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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Some weekly NAIS Highlights

By Jerry Hagstrom

WASHINGTON (DTN) -- House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer and other USDA officials Wednesday she believes the agency has "failed" to develop an animal identification program that could protect the nation's people and animals in the case of a communicable animal disease outbreak even though her subcommittee has provided $120 million over several years to do the job. Continues here>>>

This line here scares me a little about the thinking of some of the people we have allowed to be in charge: DeLauro said she was particularly offended that Agriculture Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Affairs Bruce Knight recently said if Congress does not approve the $24 million USDA has request Congress would be "'jeopardizing the nation's herd.'"

But DeLauro can be offended all she wants, from the way the article is written, she wants a national herd, she wants it mandatory.



The USDA's Knight admits that the animal identification program's success depends on convincing often-cantankerous cattle producers that his agency has no ill intent.

The above was from an article, Cattle industry mixed on USDA tracking plan |Tribune correspondent

I am going to have ask a friend of mine if he thinks he is cantankerous.

Oh! And you just have to love this ad/news from Digital Angel. You know that they are here to save us all? Don't you?

Digital Angels Livestock Tagging Products Help Secure Food Supply

The nations demand for meat products is becoming more and more complicated because of the co-mingling of livestock required to meet this demand. Co-mingled livestock comes from many different producers in many different locations. This complexity reinforces the need for reliable systems to be able to accurately identify the source, age, and other important information on each animal in our food chain. The goal of tracing from food production to fork of all beef produced in the U.S. is becoming increasingly non-negotiable. This major recall heightens the reality of this need.


3 comments:

Henwhisperer said...

Bruce Knight apparently said, and this was from an Australian article, that he took mandatory NAIS out behind the barn and shot it dead. You can find the link to the article on my blog.

I think things in NAIS world are getting harder for USDA.

Love the article about Rose DeLauro. She has not been NAIS' friend, as I understand it.

Anonymous said...

I too was interested in the Digital Angel news/ad - broken arm from patting themselves on the back for what??? Their chips had nothing to do with that recall! The problem was in the usual place - the processor. The farmer was long gone out of the picture. Most likely the cows were stressed and injured during their feed lot confinement and subsequent move to the processing plant, probably having come in as a group lot that would not have had chips anyway. Digital Angel would have looked far less foolish if they had not attempted to capitalize on this unfortunate event.

Mrs. R said...

It's all quite... chilling, isn't it?

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