Age verification?

[cowman]

This spring we just stuck a regular tag in all the calves as they were born. Every calf has a record of birth, mother,sire, birthdate etc., you know whatever the calf book has in it? In the next couple of weeks we intend to put in the RFID tags and I guess do the age verification thing? I don't know if that is going to be worth any extra money but I guess it doesn't cost anything other than time and aggravation!
It always seems there is so much work to get caught up on in the fall that time is always short and it is almost like a race to the finish line before the snow flies!

[EBusch]

I have a young acquaintance that works in a southern auction market part time while attending university in Lethbridge. She said the age verification info is inputted into the computer and a print out handed to the buyers who promptly throw it in the garbage !!! Apparently their reasoning is that if they buy a lot of 40 calves with age verification info they are placed in pens with another 400 that don't so it doesn't make any sense to them !!! The day we start getting a pay back for the added cost will be the day that a lot of cattle producers will be willing to spend the time and money.

[kpb]

emerald, your last comments were right on the mark. We buy calves every fall and I can't see any way that we would pay a premium right now for age verification. The calves get mixed in the pen with calves that are not age verified so what's the advantage? All the buyers I know couldn't care less about verification. It's just more work for the cow-calf guy.

kpb

[pmckenna]

So why don't you just buy them, put them in, and get it over with.

[cowman]

Well we do intend to do it. If the Japanese require age verification and if the RFID tag and recorded age meet that requirement then I guess that is what we must do?
Not sure if the Japanese are going to accept other methods at this time? Consider this: What happens if age verification through the RFID tag is the preferred method for Japanese buying? As the carcasses roll through the line at Cargill do they send one bunch into the Japanese export cooler and the others to Domestic or North American cooler? Now in your 400 head pen maybe those 40 head of aged verified cattle will get a premium? I would think the feeders would be demanding all cattle be age verified on the chance that this might be how it plays out?
Maybe this idea is to early, but in the long run I think it is a good idea. Hopefully people will be honest and truthful with the program! Perhaps in years to come it could include things like medications, hormones given, and pesticides applied? I think anytime you can give the customer information on the product it should be a good thing...if they want it?

[farmers_son]

Cowman: You said “I think anytime you can give the customer information on the product it should be a good thing...if they want it?” I would disagree.

We should never give the customer what they want. We should only give the customer what they will pay for. The customer will always have endless demands and desires. The only control on those demands and wants is when they have to pay for them; then all of a sudden the customer has to discriminate between what is really of value and importance to them and what is not.

I would point out that our customer is not the consumer in Japan. I wish it was but it is not so unless we are participants in our own packing plant. For most producers the customer is whoever buys their calves at the auction mart. For the rest the customer is no further down the value chain than the packing plant. As far as I know no one is paying for age verification and no generally accepted means of age verification other than dentition exists in this country.

When people muse about how we can add value by age verification or any of the other suggestions there is out there they are completely ignoring how dysfunctional the market for live cattle is in this country. Producers are not even getting paid a fair price for their fat cattle as it is, forget getting paid for value adding like age verification.

At some point, hopefully in the near future, Japan and the U.S. will announce the requirements for importing North American beef into Japan. Those requirements will be the same for Canada as for the U.S. However I do not see our packing industry paying a premium for live cattle that qualify for export to Japan. The industry (packing plants) will try to segregate the youthful product for the Japan market from the existing commodity pool of live cattle which by default means the little older cattle will be what the North American consumer will get in their supermarket coolers.

[cowman]

Okay, you might be right.
However if Cargill/IBP decide they need age verification and if their customers accept the CCA idea for that verification then I would suggest it might be prudent to get with the program? I mean in reality what does it cost you? You are already putting in the RFID tags...how hard is it to write the calfs tag number down beside it and send that in to the ID agency? This is going to break you or something?
I don't believe "premium" is really in the packers vocabulary but "discount" definitely is! And they seem to enjoy adding up all the little discounts possible...so why give them another one?

