| 11/6/2003 Trace-Back System Plan Aims to Protect Animal Agriculture - 11/1 AgOnline The 48-hour trace-back goal requires records of an animal's (or herd's) origin and movement to other locations for its entire life. Current goals are to start implementing the plan with identification of livestock premises next summer, and have individual identification for cattle in commerce as well as other food animals and livestock in commerce identified by July 2006. The plan, as presented to the US Animal Health Association in late September, currently includes all domestic cattle, bison, swine, sheep, goats, deer and elk, horses, poultry, game birds, aquaculture, camelids like llamas and alpacas, ratites and other animals, whether they are intended for breeding stock, consumption or personal use. The National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) created and coordinated the efforts of a National Identification Task Force in 2002. More than 70 national livestock industry organizations were invited to participate on the Task Force. The USAIP Development Team was named by USDA-APHIS in the Spring of 2003. This draft plan is their work. Reasons for wanting to introduce such a trace-back system include enhancing disease control and eradication capabilities to rapidly contain foreign animal disease outbreaks, and enhanced ability to respond to bio-security threats. It also would help the industry meet consumer demands for source-verified products, and mitigate intentional and unintentional threats to the bio-security of the food supply. Development team members say the key data elements needing set standards include: A uniform premises identification system A uniform, nationally recognizable numbering syst em for individual animal identification A uniform, nationally recognizable numbering system for a group or lot of animals A uniform numbering system for non-producer participants They say additional standards are required for identification devices to ensure minimum performance standards are achieved as well as standards associated with the integration of automated data collection systems. Such standards include: Visual identification methods and devices for official use in livestock Electronic identification methods and devices for official use in livestock You can link to the draft plan in its entirety here The document includes (on pg. 21) a flow chart that gives an overview of how premises and animal numbers would be allocated and how animal movement/location records would be received from various sectors of the industry. Step by step explanations follow. Canada has a similar trace-back system in place that was put to the test in May when a single case of mad cow (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) was found. The CARD Institute at Iowa State University released a report this month that gives a detailed look at how the Canadian system works and why it was so effective in helping BSE investigators locate the origin of the sick animal. One of the authors, ISU livestock economist John Lawrence, told Agriculture Online Friday there are differences between the Canadian program and USAIP that will impact the cost to producers. "Primarily, (the Canadians) do not read the tag between the farmer buying it and the animal leaving the system," he says. "However, their system can not provide 48-hour trace-back." "The USAIP calls for reading the tag every time the animal changes premises. Thus the US will need to have readers in auction markets, feedlots and other locations where cattle change premise," he says. A Canadian farmer posting in the Agriculture Online Farm Business discussion group says he thinks the price of trace-back is worth it. "If it is a health and safety issue, then maximum gain requires that even local product requires identification for trace-back," says Redman. "Since the North American market had just about total integration before May 20, it would be difficult to say precisely what the risk of a BSE case in the US would be. But it would be nice to be able to do some damage control in case. "We had a trace-back system in Canada, but a lot of the infected cows movements had occurred before the start of the system. It would have been an impossible task without the trace-back, instead of merely difficult. The US would be in a bad way without some system. Two years have been lost already, but that might lead to a superior system." Related Link: http://www.agriculture.com |
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