630 CHED.com
October 21, 2010
The Alberta government and representatives of the province's beef cattle industry have reached an agreement that will provide the foundation for livestock traceability in Alberta.
The Guiding Principles for Beef Cattle Traceability establishes an acceptable common understanding of traceability among government and industry partners as they move towards a national beef traceability system.
The Alberta Beef Producers, the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, the Beef Industry Alliance, the Canadian Beef Breeds Council, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency and Livestock Inspection Services all signed the agreement.
Agriculture Minister Jack Hayden says a strong traceability system enables producers to enter valuable foreign markets, China being a recent example, and receive the premium prices that their high-quality products deserve.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Field Reps Get Funding for Alberta's Beef Producers Age-Verification
Vermillion Standard
September 24, 2010
The governments of Canada and Alberta are providing more than $2 million to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) to help Alberta's beef producers with age-verification and traceability initiatives.
"The main thing we do at CCIA is look after the animal ID database. Animal ID is mandatory across all of Canada," said Darcy Eddleston, CCIA chair. The CCIA is a non-profit, industry led organization established to promote and protect animal health and food safety concerns in the Canadian cattle herd.
"There are three pillars of traceability: animal ID, premise ID and animal movement. Age verification is not one of the pillars but we can't seem to talk about traceability without age verification," said Eddleston.
Animal ID is a unique 15-digit number found on an ear tag worn by each animal, explained Eddleston. When the producer goes into the store and buys RFID ear tags, those numbers are recorded and assigned to that producer. In the future if that animal has to be traced back for a disease reason, the number will lead back to that producer's farm. "Premise ID is a unique identification number for a specific land location," said Eddleston. "Once we have the number for that location, we have the ability to track movement." According to Eddleston, premise ID is still in the developmental phase. The Alberta government has generated premise IDs for most of the land locations in the province and the other provinces have varying levels of completion.
"What happened was the federal government turned premise ID over to the provinces," said Eddleston.
"Part of the problem from CCIA's point of view is we need to be able to integrate all the different provinces, the way they handle premise ID, into our database. Every province is doing things a little differently but in the end we'll all end up at the same spot." Animal movement is the ability to track an animal's movement from one premise to another. "We can't do movement until we get premise," said Eddleston.
"There is some movement being recorded in Alberta; any feedlot over 1,000 head has to report on a read-in basis. The industry went to a read-in basis so the average producer doesn't have to incur the cost of going out and buying a scanner so he or she can read-out the cattle when they leave the farm. Over 90 per cent of the time, when a producer sells calves they're going to a feed lot, where they're restrained and the feedlot has the ability to scan the tag anyway."
Brent McEwan, executive director of traceability within Alberta Agriculture, said the over $2 million grant will provide two years of funding for the Mobile Field Representatives (MFRs) who support producers across the province. "It's really to assist producers with age-verifying their animals," said McEwan. "All MFRs are typically available at all auction markets on sales days to help producers and enter their information into the Canadian livestock tracking system which is the CCIA database." They also help educate producers on how to keep records and address some tag issues, said McEwan. "With the number of tags and taggers out there sometimes it gets kind of confusing for producers and the MFRs certainly help out there."
McEwan said Alberta made age verification mandatory in January 2009. Feed lots feeding 5,000 head or more per year were required to report move-in within their auction markets to the CCIA database also starting in January 2009. As of January 2010, it is mandatory for feed lots feeding 1,000 head or more to report move-in, he said. "The MFRs assist the feed lots in those efforts as well," explained McEwan.
"Also, if producers are having trouble accessing the CCIA database online, all the MFRs have computers and can enter the information right then and there for producers and often even provide them a print out of their information." McEwan said his staff works closely with the MFRs to make sure the field representatives are up-to-date on the latest government programs so that they can answer any questions the producers have. MFRs are available to all producers in the province, he said. "At CCIA we're very pleased that both the provincial and federal governments saw the value of the MFRs and have contributed to the program to help move age-verification in the province forward," said Eddleston. "We're working on what the industry is capable of doing and what is required for government purposes."
September 24, 2010
The governments of Canada and Alberta are providing more than $2 million to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) to help Alberta's beef producers with age-verification and traceability initiatives.
"The main thing we do at CCIA is look after the animal ID database. Animal ID is mandatory across all of Canada," said Darcy Eddleston, CCIA chair. The CCIA is a non-profit, industry led organization established to promote and protect animal health and food safety concerns in the Canadian cattle herd.
"There are three pillars of traceability: animal ID, premise ID and animal movement. Age verification is not one of the pillars but we can't seem to talk about traceability without age verification," said Eddleston.
Animal ID is a unique 15-digit number found on an ear tag worn by each animal, explained Eddleston. When the producer goes into the store and buys RFID ear tags, those numbers are recorded and assigned to that producer. In the future if that animal has to be traced back for a disease reason, the number will lead back to that producer's farm. "Premise ID is a unique identification number for a specific land location," said Eddleston. "Once we have the number for that location, we have the ability to track movement." According to Eddleston, premise ID is still in the developmental phase. The Alberta government has generated premise IDs for most of the land locations in the province and the other provinces have varying levels of completion.
"What happened was the federal government turned premise ID over to the provinces," said Eddleston.
"Part of the problem from CCIA's point of view is we need to be able to integrate all the different provinces, the way they handle premise ID, into our database. Every province is doing things a little differently but in the end we'll all end up at the same spot." Animal movement is the ability to track an animal's movement from one premise to another. "We can't do movement until we get premise," said Eddleston.
"There is some movement being recorded in Alberta; any feedlot over 1,000 head has to report on a read-in basis. The industry went to a read-in basis so the average producer doesn't have to incur the cost of going out and buying a scanner so he or she can read-out the cattle when they leave the farm. Over 90 per cent of the time, when a producer sells calves they're going to a feed lot, where they're restrained and the feedlot has the ability to scan the tag anyway."
Brent McEwan, executive director of traceability within Alberta Agriculture, said the over $2 million grant will provide two years of funding for the Mobile Field Representatives (MFRs) who support producers across the province. "It's really to assist producers with age-verifying their animals," said McEwan. "All MFRs are typically available at all auction markets on sales days to help producers and enter their information into the Canadian livestock tracking system which is the CCIA database." They also help educate producers on how to keep records and address some tag issues, said McEwan. "With the number of tags and taggers out there sometimes it gets kind of confusing for producers and the MFRs certainly help out there."
McEwan said Alberta made age verification mandatory in January 2009. Feed lots feeding 5,000 head or more per year were required to report move-in within their auction markets to the CCIA database also starting in January 2009. As of January 2010, it is mandatory for feed lots feeding 1,000 head or more to report move-in, he said. "The MFRs assist the feed lots in those efforts as well," explained McEwan.
"Also, if producers are having trouble accessing the CCIA database online, all the MFRs have computers and can enter the information right then and there for producers and often even provide them a print out of their information." McEwan said his staff works closely with the MFRs to make sure the field representatives are up-to-date on the latest government programs so that they can answer any questions the producers have. MFRs are available to all producers in the province, he said. "At CCIA we're very pleased that both the provincial and federal governments saw the value of the MFRs and have contributed to the program to help move age-verification in the province forward," said Eddleston. "We're working on what the industry is capable of doing and what is required for government purposes."
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