Posted on 02/13/2004 5:38:03 AM PST by Freebird Forever
Legislation to create a national livestock identification system was introduced Thursday by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
Hagel's bill would give the secretary of agriculture the authority to implement a national animal identification system, which he said would be a positive step to increase confidence in U.S. livestock safety following the Dec. 23 discovery of the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States.
Hagel said the BSE incident emphasizes the need for a national identification system.
He pointed to a recent comment made by Dr. Ron De Haven, USDA chief veterinary officer, who, in announcing that the USDA had wrapped up its BSE investigation, said that some of the suspect animals that came in 2001 from Canada with the dairy cow that tested positive for BSE could not be located because "...the paper trail has gotten cold."
"A national animal identification plan would ensure the trail would not go cold in the future," Hagel said.
He said the U.S. Animal Identification Program (USAIP) he has introduced as legislation was developed by the National Identification Task Force, which was created in 2002, bringing together livestock industry officials with the USDA to create USAIP.
Allen Bright of Ellsworth, chairman of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association subcommittee on animal identification, has been working on USAIP for the past several years with other industry and government officials.
Bright said USAIP would aid in the monitoring and surveillance of livestock for animal diseases such as BSE.
He hopes that USAIP can be implemented as early as July 2005. Under the plan, officials would have the ability to trace any suspect animal's origins within 48 hours.
Following the discovery of BSE in Washington, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman has indicated that the Bush administration favors putting a national identification plan on the fast track for development.
"We need to make sure that we are doing the best job we can do and we need to track our animals because, if there is a problem, then we can take care of that in an expeditious manner," Bright said.
One provision of Hagel's bill calls for the federal government to financially assist producers in complying with the livestock identification system.
He said the cost of implementing the program is being researched by the Government Accounting Office.
"We don't think it will be a significant cost because the USDA budget has areas of resources to deal with this," Hagel said. "What we know now, from working with the USDA and others, is that there are adequate funds within the USDA to this."
After the announcement that a cow in Washington tested positive for BSE, more than 60 countries have closed their borders to U.S. beef exports.
Hagel said having USAIP in place and enforced should address some of the significant concern among trading partners who import U.S. beef.
"This should give our export market allies some significant new confidence that we are dealing with this problem," he said.
While lawmakers debate the need to implement a national animal identification program, Swift & Co. official Jim Herlihy said his company is already in the process of implementing its own tracing system.
"We are starting it now for the cattle that are in our feedlots," he said. "Our hope is to have it fully implemented by next summer. Those numbers will be increasing gradually as we get more of our suppliers into the system."
Herlihy said Swift's concern about implementing a mandatory national animal identification system is that it has to be flexible enough to allow new technologies to be adopted into the system.
"We think the Swift tracing system offers the company the flexibility to adopt different technologies, but we will have to wait to see how this ultimately will unfold," he said.
A copy of the proposed plan and other information are available on the U.S. Animal Identification Web site at www.usaip.info.
Sen Chuck Hagel's legislation would:
* Instruct the U.S. Department of Agriculture to implement the U.S. Animal Identification Plan (USAIP) for livestock.
* Place a priority on enrolling beef and dairy cattle in the USAIP.
* Provide privacy protection for the information collected and used in the plan.
* Provide financial assistance to producers to assist in complying with the livestock identification system.
* Strengthen the enforcement of current Food and Drug Administration livestock feed ban laws.
I don't believe this will apply to livestock that remain on a farm for their entire lives, nor for animals that are sold privately to individuals for slaughter.
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