The USDA is moving forward with its efforts to revamp the animal identification policy after the public comment period for the National Animal Identification Service (NAIS) revealed that the majority of respondents were highly critical of the program. Only a fraction of the producers in the United States were willing to participate in NAIS. The USDA announced on February 5, 2010 it was going to revise efforts to track animal disease using input from producers, individual state agricultural policymakers, experts and Tribal Nations. The USDA has now committed to forming a new animal disease traceability framework in partnership with the states and Tribal Nations. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has expressed hope that the new framework will allow producers, the states and the Tribal Nations to use their expertise to draft a traceability program that works best for them. The new framework will only apply to animals shipped interstate and will only focus on animal disease traceability.

On President's Day, the National Black Farmers Association concluded its cross country rally in Washington, D.C. and Animal Welfare Approved’s legislative partner, Animal Welfare Institute, attended in support. NBFA members have spent the past month mobilizing support for the distribution of payments owed to black farmers as a part of a 1999 discrimination settlement, which awarded one billion dollars to them; President Obama has allocated the funds in his FY 2010 budget. The last Farm Bill seconded this verdict by allocating funds and opening doors for 80,000 farmers locked out of the original suit to have their cases heard in court.