CCIA wants you to start verify movement of catlle

[ProFarmer]

CCIA wants farmers to start a passport system similar to the UK to track the movement of your cattle from yard to pasture home again and to market. More useless paperwork will cause farmers to throw up their arms and quit the business . I myself will refuse to do this unless all imported meat is held to the same level...

[Blaithin]

They'd do better trying to get more producers to follow current protocols instead of implementing more. It's amazing how many farmers still don't even use CCIA tags, be a bit of a stretch to expect them to do paperwork.

[grassfarmer]

The proposed changes are nothing like the European passport system. It's similar in that you have to report on and off farm movements but there is nothing linking it to individual animals or individual animal IDs. This is the important part of traceability and the one I'd liked to have seen introduced from the outset in 2001. It's the one that is critical in the face of an animal disease outbreak. We've wasted 18 years since then putting EID tags in at ranchers expense for zero benefit. If they'd been smart they'd have put the right kind of tags in from the outset - not the EIDs we are using now and automated the whole system. Read cattle tags into the auction, out of the auction, into the feedlot, out of the feedlot with individual cattle IDs linked to owner etc. Simple overhead readers on gates, alleys and cattle liner doors with the information passed on electronically to a central data base. The systems exist and the software exists - I saw it demonstrated in England back in '96 but Canada, like Europe is favouring the slow, dumb paper method instead. What is proposed is really no different than a paper livestock manifest system.

Note this is a CFIA proposal not CCIA. If you want to comment on it the 75 day comment period opened June 1st. Interestingly it doesn't appear to be posted on the CFIA website.
Info here:
http://http://www.beefproducer.ca/livestock-identification-and-traceability-program-trace-regulatory-update-n-5-june-1-st-2019/ http://http://www.beefproducer.ca/livestock-identification-and-traceability-program-trace-regulatory-update-n-5-june-1-st-2019/

[GDR]

CCIA wants farmers to start a passport system similar to the UK to track the movement of your cattle from yard to pasture home again and to market. More useless paperwork will cause farmers to throw up their arms and quit the business . I myself will refuse to do this unless all imported meat is held to the same level...

My cows will all be summer pastured on the same few acres they are wintered on!

[GDR]

Anyone have any recent experience with CFIA on disease trace backs? How did it go? Competance levels? Finger pointing? Maybe recent TB outbreaks in the south?

I know a fellow that had a go round with scrapie on sheep, from his stories sounds like a gong show. They had changed there focus and plan multiple times, destroyed some animals but not others that had the same exposure and test results. Prohibited sales of cleared animals from same operation but would not destroy or compensate for them.

[woodland]

GDR we had an experience with CFIA about ten years ago and it gave me zero faith in them to handle anything. I delivered a liner load of our own fats to xl foods in Calgary and there was a downer that couldn’t stand up when we unloaded. They euthanized a black heifer and I made a note of it’s ear tags and filled out some paperwork. They mailed a cheque for this animal which said it was a red steer with a metal ear tag and we’ve never used those. We phoned them to tell them of the mistake and they couldn’t care less. In fact they said “you got paid so why do you care?” If they bungled this what other more important things have they messed up on???

We don’t do bse tests anymore because of this. I know we should but I don’t trust them at all.

[woodland]

The proposed changes are nothing like the European passport system. It's similar in that you have to report on and off farm movements but there is nothing linking it to individual animals or individual animal IDs. This is the important part of traceability and the one I'd liked to have seen introduced from the outset in 2001. It's the one that is critical in the face of an animal disease outbreak. We've wasted 18 years since then putting EID tags in at ranchers expense for zero benefit. If they'd been smart they'd have put the right kind of tags in from the outset - not the EIDs we are using now and automated the whole system. Read cattle tags into the auction, out of the auction, into the feedlot, out of the feedlot with individual cattle IDs linked to owner etc. Simple overhead readers on gates, alleys and cattle liner doors with the information passed on electronically to a central data base. The systems exist and the software exists - I saw it demonstrated in England back in '96 but Canada, like Europe is favouring the slow, dumb paper method instead. What is proposed is really no different than a paper livestock manifest system.

