March 21, 2006

 

US completing first test of farm animal tracing database

 

 

The US system for tracing farm animals to their place of origin was nearly done with its first test as of Monday (Mar 20), putting it well on track to being ready for service next year, said a member of the organisation that is developing and operating it.

 

Beta testing actually is a couple of months behind schedule, said Rick Stott, one of the board members of the US Animal Identification Organisation, which is developing and operating it. Officials "expanded the scope" of the testing by exploring other ways of uploading information to the system, he said. Currently, the system deals with internet inputs only, but plans call for mail-in options in another year or two.

 

The importance of tracing a sick animal back through its life was highlighted by the latest case of mad cow disease or BSE in the US. An Alabama cow, judged to be more than 10 years old, was diagnosed a week ago with the disease, but officials have had trouble tracing its history.

 

Lynn Heinze, public relations officer for the US Meat Export Federation, said uncertainty about where the Alabama cow lived and where she might have eaten contaminated feed "would not be helpful" in reopening currently closed foreign beef markets to US products.

 

"The critical issue is finding the age of the cow," Heinze said.

 

Dore Mobley, public affairs specialist for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the National Animal Identification System still is being developed, but parts of the system are already operational.

 

Premises registration is ongoing, Mobley said. The latest figures available show that 213,376 farm and ranch sites have been registered so far, which is a little more than 10 percent of the number officials estimated will be signed up eventually.

 

Sign up is running behind early progress estimates, Mobley said, but a year ago, officials had little to go on in making their early progress estimates. She said the number of sites to be registered is "extremely large".

 

While the animal identification tags and system had cattle in mind when they were formulated, official identification devices and systems for other species will vary, Mobley said. Working groups still are looking at devices that would work for other animals like hogs, sheep and poultry.

 

The part of the system that is not up and running yet is the actual animal tracking, Mobley said. Officials still are building an interface that allows simultaneous searches of various databases to track an animal's movements.

 

Officials hoped to have it fully operational by next year, Mobley said. However, if the system had been operational and the Alabama cow had been entered into the database, the system still may not have helped government officials establish her age.

 

The system is only meant to track location--not age, Mobley said.