At our summer meeting, we heard a clear message that producers are looking for more information on industry issues. WSGA is attempting to better communicate with you, the producer. Periodically, the WSGA will be sending out short position papers on what we believe are the most important issues impacting our industry. The first is traceability.

As we all know, communication is a two-way street, so we would appreciate your input. Please send us your opinions by mail, fax or e-mail or give us a quick call to express your views. If you would prefer, one of our board members or I would be happy to speak with you.

Sincerely,

Bill Hanson, President

WSGA supports the concept of beef cattle traceability (traceability) because it has virtue in assisting the authorities in determining which cattle have been exposed to a serious disease or dangerous contaminant, or equally importantly, which cattle have not been so exposed. This is essential in limiting the spread of animal or human disease and guaranteeing food safety.

WSGA does have the following concerns with proposals which have been circulated in consultation papers:

1. The premise must be clearly defined as "the operation of the owner including owned, leased and rented land as well as facilities such as grazing cooperatives, community pastures and feedlot pens occupied by the owner's cattle." The owner's records should suffice to determine which cattle occupied which facilities for what time period should that information be required.



2. Recording the movement of cattle must be restricted to the first arrival, or birth, of the animal on the premises, as defined above. Recording of movement of cattle within the premises is not needed.



3. The process of traceability and the technology used should not interfere with normal commerce in beef cattle. It is the law of the land that all cattle must bear a permanent, unique identification number tracing them back to their premises of origin. The ideal situation, which must be the target, is the ability to seamlessly and automatically have the identification number of each animal entering the premise (by whatever fashion - trailed, trucked, born) recorded. Given the high cost of panel (alley) reading systems for passive low frequency RFID (current CCIA technology) or the requirement to restrain animals to utilize lower cost hand held readers; WSGA is concerned that recording the movement on arrival at all premises other than those with very high volumes will remain a labor intensive and intrusive exercise subject to error because of manual data collection and input. Therefore, WSGA encourages the development and acceptance of different identification technologies that overcome these deficiencies.



4. The costs of the system, including tagging, reporting, recording, auditing, regulating and prosecuting for non-compliance must be borne by the recipient of the benefit. The system is largely a 'public good' and adds to the regulatory burden already borne by the cattle producer.



5. The information which may be associated with the animal identification, such as date of birth, treatment records, performance records and carcass quality could be of value to the provider of the genetics, cow/calf producer, the cattle feeder and the processor and is the property of the owner of the animal at the time the information was generated and associated with the animal ID. This "information property" shall only be sold, traded, shared or released at the owner's discretion.

For further clarification on some of these issues attached is the WSGA paper on Tracking from 2006. Not much has changed since then and therefore the position paper is still relevant today.