I used to write software around cattle traceability, mainly for the Australian & New Zealand markets. Both jurisdictions have an official traceability scheme -

I used to write software around cattle traceability, mainly for the Australian & New Zealand markets. Both jurisdictions have an official traceability scheme - each animal is legally mandated to have a unique identifier (RFID), and its birth, movement between locations, and death are recorded in a national database - NLIS[0] for Australia and NAIT[1] for New Zealand. In theory - if a disease outbreak happens, you find the animals RFID by scanning the eartag, alert the relevant government agency, and they have a full record of where the animal has been, which other animals it might have been in contact with, etc etc. I say "in theory" because recording an animals movements is not always well practiced or enforced - but this is hearsay, I'm not a farmer. Interestingly, the US has its own scheme, US Cattle Trace [2]. In my estimation it's technically superior as it has provisions for ultra high frequency RFID tags, making it a lot easier to scan animals (AU & NZ are stuck with antiquated low-frequency tags by law). The scheme, however, remains voluntary. [0] https://www.nlis.com.au/ https://www.nlis.com.au/ [1] https://www.mpi.govt.nz/animals/national-animal-identification-tracing-nait-programme/ https://www.mpi.govt.nz/animals/national-animal-identificati... [2] https://www.uscattletrace.org/ https://www.uscattletrace.org/