Cattlemen Seek Checkoff Changes Cattle producers in Nebraska and other states are pushing for the first significant change to the national beef checkoff program since it started more than 20 years ago. The beef checkoff program is behind the popular "Beef, It's What's for Dinner" ads that feature the distinctive voice of actor Sam Elliott. At a dollar a head, the checkoff fee pools about $80 million annually for beef promotion, research and education, among other things. But more than two decades of inflation have decreased the buying power of that dollar, say checkoff supporters. Some state chapters of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association want Congress to hike the checkoff to $2, while others want producers who pay the checkoff to vote on whether it should rise. The program remains much the same since Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start it in the mid-1980s, according to association representative Don Ricketts. The Colorado-based group administers many of the beef checkoff dollars. "There are so many more issues today, and the dollar doesn't go as far as it used to," Ricketts said. Ricketts said that under one proposal, future hikes in the checkoff would require only a vote of those who pay the checkoff and not approval from Congress. The association plans to meet in February to vote on proposals and then lobby Congress to approve the changes....
Dutch milk suspected behind Japanese mad cow outbreaks Dutch-produced milk made from animal fat powder may have been a cause of the outbreak of mad cow disease in Hokkaido and Kanto, the agricultural ministry said in an investigative report Friday, according to a Kyodo news report. The report, based on investigations on 32 of the 33 Japanese cows that have been confirmed infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), found that it was likely that 13 of the 32 cows had been infected through milk made on animal fat powder produced by a feed plant in the Netherlands. The ministry, however, said that its conclusion is not definite, partly because Dutch and other reports deny that animal fat is a cause of BSE. The 13 cows were all born in either Hokkaido or in the Kanto region between 1995 and 1996....
Senate Slips Chicken Into COOL Farm Bill Provision The Senate added chicken to its version of the country-of-origin labeling provision in the 2007 farm bill passed late Friday, even though nearly all chicken consumed in the United States is grown domestically. "Chicken meat will be treated no differently than other cuts of meat under the law now," Majority Communications Director for the Senate Agriculture Committee Kate Cyrul told Meatingplace.com. The legislative language says "whole chicken, or in part." The National Chicken Council did not oppose the amendment, spokesman Richard Lobb told Meatingplace.com. "It's getting to the point that there will be some poultry imported," he said, noting the recently signed free trade agreement allows Chile to export chicken to the United States. "And there are a number of other countries in the queue that sooner or later will get authorization." Currently, "about 99.9 percent" of all chicken consumed in the United States is produced domestically. But with red meat COOL labeling on the horizon, Lobb said consumers might start wondering where the chicken they purchase came from....
A Business Plan To Advance Animal Disease Traceability Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service We are advising the public that we are making available for review and comment a Business Plan to Advance Animal Disease Traceability. The Business Plan details recommended strategies and actions to enable existing State and Federal regulated and voluntary animal health programs, industry-administered management and marketing programs, and various animal identification methods to work in harmony with the National Animal Identification System. The Business Plan is available on the Internet at http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/.
National Animal Identification System; User Guide and Additional Information Resources Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service We are advising the public that we are have prepared a revised version of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) User Guide that was originally released in draft form in November 2006. The revised User Guide contains the most current information on how the system works and how producers may participate in the NAIS. We are making the revised User Guide available for review and comment. The revised User Guide is available on the Internet at http://animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/.
K-State Tests Animal ID System That Might Detect Cattle Disease Thanks to research taking place at K-State's Beef Stocker Unit, modern-day cowboys could soon be using a bit of old-fashioned science to fight disease in the feedlot. Dale Blasi, a K-State professor of animal sciences and industry, is researching the effectiveness of a new radio-frequency identification ear tag that takes the animal's temperature. Elevated temperature is thought to be a precursor to the onset of disease. The tag, which is manufactured and marketed by a company called TekVet, looks like a traditional plastic identification tag, except that it has an active, battery-powered radio frequency transmitter attached to it. The tag goes on the animal's left side and has a flexible thermometer that slides down the ear canal next to the tympanic membrane. The thermometer periodically takes the calf's temperature and transmits the data to a dish located in the feed yard. The dish then transmits the temperature data to tracking software developed by the same company. Blasi said that the software can be set by temperature - normal for a cow is in the 100-102 degree range - to alert lot managers of an elevated reading. This gives workers who do visual inspections a heads up on which cows might be sick....
Congress slashes animal ID funding USDA is going to have less money than hoped for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) this year. Congress trimmed the Bush administration's budget request for NAIS in fiscal year 2008 by more than two-thirds. This past Wednesday, USDA unveiled a new business plan for the NAIS. Later that day, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bruce Knight told Brownfield one of the reasons the new plan will work is because the Bush administration planned to fully fund the program. "Because of the importance of animal ID, we're carrying forward full speed ahead with the optimism that we will be able to garner enough funds from Congress and from carryover to be able to implement this program in a robust and full manner," Knight said. But Congress didn’t cooperate. In the omnibus spending measure passed by Congress last week, lawmakers approved just $9.75 million for the NAIS animal in fiscal year 2008, less than a third of the more than $33.2 million requested by USDA....
EU makes sheep and goat tags compulsory by end of '09 EU ministers agreed on Monday to introduce electronic tags for millions of sheep and goats across the European Union by the end of 2009, part of a strategy to prevent epidemics of contagious diseases like foot-and-mouth. Back in December 2003, the bloc's farm ministers agreed new animal tagging rules to replace a system where only flocks of sheep and herds of goats are tracked when moved from farm to farm, sold at market or sent for slaughter. But at that time, electronic tagging systems were not sufficiently advanced or developed for this to be feasible, so it was agreed that more research needed to be conducted first. After studying a European Commission assessment report of pilot projects, the ministers agreed to delay introducing compulsory tagging by two years to the end of 2009, rather than the start of January 2008. Italy and Spain voted against. Unique identifier codes are carried by the animal either on an eartag or inside its digestive tract. The identification number can then be read using either a portable or fixed electronic reader....
Austin cloning firm to propose animal registry An Austin animal cloning company is to announce plans today to build a national registry of most cloned animals in an attempt to quiet concerns from the meat and dairy industry. The registry will track the animals using a radio frequency identification and could be used by food and dairy producers to tout their products as "clone-free." Austin-based ViaGen and Iowa-based Trans Ova Genetics, two of the top animal cloning companies, are to present the plan in a conference call today. The registry is being unveiled as two pieces of legislation in Congress are being pushed that would stop the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from releasing a final assessment clearing cloned animals and their offspring as safe for the food supply. The legislation asks for more studies on the issue of milk and meat from cloned animals and is supported by Consumers Union and the Humane Society of the United States....