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DOA

HAY MAKER

Well-known member
Tam Moore
Freelance Writer

If there's one thing certain about the National Animal Identification System, it's that NAIS is experiencing troubled times.

Envisioned by animal health practitioners as a way to limit outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease and other fast-spreading infections, it's become a 2006 political football.

A goal of the system would be to provide veterinarians traceback to birth farms within 48 hours of reportable disease diagnosis.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture endorsed an industry-written and still-evolving ID plan in early 2004 as part of reaction to discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in a Holstein that had been at a Mabton, Wash., dairy.

Those involved in drafting the plan started work the year before BSE put urgency into the project.

Confusion over what's happening became apparent earlier this year when a national ID conference called by some architects of the plan adjourned with a statement criticizing USDA. They heard from the secretary of agriculture and top NAIS officials before issuing their policy statement.

One version of the 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill due consideration in this month's lame duck session of Congress might hold up further USDA NAIS funding until the department prints a draft NAIS plan in the Federal Register.

The House bill, adopted in late May, includes language saying "all interested parties would benefit from a transparent process of decision making on the national plans for animal identification, and therefore requires that the secretary (of agriculture) use an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to state the administration's plans ... and to solicit feedback from all interested parties."

That appropriations bill, HR 5384, has been held without action in the Senate Appropriations committee since late June.

Two Missouri members of Congress, Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., in September introduced companion bills that prohibit USDA from developing a mandatory NAIS. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, and his predecessor Ann Veneman, have both said what's under development is voluntary.

But in the initial version NAIS was to become mandatory after USDA was certain that no proprietary information would get into the national data base.

In a nutshell, the concept is that premises - places where animals are kept, be identified - and animals, either in identifiable groups or as individuals, would be tracked when they move between premises or go to slaughter.

The USDA this year began signing up cooperating private and state animal health data collection systems, and since June has certified several vendors of ID tags. Several species-specific task groups advise the USDA NAIS development team, but coordinator Neil Hammerschmidt says priority for voluntary ID goes to cattle and hogs, the nation's primary meat animals.

The dairy industry, which one year ago formed a coalition to promote voluntary ID, is busy integrating a variety of databases with the non-profit Farm Animal Identification and Record database. It tracks only location and movement data for animals. The beef industry has a similar voluntary system promoted by a non-profit group spun off in 2004 from National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Swirling controversy clouds the initial step in the federal program, registration of premises, which was to be complete in 2005 so NAIS and its cooperators could move on to tracking group and individual animal movements. Tracking, the plan said, would start in 2006 and reach most livestock by 2008.

There's a hotbed of resistance in Texas and elsewhere.

Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (www.farmandranchfreedom.org) is among groups sounding an alarm.

Its website features topics such as "The Truth About NAIS and RFID Tags." www.noanimalid.com and wwwnonais.org are among blossoming Internet sites fueling opposition to mandatory NAIS.

In the West, Idaho, California and Oregon continue efforts for voluntary premises registration, supported by USDA grants. John Chatbur, an assistant director of the Idaho Agriculture Department, said his state is concentrating on signing up the home places for livestock operations, not seasonal pasture locations. Sheep, cattle and horse operations are the primary targets.

In Washington, responding to a 2006 law, the Department of Agriculture formed a National Animal Identification System advisory group led by Leonard Eldridge, the state veterinarian. The 20-member group is evaluating demonstration projects and other states' handling of NAIS, with a report due to the Legislature Dec. 1.

"We need to see how (a system) would work in this state," Eldridge said. "How do we know what's going to work until we do it?"

The demonstration project includes four test sites: the Toppenish Livestock Commission, the Everson Livestock Auction, the Chehalis Livestock Market and AgriBeef's El Oro feedlot near Warden.

Everson and Chehalis will use hand-held wands to read radio-frequency ID ear tags;Toppenish and El Oro will use panel antennas built into sorting alleys.

"We need to look at the technology that's out there," Eldridge said. "We don't want something that's going to bog down people's businesses."

The department also hopes to provide wand readers to brand inspectors, to see how the animal ID program and brand program could be integrated, said Chris Spaulding, animal identification specialist with the WSDA in Olympia.
 
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