The U.S. cattle industry will have a new level of disease protection next month when USDA’s enhanced Animal Disease Traceability rule takes effect. Rapid response to an animal disease outbreak is the aim of the new USDA traceability rule, with its visual checks and electronic tags to track most breeding cattle crossing state lines.
Former National Cattlemen’s Beef Association president Todd Wilkinson warns an FMD outbreak would shut down cattle movement for at least 72 hours.
For producers who don’t want to bother with electronic tags, Wilkinson says, “All of us have to just think back to the BSE case and other situations. Look at our friends in the poultry business. If we don’t think an animal disease is going to come into this country, as porous as our borders are, and impact our producers, you’re burying your head in the sand.”
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack stressed the importance of quick traceability at the recent World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin. According to Vilsack, “When I did the G-7 meeting, people were very interested in H5N1, in terms of our ability to test and our ability to identify, our ability to make sure that exports were being checked and protected, that they weren’t getting milk that was tainted in any way. So, the ability to have that system is really, really important.”
Congress approved 15 million dollars this year to help producers offset the cost of electronic ID tags and avert possibly billions of dollars in economic losses.