Georgia farmers discuss livestock ID plan with USDA officials

by Jennifer Whittaker, Editor

Cattle producers and representatives of other livestock industries gathered June 18, in Athens at the Northeast Georgia Livestock Barn, to tell USDA officials their concerns regarding the pending National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

Cattle producers repeatedly said it’s crucial that the NAIS be a simple program that protects their privacy and accommodates regional differences in production methods. They also said they want to see the ID system tested in pilot programs before it’s made mandatory. Both cattle farmers and livestock auction barn owners voiced concern as to whether the system will dictate that cattle be tagged before leaving a farm or at the sale barn. The concern was raised that small producers might not have the chutes needed to corral cattle for tagging while tagging at the barn on sale days could slow the auction process and place undue financial strain on sale barn owners.

Livestock producers voiced their concerns regarding the proposed national animal identification system during a listening session held in Athens in June.

Bill Hawks, USDA undersecretary of marketing and regulatory programs and Dr. John Wiemers, national director of animal identification, outlined the goals and benefits of the NAIS.

The goal of the NAIS, Wiemers said, is within 48 hours of diagnosing an animal with a livestock disease, such as BSE or avian influenza, to be able to trace the animal and all animals and premises with which it’s had contact within the frame of the disease. A national ID system won’t prevent disease from entering the United States, Wiemers said, but will allow the USDA to respond faster to a disease.

“Being able to shave a few days or weeks off of the time to track a disease and contain it and eradicate it is critical to our nation’s economy,” Wiemers said. “Having a good traceability system for our animal products and our animals will help us maintain the confidence of our consumers.”

Wiemers said four aspects of the livestock industry need to receive ID numbers for the system to be effective. First, the system needs to identify premises on which an animal has been. “Identifying animals without knowing where they’ve been is really not very effective epidemiology.”

Second, the system needs to provide a uniform method of numbering animals. Third, the system needs to identify livestock that move as groups from birth to slaughter such as poultry and often swine. Fourth, the system needs to identify premises in the livestock industry that aren’t production plants such as livestock markets, vet clinics, or diagnostic laboratories that animals may move through.

Wiemers said the government only needs access to four pieces of information concerning an animal for the i.d. system to successfully track a disease.

“If we have a system that reports when an event is conducted, say it’s movement of an animal out of a herd or movement of an animal in a herd, the date that it happened, the animal’s identification number and the location.”
Wiemers said the USDA intends to identify animals that move in a group from birth to slaughter, such as chickens and hogs, by a group number. Livestock, such as cattle and horses, would receive a unique i.d. number that would be given to an animal when it left its premise of origin and would stay with it until its death. The number would then be retired.

“We need to know where animals are, not where owners live. This is a livestock program, not just a cattle program,” said Wiemers. “We need an ID system not linked to any specific disease.”

Adam Wiggins, whose family owns Turner County Stockyards in Ashburn, Ga., questioned a system’s ability to track cattle called “hobos”.

“A hobo is an animal that comes from another barn and is going to stay at your barn a few hours, maybe overnight, and be picked up by one of your customers that also bought cattle at your barn and another barn. This animal may stop two or three times before he gets on the final truck taking him wherever,” Wiggins explained. “It’ll be hard to track that

In addition to cattle producers, representatives of other livestock groups spoke at the listening session. Marty Hahn questioned why horses are being included in the NAIS when less than one percent of the United State’s horse population is slaughtered for human consumption. She also questioned if horse owners would have to notify authorities any time they took their horse over state lines for trail rides.

In response to Hahn, Hawks said, “We feel it’s very important to address horses because there are a lot of diseases and issues there. There’s really no connection between whether a horse goes to slaughter and whether it has a disease it can spread. This is an animal disease management system.”

Mike Giles with the Georgia Poultry Federation explained that practices are already in place to identify and trace bird flocks due to the vertical integration of the poultry industry. “These existing capabilities should be the foundation for an animal ID system in the commercial layer and broiler industries. We think an animal ID system for poultry should be based on flocks rather than on individual animals. However, based on recent avian disease experiences, we think it is appropriate to place additional emphasis on the feasibility of an individual ID system for poultry in live bird markets.”

On July 19, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced the selection of an interim premises registration system developed by the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium to record locations where animals reside. The interim system was selected based on the results of an independent review conducted by SI International of Reston, Va. The USDA is currently enhancing the system for use in multiple states and will provide it to a limited number of states in early August to ensure that potential problems are addressed before it is available nationwide. States can elect to use other premises registration system as long as the systems meet national data standards as outlined by the USDA.

A transcript of the listening session held in Athens is available at www.aphis.usda.gov. Livestock producers may e-mail their written comments about the pending identification system to Nolan.Lemon@aphis.usda.gov.

The listening session held in Athens was one in a series being held across the country this summer. Sessions have also been held in North Carolina, Oregon, California, New Mexico and Washington. In August, future sessions are scheduled to be held in Colorado, Montana, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.