Traceability Boondoggle

[smcgrath76]

Actually HT if you can argue that you co-
mingle cattle at your place you are
eligible for a low more funding for
chutes, tag readers, etc.
I agree that movement tracking on farm is
darn near impossible for a lot of folks at
the level being discussed.

[kato]

As for the disease outbreak issue. Remember back to the morning of May 20, 2003.

How long did it take to shut down the cattle business in Canada? About a half an hour. The news hit. When it got to our auction mart the sale stopped right there with animals in the ring. Everyone packed up and left. Owners were called to pick up the unsold cattle, and everybody went home.

If FMD hit, the response would be identical. The cattle actually in transport at that moment would be the only thing moving. Only the ones "on the road" would be of concern as far as stopping the spread of disease. How many are on the road at any given time? Compared to the general cattle population, not that many.

It's not the tags of the cattle in the trucks that they need to trace. It's the trucks themselves.

[grassfarmer]

Absolutely not Kato - you underestimate the problem of FMD versus a non-transmittable thing like BSE. When you mention the BSE outbreak though remember how the traceability system in use then failed? weeks and weeks trying to trace cohorts and movements through brands and auction mart slips and they still never did find them all.

Problem with FMD is once it's diagnosed its a time period after infection so there will likely have been many movements and contacts since the initial cases. It is critical these are traced ASAP. Asking owners to pick their animals up from the auction and haul them home isn't too bright if there were infected cattle at the auction. Of course if there were infected feeder cattle at the sale the previous week they could be scattered far and wide by now - infecting feedlots, the trucks they were hauled in, any subsequent animals hauled in those trucks or moving through the same auction. It seems like no-one believes how difficult an outbreak of FMD is until you have to live through it. We absolutely need a traceability system that works and we just do not have that at the moment.

[wilagro]

Holy s***, will somebody please either fix this software or instruct users as to how to use it.

I had to copy and paste into Notepad in order to make sense of the text in these discussions as the formatting is all over the map. Of course the graphics are discarded with this process but the graphics were screwed anyway.
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[smcgrath76]

GF - I agree with a large part of what
you say. One of the biggest challenges
now vs. FMD in the 1950s is the distance
and speed of movement of cattle. That
is a big concern.
I don't see a lot wrong with a system if
cattle can be scanned on the way into
and out of a truck and tied to a
manifest. The problem is still that
there are a lot of issues with the
technology and the issue of who pays.

[grassfarmer]

Sean, I don't see why the technology should be a problem. I remember a demo done at a big auction in England in '96 or '97 using I believe NZ technology. They tagged a % of cattle on farm prior to the demo then on sale day the cattle were run through an alley single file with an overhead scanner. They were read into the auction linked to the seller info and read out linked to the buyers info. The software was all in place to tie the scan data into the regular auction system so the age of animal, the number, it's individual subsidy claim status were all transmitted off the readers onto the auction computer system and sale ring screen. At the end of the day all the "off premisis" and "on premisis" movements would be transferred electronically to the central movement recording agency they had. So I don't buy it when everyone says it can't be done - anything else to do with computers and technology in the late 90s was in the dark ages compared to where we are now.

There is an issue of who pays and that is where we should be proactive - we should pay for the tags and the Government should pay for the scanning and traceabilty system - not the auctions. If there is an issue with tag loss go to two tags - the Govt tells the company to produce 2 for the price of 1. They did it in Europe so they can do it here, the tag companies are making good money - they also had to make and provide free replacements because the ID #s there were unique to each animal.
If all the cattle groups went to the Government saying we will implement the system but you pay for it we might get somewhere.
If we continue to P M about any form of tag or traceability system we will get something less workable imposed upon us - maybe something like HT's latest idea - it seems he wants to go the way of the horse folk and have us draw a picture of every animal complete with markings. Believe me we really do not want to go to a paper system when we have good EID tags that we aren't using.