USDA starting over on national animal ID system

Agriculture Online ^ | 2/5/2010 | Jeff Caldwell

[Rio]

USDA starting over on national animal ID system Vilsack: Feedback called for 'new approach to animal disease traceability'

Jeff Caldwell Agriculture Online Multimedia Editor

2/05/2010, 2:05 PM CST

It's back to the drawing board for USDA's National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Officials announced Friday that current plans toward the NAIS are being scrapped and the agency is starting over in building a national system of animal traceback.

From day-one, the NAIS had its critics, and Friday's announcement doesn't constitute the end of the program altogether, but a new start for the process of revising the old rules and offering a "new approach to animal disease traceability with changes that respond directly to the feedback we heard," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Friday of the feedback his agency will take from a series of NAIS listening sessions around the country and implement into a new "flexible framework" for disease traceability in the nation's livestock herds.

Officials say USDA's efforts toward a new federal animal ID system will follow 4 main directives:

* Will apply to animals moved in interstate commerce * Will be administered by states, not on a federal basis * Will "encourage the use of lower-cost technology" * Will be implemented transparently through full rulemaking process

[Rio]

* Will be administered by states, not on a federal basis

Never thought I'd see a statement like this from this administration.

[Starboard]

“Will be administered by states, not on a federal basis”

I’d be very guarded about accepting this statement prima facie. More than likely, there will be federal funding and offerings of “supplemental resources” to assist cash strapped states. The feds are like termites; there’s no wood they are not looking to eat.

[fourmation599]

Not long after that, they will begin to tag an release humans. It’s coming. The frog is beginning to boil.

[17th Miss Regt]

Will be implemented transparently through full rulemaking process...

Transparent? With this administration? Yeah, right? The rulemaking process is this. "The rules are that we do what we want and do not have to tell you people jack squat!"

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

* Will apply to animals moved in interstate commerce *

So, if a farmer raises cattle in one state, and sells them at an auction barn in another state, will he be affected? will he have to take his cattle to an in state barn rather than one accross state lines where the prices he gets may be higher?

If one raises chickens in one state but the proceessing plant is in another state what happens?

As Beck says, WATCH THE OTHER HAND!

[Man from Oz]

Hello Mr. Dias de Bivar,

Yes, animals transported interstate would especially be on the radar screen. If I was a state animal Health vet, I would be concerned about the potential of disease transmission coming into my state.

I read your bio and see you are a native New Mexican? Me too :) (born in Raton and grew up on the Santa Fe trail east of Trinidad, CO) As one of the border states, I would especially be concerned on what is filtered in from either Mexico or Canada for that matter.

Routine and encessary health traceback efforts for Tuberculosis and Brucellosis are quite common and costly to the individual state impacted. I personally knew and worked with our now retired Animal Health commissioner and was quite familiar with a traceback effort involving dairys in SW Kansas. The suspect heifer originated from a Amish dairy farm in Ohio. Not picking on the Amish just stating the facts.

MFO

[TheBattman]

Or even if the chickens (or other livestock) are processed in one state, but then shipped to other states (most of the meat and poultry business)...

And are they still going to include the pet trade as well? I go purchase a new puppy from a breeder just across the state line - does that mean I have to have the dog chipped with track-back to the original kennel?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Yes, animals transported interstate would especially be on the radar screen.***

Here where I live now,in Arkansas we are next to Olkahoma, Missouri and Kansas. We think nothing of going accross state lines to buy or sell cattle. Many here have leased land in Okla and Missouri for their cattle. In come cases it is much closer to salebarns in Okla than here in Arkansas. Stillwell and Grove auctions come to mind.

I was born at Springer, NM raised till 5 years old at Gladstone. My dad went to school in Branson, CO. I remember when Farley was a live town with school, shops, feed stores, bar, roller rink, race track...ect. Now it is a ghost town. We moved to Kansas in 1952 at Coolege and Syracuse.

[Man from Oz]

No question, folks who lease/manage ground across state lines might have some added difficulty but I suspect there will be reciprocal agreements between states for those producers who are in that situation.

Funny! I had family in Roy, NM and was raised in Hoehne, CO. Branson was in our school’s sports league and just down the road @ 30 miles. All of it beautiful ranch country along the mesa.