NAIT Deferred

I'm in a sweat over the whole NAIT issue, however noble the vision is.
For the life of me, I cant see what the difference between a visual bar-coded tag and an EID one is, in the realm of traceability.
I guess it does give the X-box generation who will eventually take over running the show a button pushing continuation into their careers, but I dont think an electronically based system is wise.
Anybody who's been without power after natural disaster like a flood or earthquake for any length of time will be able to attest to what life in a power outage is like, electronic toys totally useless.
And we're contemplating basing a whole industry on it?

One of the major irks I suffer with the tagging requirements is tag loss.
At least 30% of my beef cows have lost one or both their tags by CFA time, probably more like half of them.
Right now I've got a 5 year old bull that needs moving on, lost one tag, which means, under ASD rules, I have to go through the inconvenience of sourcing a replacement tag, not to mention actually getting it into the ear of a 1500kg animal who's not going to be all that enamoured about the job.
Re-tagging after loss of one tag needs to be seriously looked at, I mean, what exactly is the point of a backup tag?

So OK, one might say EID's going to make life easier, if you've got a tag-reader.
Tag readers dont replace missing tags for you.
I've started using EID's and already, some of my 2010 born calves have lost their backup number tags, which ushers in a new problem.
To find out who the missing animal is, have you ever tried reading the number on an EID tag without glasses, or a reader?

Too many of our policy inventors havent walked the necessary mile in their victims shoes.