[farmers_son]

Sure. However the issue will not be decided by Cargill/IBP. It is being negotiated by the U.S. and Japan and we will know what will be used to age verify cattle once it is announced that beef trade is resuming with Japan. I think grading standards are more likely to be used to verify age rather than electronic ear tags. Dentition can be used to verify 24 months old as well as 30 months old and will provide a means of opening trade with Japan if Japan would back off from insisting 21 months is the cut off point. We need to remember the issue with Japan is not strictly food safety but also protectionism as they seek ways to support their domestic producers and as such the solution will be political rather than based on science or fact.

Whatever is used, I think we will not see the Americans negotiate a resumption of beef trade with Japan that will see Canada gain any kind of competitive advantage. We will see continual harmonization of our industry with the U.S. industry. I would not expect Cargill and Tyson to initiate any efforts on their own to sell beef to Japan. They really do not care as there is a home for all the beef they can process now. They are making good money with the status quo.

While I certainly look forward to the day when those ear tags can be used in some fashion to increase the value back to the producer, our packing industry has absolutely no intention of seeing any of the resulting profits slip through their fingers and make it to the producer level. With our present industry structure the packers are only interested in seeing the producer get sufficient level of returns to barely keep in production.

It is going to take a paradigm shift in the industry before producers actually can realize higher returns from value adding with their electronic ear tags or anything else. And while I hear support for change at the producer level I do not see the kind of changes we need to create a functioning market for live cattle in this country happening yet.

[greybeard]

I think they are using age verification now to avoid doing the dentition when calves go to the US. Saves mouthing every calf.As FS says, they don't have to pay for it. It should come as a discount on your marketing charges,as it is saving work at the market. They will be charging the buyers for the dentation service.

[kato]

At the moment the teeth rule. When it suits the USDA.

Here is something that happened just a couple of weeks ago in Manitoba. An animal was mouthed, and the teeth were good. Not the least bit questionable. However, when that steer got to the packing plant, the USDA vet decided he didn't look young enough, so pulled him out of the line, and called the CFIA to trace his tag. They did so, and found that the animal was indeed 31 months old. One month older than allowed, and yet the teeth said he wasn't even close to being too old. So much for dentition.

Result ... a vet lost his accreditation, the shipper had the animal tanked, and very likely the exporter lost his licence too. We're lucky they didn't try and shut the border again.

The bottom line is that the means of deciding which animals are too old, and which are not is a long way from being consistent. Now they don't just have to have good teeth, they have to "look" young. Very subjective way to decide something so important.

The sooner we can make the move to verified actual dates the better, as long as we have to live with the current rules. I don't see anyone down south knocking themselves out to change the rules either, so we had better get at it.

The day may come when we may see a return on our effort, but if we don't do it then we are guaranteed to see no return. This spring we wrote the birthdates right on our calves eartags too. As someone who assists a vet inspecting cattle for export, seeing a date written on the calf adds to the very narrow comfort zone we are living with. Nothing scarier than mouthing a big steer of unknown origin that has been shuffled through the auction and cattle buyer system, except maybe inspecting a heifer with the same history!

For the vets involved in this endeavour, the stakes are so much higher than most people realize. One mistake means the loss of export accreditation, with no, and I do mean NO opportunity to regain it. How many of us would do a job where there was zero tolerance for making even one error? Give this enough time, and we may run out of accredited vets.

[gwf]

