States to help design animal tracing system

States, not the federal government, would determine more of the specifics of an animal disease tracing system now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has jettisoned the long proposed national animal identification system, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday in Rapid City. Vilsack dropped plans in February for a mandatory system to track livestock from the ranch to the packing plant, citing strong opposition from ranchers at a series of listening sessions last year, including one in Rapid City. Speaking to the National Farmers Union annual convention in Rapid City, Vilsack said the listening sessions revealed a “multitude of concerns” about cost, paperwork and privacy of information. “We tried to listen carefully and respond to the concerns while at the same time creating a system that we believe will be more successful at traceability,” Vilsack told the group. He said USDA will work with state agriculture secretaries to develop a system to track cattle back to the state where they originated in case an animal disease breaks out. He said it should be up to individual states to determine the most appropriate method for further procedures. States can decide how far to take them, including to the farm where the animal was born, Vilsack said...read more