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U.S. Animal Identification Organization in "inactive St

PORKER

Well-known member
USAIO shelved for now
At the Cattle Industry Annual Convention last week in Nashville, Charles Miller, a Kentucky producer and Chairman of the U.S. Animal Identification Organization, announced that the USAIO board of directors has agreed to place the organization on "inactive" status. NCBA played a key role in development of USAIO, which was intended to serve as an independent, multi-species animal tracking database in cooperation with the National Animal Identification System. Miller cited a lack of funding for the decision, and also noted that USAIO did not want to compete with the 14 private companies USDA has approved as NAIS animal tracking databases.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
NCBA's Allen Bright, a cattle producer from western Nebraska who is on the staff at the U.S. Animal Identification Organization (USAIO), said identifying animals is still 15 to 20 years away in this country.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) began the (Now Closed) USAIO, and one of its members sits on the board, but the NCBA doesn't manage the program.

One of the main tenets of the USAIO is that state health authorities need to have access to records about animals in order to protect the beef industry, but the state veterinarian and producers are the only ones who should have access to this information.

As a private, non-profit organization, there is a cost to producers who choose to take part in the USAIO's animal I.D. program that hovers in the to 30 cents (per head) range,” Bright said. The USAIO's database records an animal's identification number, premise and movement data, he said.

Cost is a major concern for producers regarding a national identification program, Bright said.

“When you talk about identifying, what are we talking about? If we had every cow in all the breeding stocks identified - well, we have longhorn cows in this country that are 19 years old and still having calves. We have Angus cows 14 to 15 years old having calves,” he said.

“We'll never be able to identify all cattle even if we force a mandatory branding system on states,” he added.

The NCBA has adopted a “voluntary” animal identification program.

But Bright said the technology available for animal identification currently is not ready yet and that some are not affordable.( Bald face lie)

Demonstrations of the current technology took place in the DSU ag arena. The low frequency ear tags required the purchase of a reader to read each calf's identification number. That number was then inputted into a computer software program, which corresponded to data available on the calf.

Since calves are so mobile, each one was run through a chute where its head was anchored to read the tags. A concern with these tags is the reader has to be held within 3 inches of the calf's ear for the number to register. ( Another Bald Face lie)
DSU demonstrated a high frequency tag where about 40 head of cattle wearing the tags were run back and forth from one pen to another. The tags proved accurate ? percent of the time,” and several calves' tags could be read at once from a distance of several feet away. However, the technology still needs to be developed to reduce the size of the tag and to reduce the costs.

Bright said animal identification is “well respected as a way of protecting our markets.” One proof of that was with the brucellosis project, where cattle could not be shipped into other states unless they had been vaccinated.

Wade Moser, executive vice-president of the N.D. Stockmen's Association, said the cost of any identification program needs to be “known and built into the (animal I.D.) system.”

Not every producer can afford the USAIO's program - nor wants it. Many breeders have a data program that comes from their own breed association.

Dr. Richard Bowman, chair of the R-CALF USA Animal I.D. committee, said the organization has been involved with animal identification for a long time, well before the “Christmas cow.” Diseases such as foot and mouth could have a “devastating effect on individuals and the industry as a whole if there was an outbreak,” he said.

Health protection was the original focus of animal I.D., and “misconceptions” didn't arise until the marketing concept was introduced, Bright pointed out. When the USDA went mandatory, that caused further concern about the health I.D. program. The current program has been muddled with electronic identification that is a “difficult way (of identification) and not all that efficient,” Bowman said.

There are simpler programs that would work on a national level such as those recommended by the N.D. Stockmen's (branding and premise) and other proven devices such as metal clips in the ears, according to Bowman.

“Our goal is to develop a system that could talk to each other (such as Nebraska's program being able to correspond directly with Alabama's program). All the tagging systems need to have the same type of infrastructure. Everybody needs to be on the same page,” Bowman said.

He added that there were limited state and federal funds out there for an I.D. program, and public funds need to be funneled into the “animal health issue for the public good.”

Bowman said that identification cannot be market driven.

“I don't think that's what the producers want,” he said. The market will pay for its own identification program, he added. “The new technology will spread once people see the premiums in the marketplace.”

Roger Johnson, North Dakota ag commissioner, said health information is the only information gathering that is going on in North Dakota at a state level.

“That's the way the federal government should go, too,” Johnson said.

Bright agreed, saying in Nebraska, producers do not feel the feds are entitled to private information.

“We feel it's our information and you are not entitled to it,” he said. “Confidentiality is an issue to the majority of producers, and when the majority of producers want it, we'd better listen.”
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Animal Tracking System Sidelined For Lack Of Support

KANSAS CITY (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Animal Identification Organization has been suspended for lack of interest and financing, said the group's chairman Charles Miller.
"It became evident that we'd either have to change our mission statement or find other sources of funding," Miller said.
Miller said the non-profit organization's board made the decision to suspend operations Jan. 31, although the framework of operations will remain intact if there is a need for it to be revived in the future.

U.S. livestock and poultry producers now are left with a series of for-profit animal identification systems that cost more but provide other benefits, like carcass quality information, to producers.
The original idea for the USAIO came from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, but a year ago, the NCBA turned over any control it had to the non-profit group, retaining only one seat on the board of directors, Miller said.
Allen Bright, former NCBA administrator for the association's Animal ID Commission, which worked on the USAIO's framework, said the USAIO was intended to satisfy U.S. Department of Agriculture tracking needs when the USDA wanted a single non-profit database that was held in private hands. Its computers were only supposed to hold enough information for state or federal veterinarians to track a particular animal's movements and, by association, find any herd mates for animal disease control, he said.

Funding was to come from livestock and poultry producers who entered their data into the system, Bright said.
No producer data was ever entered into the system, even though it was ready to go, Miller said. Data that was to be loaded into USAIO database computers still resides with two parent organizations, he said. The Northwest Pilot Project and the Southeast Livestock Network, which are regional animal identification organizations involved in the creation of the databases, hold the information.
For Miller, deactivating the USAIO leaves a void in the U.S. animal tracking system. He did not feel that the private, for-profit firms were really looking out for the best interests of livestock producers.
"They have to be interested in making a profit," he said. He said was sure the for-profit companies were reputable firms, but he wanted a system that spread the costs out among the livestock industry.

Bright said the non-profit and for-profit systems each had their benefits. Neither was better than the other, but they were different.
However, in light of the USDA's diverse-database approach to animal identification and tracking, private firms are all that is left, Miller said.

Those private systems seem to hold some appeal, Miller said. Cattle producers already are getting premiums for supply or process verification, and such programs could become the norm in the future.
Bright said the USAIO blazed the trail of animal identification in the U.S., although in some respects it became obsolete before it ever got started. When the USDA changed its mind and said it wold work with multiple private databases for the national identification program, the single database idea lost appeal, especially when the USDA agreed to a system of cooperation between programs.
Source: Lester Aldrich; Dow Jones Newswires; 913-322-5179; [email protected]
 

Econ101

Well-known member
"Funding was to come from livestock and poultry producers who entered their data into the system, Bright said. "

Funny how most of the poultry industry's poultry is owned by the integrators and yet they seem to want producers to help pay the cost of this ID system.

This is no more than a database for the big guys to use to increase their spreads and margins at the cost of competition and its price determination.
 
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