Dairy Plight Highlights Traceability Needs
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
There exists a unique parallel in the discussion of animal disease traceability: farmers and ranchers recognize the importance of promptly addressing animal health incidents, yet they are equally concerned about maintaining their privacy. This dual perspective underscores the complexity of implementing effective traceability systems.
Nothing’s ever easy, it it?
Gene Noem of the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s Executive Committee says traceability should be on the mind of all livestock producers…
“I'm going to use an example elsewhere to say how it could work here because some of the countries that have been exposed to African swine fever have worked with the USDA and other trading partners to create this concept of regionalization. This is the area where it ain't, if you will, and we need to figure out a way to mimic that here in the United States. The dairy industry is interested in traceability. The beef industry, as a result of what's going on in the dairy industry, is interested in traceability. I'm not going to pretend that there aren't a lot of people in the industry who are saying, ‘You want to know what about my farm?’ We got a long row to hoe here by the fact that we've got to gain confidence that information is going to be confidential, going to be secure, and it's going to be used by only the parties that we say it's going to be used by, and that is a confidence builder. So, this database of record, and how it houses data is important.”
Gene Noem of the USMEF Executive Committee