*Montana researchers find answers to animal ID questions* October 28,
2005 Montana State University Montana researchers have answered some of
the questions raised by the proposed creation of a national livestock
identification program, said John Paterson, director of the Montana Beef
Network and Montana State University Extension beef specialist.
They've found, for example, that it's possible to scan electronic ear
tags while animals are moving and that handheld wand-scanners work
better than other scanners. They have found that metal fences can
interfere with scanners. They tracked cattle, with 90 percent accuracy,
from a ranch in one state to a pasture in another state to a feedlot in
a third.
Researchers with the Montana Beef Network conducted three studies this
year that produced those results, Paterson said. The network, based at
MSU, works in close partnership with the Montana Department of Livestock
and the Montana Stockgrowers Association. One study tracked calves from
a Montana ranch through a Montana auction market. Another tracked cattle
from a Montana ranch to wheat pastures in eastern Oklahoma, through an
auction market in Oklahoma and finally to a feedlot in Nebraska. The
third study, which is in progress, has tracked calves from Montana to
Idaho and back to Montana. It will next follow the calves to a feedlot
in Kansas.
The first study, which involves the auction market in Ramsey, involved
200 calves born in Montana, said Andy Kellom, field representative for
the Montana Beef Network. The researchers divided the calves into four
groups, then tagged three groups at the owner's ranch and one at the
Montana Livestock Company in Ramsey. Each tag contained a unique
15-digit number that is often called an RFID tag or electronic tag. It
stays with the animal until it is harvested.
"Our hypothesis was that this scenario would be one of the hardest
places to follow through," Kellom said, referring to the auction market
where hundreds of calves are sold through the auction ring.
For this study, two types of scanners were used, Kellom said. One was a
portable handheld wand they waved past the calves' ear tags. The other
was more stationary and was built into a portable alley that looked like
a security checkpoint at an airport. As the calves walked through it,
the scanner automatically read their ear tags. Information from both
scanners was transferred into a computer.
The researchers found that metal fences at the auction market interfered
with the stationary alley scanners, Kellom said. As a result, this
scanner read only 60 percent of the ear tags. The handheld portable
wands, on the other hand, read every ear tag, but researchers had to
slow down the calves as they came down the alley.
"We found out it wasn't as easy as we thought," Kellom said, adding that
doorway scanners might work better if they were part of a permanent
structure at the auction house rather than a portable device.
In the second study, Ryan Clark tracked 500 steers from Melvillle,
Mont., to a wheat pasture in Cherokee, Okla., to a feedlot in Ainsworth,
Neb. Clark, another field representative with the Montana Beef Network,
scanned the steers with a wand when they got off the truck in Oklahoma,
and the wand worked every time. The calves were then mixed with other
cattle in a pasture. Six months later, they were taken to a feedlot next
to an Oklahoma auction market and scanned with a wand. This time, the
wand read 96 percent of the ear tags.
From there, approximately 450 steers went to a Nebraska feedlot where
they are now, Clark said. They will be scanned in mid-September before
being harvested in a packing plant. The other 50 steers were sold and
split up and data were lost.
"It's possible to track them from stop to stop to stop, but there will
be issues like lost tags, tags that won't scan and calves sold through
the auction market and split up that will be lost in the system," Clark
said.
In the third project, Kellom traced calves that were born in Idaho,
shipped to Montana, returned to Idaho and then shipped to a feedlot and
packing plant in the Midwest. The calves were tagged in Montana and
scanned when they returned to Idaho. Accuracy this time was 99 percent
for the wands and 83 percent for the portable alley scanners. The alley
scanners performed better in this study because the corrals were wooden
instead of metal, Kellom said.
He noted that the researchers used multiple scanners as the calves came
off the truck, so the radio frequencies interfered with each other. One
solution might be scanners built into plastic panels, Kellom said.
Attached to wooden fences, the panels could read ear tags as the calves
walked by them.
Paterson said the Montana Beef Network has other projects that are
either under way or planned. One longer-term project will compare tags
manufactured by three different companies to determine retention rates
and readability after several years. This study will involve
approximately 3,000 cows.
This article is available on the web at
http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csnews/nwview.php?article=2693.

[cowman]

Well I don't find the Montana study all that reassuring? Hopefully they'll get the technology up to speed in the near future?
I doubt the Japanese are going to go for the 24 month cut off the US wants? Now maybe they will be able to bully them into it but it sure hasn't been working so far? If they hold firm on 20 months then age verification through the RFID tag will be about the only way to go...or maybe signed statements in the case of US ranches?
I realize that you (farmers son) have been pushing the idea of producer owned plants to create a competitive market and I don't disagree with you 100% on that, however creating a safe product that the consumer will accept is a neccessity if any of us want to stay in business? Without a doubt the producer will get stuck with the bill and the work...but what else is new? The RFID tag and age verification fall on the cow/calf sector while everyone else in the food chain will benifit!

