tags, we need to know the people who grow our food.