"HORSE SPRINGS, N.M. -- Wranglers at the Platt ranch were marking calves the old-fashioned way last week, roping them from horseback and burning a brand onto their haunches.

What they were emphatically not doing, said Jay Platt, the third-generation proprietor of the ranch, was abiding by a federally recommended livestock identification plan, intended to speed the tracing of animal diseases, that has caused an uproar among ranchers. They were not attaching the recommended tags with microchips that would allow the computerized recording of livestock movements from birth to the slaughterhouse.

'This plan is expensive, it’s intrusive, and there’s no need for it,' Mr. Platt said."

Erik Eckholm reports for the New York Times June 27, 2009. [2]