USDA has, in fact, scheduled a meeting with state and tribal animal health officials March 18-19 in Kansas City following the NIAA meeting to begin discussions on the new concept.

Listening decisions

NAIS was first proposed to USDA in 2002 as a government/industry strategy to trace animals back to farms, ranches or other locations of origin within 48 hours in the event of an animal disease or other public emergency (Feedstuffs, Aug. 4, 2003). It was carried to USDA by NIAA and the U.S. Animal Health Assn.

More than 70 groups representing producers, packers/processors, government and animal health industry leaders immediately began pulling together details of the plan and urged all producers to register their premises as a first step and then to identify their animals either individually or by groups or lots.

However, the effort constantly encountered opposition from those who said the concept was too costly, too cumbersome and could expose their operations to activist groups and other outside interests should confidentiality be breached.

In the pork industry, which championed the concept from the beginning, more than 85% of premises are registered, and in the poultry industry, by nature of vertical integration, almost all premises are registered, but many other producers have refused to co-operate and register their premises (Feedstuffs, April 13, 2009).

Participating in NAIS has been voluntary.

Vilsack, upon becoming USDA's secretary last year, launched 15 "listening sessions" at which NAIS opponents and supporters expressed their views, and his proposed new concept is in response to what he heard at the sessions, according to the Feb. 5 statement.

In that announcement, he said the new framework would be administered by state and tribal officials instead of the federal government, it would apply only to animals in interstate commerce and it would encourage lower-cost technology; it also would be implemented transparently in a full rule-making process.

Time to step up

In an interview with Feedstuffs, R. Scott Stuart, chief executive officer and president of the National Livestock Producers Assn., which houses NIAA, said NAIS "has been instrumental" in defining the tenets of animal identification, and "hopefully, those same tenets will be there" in disease traceability.

Otherwise, he said, traceability will be insufficient to track animals back in a timely way to know where they came from, where they went and which other animals they were with - delays that could keep operations from quickly returning to commerce, which would adversely affect herd health, domestic and export demand, producer economics, regional and state economics and consumers.

However, he said while NAIS may be scrapped, the traceability concept it spawned has not.

Stuart said under Vilsack's plan, 50 different states with possibly 50 different systems are going to need to coordinate traceback effectively and rapidly should an animal with a contagious disease be shipped from one state to another.

An amazing number of animals - in the hundreds of thousands to more than a million - are transported every day, and most of them cross state lines (Feedstuffs, Sept. 21, 2009).

At the same time, many states do have effectively functioning animal identification/disease traceability systems, and Minnesota agriculture commissioner Gene Hugoson proposed the concept of linking together state systems during last year's National Conference on Animal Identification (Feedstuffs, Sept. 14, 2009).

Stuart said the challenge now will be for those groups and producers who were opposed to NAIS since they opposed federal involvement and wanted state control "to step up" and register their premises so states can pull off that co-ordination.

That will have to happen, Dr. John Clifford, deputy administrator of the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service, said in an interview last week. Making this mandatory or voluntary will be up to the states and tribes, he said, "but they will be required to be able to trace back animals involved in interstate commerce."

Clifford also said USDA will make resources available that states and tribes may require to put effective local-level programs in place.

Reaction

In most of their statements, groups said they were willing to help USDA develop its new framework and would encourage USDA, in turn, to work with producers.

"It's important that the system is workable for producers and accomplishes the goal of increased animal disease surveillance" by letting federal and state/tribal animal health officials respond effectively and rapidly to animal health emergencies, NCBA president Steve Foglesong said, reaffirming the association's position supporting a market-driven, voluntary animal identification system.

USCA vice president Chuck Kiker said it's "extremely encouraging" that USDA has responded to producers and is taking "a more commonsense approach to animal health in the U.S." but emphasised that "it's now incumbent on producers to remain engaged in the process."

Thornsberry at R-CALF USA held to his organization's belief that NAIS was "conceived and supported" by ear tag manufacturers, multinational packers and trade organisations to control cattle producers and cattle markets rather than "controlling and preventing animal diseases".

NPPC said it would continue working with the National Pork Board to implement a swine identification system.

Premises identification "is the cornerstone" of animal disease surveillance and animal health, and this new direction "does not change that fact," added Dr. Paul Sundberg, vice president for science and technology at the Pork Board.

AVMA reaffirmed its support for "a national animal disease traceability program."

AVMA president Dr. Larry R. Corry noted that USDA has estimated that it will take 18-24 months to create and implement its new version of such a program. Add to that formal rule-making, which he suggested could stretch the time to as long as three to four years.

"We are concerned ... (that) during that time, the U.S. will continue without an animal disease traceability program," Corry said.

NAIS was written to cover 27 animal species, including livestock, poultry, aquatic, hunt, laboratory and performance animals (Feedstuffs, April 19, 2004).

A USDA fact sheet on the new strategy is available here.