Agricultural News
State Vet Dr. Rod Hall Believes the Animal Disease Trace-Back Program May Resurface in Early 2020
Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:07:28 CST
The Animal Disease trace-back program (ADT), was put on hold back in the middle part of 2019 by APHIS of the US Department of Agriculture.. State Veterinarian for Oklahoma, Dr. Rod Hall, believes strongly in the trace-back for all animals, whether it be for the older animals, or the younger animals- and is hopeful the delay getting the program moving forward will be short lived. At the time the program was put on hold this pasts fall, USDA issued a statement, available here.
Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with Dr. Rod Hall, and he says that program may be ready to move forward in 2020, "We were on a conference call just last week, with the USDA folks and that proposal that they had put out to transition to electronic identification for cattle, it was put on hold in October. They believe that they're going to go ahead and put that out for public comment probably next month in February. On the call, they were not sure how long it would be open for public comment. Probably 60 or 90 days, and then depending on those comments, they'll evaluate them, and then either decide to move forward with that timeline, although if they move forward with it, it probably has to be moved back about a year. Or I guess if the comments are overwhelming, that the producers do not want to transition to electronic ID, then maybe it won't happen at all. I do believe from the people that I've talked to, that most people believe that we do need to transition, so I believe it will move forward. I think we'll just kind of move back about a year though from what the original proposal was."
Hall said for right now the metal tags are out there, and they are still available, "They are. Although USDA said on this call, they're going to make about 8 million electronic tags available to give away. They want those to be used in replacement heifers, so animals that you know, the intention is they're going to be around for a long time, to better utilize that technology. They're going to give it out, based on the number of replacement heifers according to the USDA NAS data. We should be able to get up at 450,000 of those tags. It will be about a month before we can begin ordering those. We're going to ask veterinarians and producers to contact our office to order those. And then, hopefully, we'll have them drop-shipped from the Kansas City warehouse. But yeah, we are going to get a good number of free electronic tags that we will be able to start getting in animals."
Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear the complete interview with Rod Hall as he talks With Ron Hays.
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