Nov. 9, 2004
Contact: Burt Rutherford
at TCFA
Dr. Valerie Ragan at USDA (301)
734-8093
Dr. Bob Hillman at TAHC (512)
719-0700
And, speaking at the 2004 Annual Convention of the Texas Cattle
Feeders Association (TCFA) in
"The goal," said Dr. Valerie Ragan, assistant deputy administrator with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, "is to have the capability to identify all animals and premises that have had contact with a foreign animal disease, or any disease of concern, within 48 hours after discovery."
Ragan said the first focus and the main priority at present is to
get a standardized national premise ID system in place.
"There have been premises ID systems is place for years all
across the country as part of disease eradication programs.
But they're not standardized.
The numbering system in
What happens when you have disparate numbering systems, she said, is you can't track animals electronically across state lines. You have to do it all by paper.
"So what we're doing is converting from these old numbering systems to a new, standardized, national numbering system that's compatible across the country and will allow different systems to talk to each other."
USDA plans to accomplish that through its National Animal ID
System. For the past several
years, an industry coalition has been developing the U.S. Animal
Identification Plan (USAIP). "We've
taken the data standards in the USAIP and adopted them as part of the
National Animal ID System," Ragan said.
That system will be tested in a number of pilot projects
nationwide, including one in
The reason premise ID is important, she said, is because it forms the foundation of the national system. "When you're trying to track a diseased animal or exposed animals, the main thing that you really need to be concerned with is where that animal is, what other animals have been exposed to it, and where those other animals are now. So the bottom line is location. We're trying to get the system in place to be able to very quickly get to a location of concern."
In
"We intend to include all segments of the cattle industry in the project," Hillman said, to test the ability of the system to identify and track animals from farms and ranches to order buyers, livestock markets, feedyards and even sales to a neighbor down the road.
"Also, there will be a component for identifying and tracking animals from markets and order buyers to their next destination, be that a feedyard or stocker operation. And we will have a component to identify feedyard cattle and track them to a slaughter facility."
Once the Texas Animal Health Commission has the infrastructure in
place and has its premise ID system up and running with the pilot project
cooperators, then they will begin registering other premises in the state
beginning in 2005. "We need
to get as many premises registered as we possibly can during the next
year," Hillman told cattle feeders.
"We anticipate, with the number of premises we have in
The next step after premise registration is animal identification. "As soon as premises are registered, then producers, if they choose to, can begin using the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags," Hillman said. Some producers are using the tags already and that will expand as more producers come on board in the next few years.
Hillman told the more than 500 cattle feeders attending the TCFA convention that third-party service providers, such as tag companies and data management companies, will be utilized to help collect movement data that the state and federal animal health agencies can access to assure that the tracking system works effectively. And he said he intends to make premise registration as painless as possible.
Producers can register on a web page. "We also anticipate having a hard copy, a card or one-page sheet that a producer can fill in and drop in the mail box. And they can call our office."