Burlington Free Press
Published: Wednesday, August 16, 2006
By Nancy Remsen-Staff Writer
WILLISTON — Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kerr will abandon, for now, a controversial proposal that would have required all livestock operations — from the family raising a couple of lambs for the freezer to a large dairy farm — to register the location of their animals.
Speaking Tuesday afternoon at a hearing previously scheduled on the rule, Kerr explained how he learned Friday that federal officials couldn’t guarantee the confidentiality of the information that Vermont would collect and contribute to a federal database.
“Since I promised people their information would be kept in confidence, I’m going to honor my promise,” Kerr said. “We are going to pull the proposal off the table.”
Kerr said the need for registration remained. The goal was to know where animals were located across the state in the event of an outbreak of serious diseases, particularly those with potential to spread to humans such as avian flu and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates Vermont has 7,400 farms. State officials know the locations of only the 1,160 dairy farms because they must be inspected. “We don’t know where the rest are,” Kerr said. That would hamper an emergency response to any disease outbreak, forcing officials to go door-to-door looking for animals.
Kerr said he might propose that the state create its own registry, which he could ensure would remain confidential. “I’ll be ready with an alternative before the Legislature comes back.”
Critics welcomed the demise of the registration mandate, but recognized their battle would continue.
“We are completely opposed to any government-run premises registration,” said Amy Shollenberger, director of Rural Vermont. “We believe it is an unreasonable level of surveillance for little benefit.”
Many opponents see the state’s premise registration plan as the first step toward an animal identification and tracking mandate. The federal government has considered such a program.
Rep. David Zuckerman, P-Burlington, who heads the House Agriculture Committee, said he wasn’t convinced that a registration program would be the best way to prepare for an outbreak of serious diseases. He would prefer to see the state agency provide more education to livestock owners.
“That would be a better way to spend our dollars,” Zuckerman told Kerr at Tuesday’s hearing. “That would be my suggestion rather than force everyone to register.”
There are supporters of premise registration.
“I like the idea of farms’ being identified,” said Rick Parizo, a dairy farmer from Milton, who noted that farms like his already are regulated. He worried that many people with animals wouldn’t know they needed to register — should the agency go forward with a state-only system.
“The word isn’t out there the way it should be,” Parizo said. He suggested the state would need to reach out to folks who don’t farm for a living, perhaps posting signs in feed stores and town offices. “It has to be posted in a lot of different places.”
Thursday, the Agency of Agriculture will hold the last pair of public hearings on the registration rule. The Legislature had ordered the agency to hold hearings in each county. Thursday’s meetings will be at Vermont Technical College in Randolph Center at 9:30 a.m. and at the Pavilion Building in Montpelier at 1 p.m. Staff are collecting comments that could be helpful in developing an alternative program.
Kerr said that the more than 300 livestock owners who voluntarily registered would be able to request that their data be expunged from the federal database.
Contact Nancy Remsen at 651-4888 or nremsen@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
Farm registration
The state will abandon its proposed rule calling for the mandatory registration of the locations of livestock, but a revised rule could be offered next year.
REGISTRATION: The information that would likely be required under any new registration program would be the name of the owner, mailing address, telephone number, location of the animals, type of operation and types of animals.
PREMISES: The state would be looking for information from farms, livestock exhibitions, laboratories, slaughter plants as well as hobby farmers and people who raise a few chicks or lambs for their freezers.
ANIMALS: The likely list of covered animals would include fish raised commercially, cattle, bison, swine, sheep, goats, horses and other equine animals, farm-raised deer, poultry, ostriches, emus and other ratites, llamas, alpacas and other camelids.