March 8, 2004

 

 

U.S. Animal Tracking Plan Set To Start In Summer

 

An animal tracking plan aimed at combating the spread of animal diseases such mad cow disease could be ready for implementation this summer, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official said.

 

The program would begin with voluntary participation, but may become mandatory if, for example, the livestock industry avoids it in large numbers, officials said at a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee.

 

The hearing was held at the annual Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show before an audience of trade officials and ranchers.

 

Members of the committee urged the USDA to step up the pace of implementing the program, which would enable officials to quickly track the movements and origins of sick animals with the goal of containing disease outbreaks.

 

They said it might encourage the reopening of markets by countries who banned imports of U.S. beef when the nation's first case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state in December.

 

USDA officials assured the committee they were moving as quickly as possible.

 

"We're going forward in 2004. We're beginning to implement a national system. We're going to ramp this thing up beginning in 2004," USDA chief economist Keith Collins said.

 

Outside the hearing, USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Jim Butler told Reuters the program would begin with "premise identification," or locating the nation's one million livestock operations, by summer.

 

"Right now we're talking in terms of seasons, if you will, so we feel confident that by this summer we'll begin that process of premise identification," he said.

 

The program is taking time to develop because there are many different interests in the livestock industry and they do not all agree on how best to track animals or even if the government should be doing it, officials said.

 

Producers are concerned that the program will bring them new costs and make public information about their operations that could be used against them by competitors or by animal rights activists, according to comments before the committee.

 

Several committee members expressed doubts that a voluntary tracking program would work.

 

"You cannot allow individual producers to stay out of the system if it's going to work as intended," said U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas.

 

USDA officials admitted it remained to be seen if the voluntary approach would do the job.

 

"Let's see how willing our industry is collectively, what will they have to step forward," Butler said. "We'll learn from those and we'll see where we need to go with a mandatory system."