Four years after it issued a regulation on animal disease traceability, the USDA will hold seven regional meetings across the country to see how it’s working and to discuss “potential next steps.” The regulation put states and tribes in charge of developing trace-back systems and ended years of opposition to proposals for a federal database of livestock movement and ownership.
A trace-back system, to know where diseased animals have been, is important in finding herd mates in case of an outbreak of serious livestock disease, said USDA. The 2013 rule accepts brands and tattoos as official identification of animals. It exempted newly hatched chicks from the identification system. A separate rule would be written for slaughter cattle, USDA said at the time.
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) says that while the regulation “has been successful in the context of the intended framework, significant gaps still exist within our tracing capabilities.” The greatest impediment, APHIS said, is that “the official identification requirement is only applicable to livestock that move interstate,” but cattle movements are diverse, with many chances to mingle stock and spread disease within a state.
“APHIS views the inclusion of feed cattle in the traceability regulations as an essential component of an effective traceability system in the long term,” says the agency’s assessment. Coverage of slaughter cattle should only be considered when an radio frequency identification (RFID) system is in place.
The USDA homepage for the Animal Disease Traceability rule is available here.
To read the executive summary of the assessment, click here.