Mike Callahan knows the day is coming when he’ll need to fasten quarter-sized buttons to the ears of his Limousin cattle on pastures southwest of Baldwin.

But just because the U.S. government is moving toward a National Animal Identification System – one that would use radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to track each and every cow, chicken, goat, sheep, fish or other animal in the domestic food chain – doesn’t mean he’ll be buying in right away.

“We’ve got everything filled out – it’s on the computer – but we just haven’t sent it in,” said Callahan, owner of J&C Cattle Co. “I don’t want to do it until we have to do it. Whenever it’s beneficial to us, we’ll probably do it. But it’s the marketplace that’ll probably decide who’s going to do it and when they’ll do it.”

The identification system, as envisioned, will be intended to safeguard the agricultural industry and protect individual consumers from potentially diseased livestock or terrorist-spawned attacks on the U.S. food supply.

Mike Callahan, of Baldwin, owner of J&C Cattle Co., plans to one day use radio frequency identification tags to track his Limousin herd.

The system would allow officials to track animals from birth to market, so that the discovery of an infected animal could enable targeted investigations and trigger isolated quarantines.

The economic effects of a mad cow scare or foot-in-mouth emergence could be limited, the thinking goes, by showing that anywhere from a few dozen or few hundred animals might have been exposed – rather than calling into question the safety of a state’s, region’s or country’s entire market.

“It’s called traceback,” said Bill Wood, agriculture agent for K-State Research and Extension in Douglas County. “If something happened, we’d know where that animal had been during its lifetime.”

Unclear is how the system will be implemented, enforced, maintained and – perhaps most important – paid for.

Mike Callahan holds a radio frequency identification tag. The tags are made of a large coil of wire that - when charged with a wand - emits a signal for a 15-digit identification number.

RFID tags cost anywhere from $2.50 to $4 each, Callahan said. Then there’s the reader wands that are used to collect data, and the computers and software to compile data and the time and labor involved in making it all work.

His estimate for getting a system at his farm up and running: $8,000 to $10,000.

“It’s a whole bunch of technology that’s way over my head,” he said. “I do well just to get the weather on my computer.”

Wood said the tipping point would come when using such systems would pay off for producers. Buyers in Japan already are paying premiums of $50 for each animal whose clean birth-to-market trails are confirmed through RFID.

“Even if you’ve got a $10 premium on a calf, and an ear tag costs you $2, plus all the hassle of keeping track of it, you still can come out ahead,” he said.

Mike Callahan demonstrates how to affix a tag in the ear of a Limousin bull

But acceptance of such systems has been slow.

Wood and others couldn’t think of any producers in Douglas County regularly using RFID yet.

Wesley Callahan, a junior at Baldwin High School who has advised his dad about such systems after studying them through 4-H, figures it’ll just take time.

“We had a lady down the road who sold all her cattle so she wouldn’t have to deal with tags,” said Wesley Callahan, director of the Kansas Junior Livestock Assn. “It’ll be a hassle for some people, but it’s a progression toward the future.”