Note this is a CFIA proposal not CCIA. If you want to comment on it the 75 day comment period opened June 1st. Interestingly it doesn't appear to be posted on the CFIA website.
Info here:
http://http://www.beefproducer.ca/livestock-identification-and-traceability-program-trace-regulatory-update-n-5-june-1-st-2019/ http://http://www.beefproducer.ca/livestock-identification-and-traceability-program-trace-regulatory-update-n-5-june-1-st-2019/

The one selling feature during the rollout of this whole “racket” was that we cow guys would get carcass data back as a carrot in exchange for putting tags in. The only way I know now if my carcasses are good enough is when the yearlings go to repeat buyers on the electronic sale (which they regularly do😎)

Otherwise all this expensive tag does is assigns any liability for that animal back to me ......... and they wonder why nobody is enthusiastic to put them in. My wife said that we could go on a nice getaway to the mountains for how much we spend on these plastic buttons every year.

[grassfarmer]

The one selling feature during the rollout of this whole “racket” was that we cow guys would get carcass data back as a carrot in exchange for putting tags in...

No, that came later. The initial push came partly as a response to the F&M outbreak in the UK 2001 when the ranchers that helped form CCIA realized the necessity of real traceability in the face of a similar disease outbreak. Unfortunately that was never pursued or it would have saved a lot of lives in the TB traceout.
EIDs were easier for the packing plants to read so the rancher had to pay to install them.
Later the packers could benefit in the beef export market if cattle were age verified so ranchers provided that service for free too. Then it was the carcass data as you said that was the carrot - don't know how much was ever learned from that exercise other than the packers got paid to provide the data back to the ranchers who had installed the tags for free.
Typical government bureaucracy, wasted years and how many dollars to achieve nothing?
This latest proposal is really no different to the livestock manifest system they had in Alberta - other than we still have to put on the useless $3 EID tag on every animal.

[WiltonRanch]

More ccia bs claptrap. Remember age verification or premisis id? I had a premisis id from the beginning but some years later get a letter saying my number is no good and I need a new one. Never bothered cause what’s the point? Same as tracking movements. This industry is in trouble with declining numbers of new ranchers starting and a lot of old buggers. Seriously who wants this bs?

[GDR]

GDR we had an experience with CFIA about ten years ago and it gave me zero faith in them to handle anything. I delivered a liner load of our own fats to xl foods in Calgary and there was a downer that couldn’t stand up when we unloaded. They euthanized a black heifer and I made a note of it’s ear tags and filled out some paperwork. They mailed a cheque for this animal which said it was a red steer with a metal ear tag and we’ve never used those. We phoned them to tell them of the mistake and they couldn’t care less. In fact they said “you got paid so why do you care?” If they bungled this what other more important things have they messed up on???

We don’t do bse tests anymore because of this. I know we should but I don’t trust them at all.

Ya no doubt they mix up the bse sample with another and you wind up with a whole lot of problems.

[GDR]

I hate those dam button tags, I put them in the calves at birth when processing, when shipping calves in the fall always got a couple to replace. They think you tag a cow and it's good for life but I bet they wouldnt make 50% retention by the time a cow has put in her time. Either RIP out, break, or the hole gets to big and they pull out. Might be only $4 but still gets me pissy when I find them and no cow is attached.

Dont need anymore paperwork, electronic or manual, the downloading of labour and cost to primary producers has to stop.

[Blaithin]

I like that they're used as an example of how to find animals that are stolen or missing. "Oh well the auction will scan the tag so we'll know"

Not that I think cattle rustlers are always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm sure even they could manage to cut a tag out.

Microchip technology could be interesting, at least then my fence wouldn't have more ID's then my herd.

[smcgrath76]

Just a couple of historic notes. A couple of the main reasons for tag choice at the time were...
Microchips were out because of fear of migration of the chip into the meat. There was also some discussion about producer training to implant and the lack of ability to rapidly/visually assess whether an animal had an ID without having a reader. This last reason also applied to some of the Rumen Bolus ID products as well.

The HF tags (bigger read range, lower cost, etc.) were not used as there was concern at the packing plant level about cross reads in close proximity on the rail. This was because the legislation made the plants responsible for "retiring" individual tags and tying them to an individual carcass (at least to the point of inspection).

This choice way back when, means that high speed group reads from a distance are not likely to happen, and moving that way means that the existing inventory and technology would have to be grandfathered/replaced/etc.

[littledoggie]

This choice way back when, means that high speed group reads from a distance are not likely to happen, and moving that way means that the existing inventory and technology would have to be grandfathered/replaced/etc.

A bureaucrats' dream come true.