Brasher: Animal ID program loses steam

USDA budget for '08 doesn't allocate even a dime for it
WASHINGTON FARM REPORT
By PHILIP BRASHER
REGISTER WASHINGTON BUREAU
October 7, 2007
Original Article Here

Washington, D.C. - Days after the United States recorded its first case of mad cow disease, then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman promised to speed development of a system for tracking the nation's livestock.

The idea was to enable investigators to trace the whereabouts and history of any animal within 48 hours of a disease outbreak.

Nearly four years later, that system is still on paper.

And what's on paper, at least in terms of a revised plan that the Bush administration is due to release soon, seems to bear less and less resemblance to the system Veneman was talking about.

Could animal identification be headed the way of Social Security reform?

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., says he has given up on the program until there is a new administration. Peterson once introduced legislation to make animal ID mandatory.

"We have our head in the sand if we think we can get by without having one," he said.

Chris Waldrop, who follows food safety issues for the Consumer Federation of America, says the ID program "doesn't seem salvageable."

The Agriculture Department has "mishandled it and Congress is fed up with them, producers are fed up with them and consumers are fed up with them," he says.

USDA waffled between making the program mandatory or voluntary - there's no longer any talk of requiring producers to participate - and was too slow to put down rumors such as that the ID system would allow the government to spy on producers, Waldrop says.

For evidence of the congressional frustration or lack of interest, look no further than the USDA budget for 2008 as passed by the House. There isn't a dime for the department's work on the ID program.

USDA officials argue that they are still making progress, pointing to the rate at which farms, feedlots and processors are signing up for premise ID numbers.

As of Sept. 17, there were 417,312 premises registered, 29 percent of the estimated total nationwide. But that rate masks wide variations among the states.

Idaho had registered 96 percent of its estimated premises. Indiana was up to 86 percent. Wisconsin had actually signed up more sites, 58,927, than the 51,373 that the state was thought to have. Iowa had registered nearly 42 percent of its estimated 47,273 premises.

But other key states, which happen to have large numbers of cattle, lag far behind. They include Texas, where only 16 percent of the estimated premises have registered; California, which is at 17 percent; and South Dakota, 22 percent.

"It really comes down to a commitment of local officials as to whether they support or oppose animal ID," says Bruce Knight, the USDA undersecretary who's in charge of the animal ID project.

Knight will soon release a new plan for the project that is likely to scale back the program's original scope, which was to enable investigators to track every movement of an animal from birth to slaughter. Knight says he's moving to a "bookend approach" that will focus on tracking the animals at the most critical points, such as the farm of birth, import and export facilities and packing plants.

USDA also is looking at incorporating into the system the ID numbers assigned to cattle through existing disease eradication programs.

"We are not moving backward. We're moving forward and gaining momentum all the time," he says.

However, Knight concedes that whatever sense of urgency there was among livestock producers is on the wane four years after the first mad cow case.

"Folks feel more and more like that is something that could never happen to them," he says.

Many cattle producers were never enthusiastic about the program for a variety of reasons, including the cost of ear tags and a fear of being sued for tainted meat.

Knight registered his own South Dakota farm, which has a cow-calf operation, about a year ago.

The question is if he's going to get enough of his neighbors to sign up for that to matter.