Montana Department of Agriculture: RFID Tag Allocation Update
By Britta Sekora
As communicated earlier this summer, the delivery of no-cost RFID tags to states from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for Federal Fiscal Year 2026 continues to be delayed. Fortunately, USDA has additional funding available for tags, so while the timing of delivery has been challenging, Montana should see an increase in the total number of tags received. Additionally, the Department of Livestock (DOL) has received additional tag allocations from other states and from unclaimed pools of tags.
DOL began distributing available tags this summer rather than waiting for the entire Federal Program Year 2027 allotment to arrive. Vaccination tag allocations are based on the number of animals each veterinarian brucellosis vaccinated in 2025 and reported to MDOL by August 5, 2026. Because the number of no-cost tags available this year is limited, DOL planned allocations at approximately 50 percent of each veterinarian’s reported 2025 vaccination use. DOL has distributed all the... [rest of the text continues as in the original]