[farmers_son]

Interesting comments. Cowman, certainly our industry needs to produce a safe product that the consumer will accept. And I think we are doing that very well right now.

Japans insistence on age verification of 20 or 21 months is not based on science. It is based on protectionism because they are aware of the problems surrounding age verification in animals that young. I suggest that if there was a workable easy method of age verification at 20 months the Japanese would be insisting on 17 months. The science says that 30 months is a safe age, 24 months is a fair compromise. The Japanese claims to have a younger animal test positive for BSE but that test is suspect. I believe that Japan has never allowed that test to be confirmed by any international agency such as Weybridge. Doubt could be raised about the accuracy of the claimed age of the animal too.

Our beef is safe. Period. We need to remember that. The U.S. negotiating team has not announced what protocols will have to be in place that Japan will accept for importation of North American beef. Although Canadian industry people are suggesting that the RFID tags are going to provide Canada with sure fire advantage to ship beef to Japan I am suggesting that it is very, very unlikely that the Americans will negotiate a protocol with Japan that would see Canada gain any kind of competitive advantage. As for exporting live cattle to the U.S. from Canada, producers need to be aware that the protocols that the U.S. has in place for our live cattle are specifically designed to be an impediment to trade. The U.S. is not going to consider allowing Canada to streamline those rules by allowing a quicker and easier method of age verification such as a RFID tag with on farm age verification, at least until trade resumes with Japan. Probably not even then.

I found the research being done in Montana interesting. It should not be assumed that the Americans will just adopt the same tag we are using. Canadians may have to change tags again if that happens. However I see trade with Japan being based on the actual animal and carcass traits, not ear tags. New grading standards, perhaps a combination of dentition to confirm under 24 months and bone and muscle characteristics are more likely. In any case the safety of the beef is achieved through removal of the SRMS.

Kato: Good comments. I noted “The sooner we can make the move to verified actual dates the better, as long as we have to live with the current rules.” Lets face it, just because a producer writes a date on an ear tag that is not proof positive of its accuracy. Especially when you consider the discounts for over age animals. Are producers willing to accept the responsibility for age verification? If the vet looses his/her accreditation for a mistake which may or may not have been their fault what makes producers think they are immune from similar punishments. It is not too far a stretch in imagination to presume that a producer could loose their right to sell cattle if there was a mistake entering a date in an official document. Verification by definition means that controls would be in place to ensure producer compliance. Those rules would not be a simple slap on the wrist or a letter from some agency. They would have to be severe to work. Is that what Canadian producers really want just so the Americans can sell beef to Japan?

[kato]

At the moment, in those cases where a vet loses accreditation, the exporter also loses the right to export.

Another thing I have heard from several vets is that some of them are investigating the possibility of suing a producer who knowingly misleads them for damages caused by the loss of business due to the vet losing accreditation. They won't talk about it, but they are thinking of it. The responsibility will be passed on to the producers eventually, of that we can be sure.

[cowman]

farmers son: I do agree that a lot of the problems we face is nothing more than protectionism...by both the US and Japan.
However the concept of the ID tracing ability should go way beyond BSE? When the CCA first started pushing the idea BSE wasn't much of a concern here?
I well remember the controversy that took place when they first started pushing the idea of a national mandatory ID system. At first I thought it was totally unecessary but after attending an info meeting and talking with the late Carl Block I came to see it as a positive thing! There are still a few things I'm not too keen on? Like the fact that the cow/calf producer carries the ball for everyone? Also the fact that info only flows one way and there is no reward going back down the line? If I could get info back on how that steer cut out and graded it would be well worth the time and money? Help me decide if I was following the proper breeding program?
It definitely isn't the perfect program but it is a start? I do believe it would be helpful if everything that happened to that steer, from the time he left the farm to the day he ends up in the cooler, was recorded? Including hormones, anti-biotics, pesticides etc.
Now without a doubt good faith and honesty are paramount in this system and I like to think most producers are honest and wouldn't try to cheat? Perhaps I am naive?