LONG-sought consensus on a United States national animal disease traceability system - the new concept for animal identification - appears to be finally gaining ground.
The US Animal Health Assn. and the National Institute of Animal Agriculture held a public strategy meeting last week in Denver, Colorado.
The meeting, which drew a large, national audience, was convened to have a dialogue on the framework and standards under development for the US Department of Agriculture program by a Traceability Regulation Working Group, which was convened earlier this year by USDA's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
The working group has focused on interstate cattle movement, and under the new proposal Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced in February, it incorporates the existing expertise of state and tribal governments as well as livestock organizations.
Concepts of the framework are expected to underpin the proposed rule APHIS hopes to publish in April 2011. The final rule is slated to follow within 12-15 months.
While discussion at the Denver meeting was held with APHIS officials present, USDA chief veterinarian John Clifford made it clear that any consensus points reached would be treated the same as comments from other groups and individuals during the rule-making process.
"We're here to consider all comments," Dr Clifford said.
The Denver forum was one of the first opportunities to review the working group's proposed framework, which was dated August 13. A key discussion centred on the amount of time needed to integrate full traceability of young feeder cattle into the "two-step" proposal suggested in the framework.
In that proposal, step one would delay the inclusion of feeder cattle and animals younger than 18 months and would provide several months for an educational period following publication of the final rule.
Step two would apply traceability to all ages and classes of cattle, with some exemptions focused on types of interstate movements.
Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) official Nancy Robinson told the audience that the cattle industry was not yet ready to reach a consensus on how to implement the feeder cattle provisions.
Referring to an industry-wide "Cattle ID" working group LMA spearheaded to work through the thorny conflicts, Robinson reported that the same group needed a chance to reconvene to consider the feeder cattle issues.
"We need to go back to the Cattle ID group to develop some benchmarks we think need to be in place before feeder cattle can come into the mix," she said.
"We appreciate and understand that this program needs to make progress. We're not trying to be obstructionists by saying 'never, never'," Robinson concluded.
The informal Cattle ID group has developed 12 principles for animal identification that it communicated earlier this year to Congress and USDA.
Robinson explained that, "by any measure," the group represents the entire beef and dairy industries. Members include: the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, US Cattlemen's Association, R-CALF USA, National Livestock Producers Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Farmers Union, Dairy USA, National Milk Producers Federation, Dairy Farmers of America, Texas Stock Raisers Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association.
* The 12 identification principles the group developed can be found at www.lmaweb.com .
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