041150 States Test Cattle Tracking

Emmet, ID - Federal policy is meeting Western reality on the rangelands of Idaho, where ranching culture, technological glitches and the bitter cold all are potential obstacles to plans to track livestock and protect the food supply from disease and bioterrorism.

Fearing another incident such as last December's discovery of a mad-cow case in Washington state, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to develop a national network that would track, within 48 hours, every contact an infected animal has had in its life.

Agriculture Department officials said a second case of mad-cow disease may have turned up. Officials investigating that case released few details, but said conclusive tests could take four to seven days.

If the final system were in place now, government officials could track all the cows that animal had contact with before the tests were even finished.

The proposed tracking network casts a wide net. In addition to cattle, it would track horses, poultry, bison, sheep, hogs and farmed fish. Farmers with a milk cow or two would participate alongside ranchers with thousands of range cattle. Even kids who raise and exhibit an animal as a 4-H project would be part of the network.

Such strict tracking is necessary, officials say, because it took just one infected Holstein last year to lead more than 30 countries to close their borders to U.S. beef.

But the vast scope of western ranching is a problem in itself. Herds mingle on thousands of square miles of public range for weeks or months on end. Some grazing allotments cross state borders, and some herds graze on both public and private lands.

"It's good that we're getting this started now, because there's going to be glitches," said Jim England, a University of Idaho veterinarian who's testing some of the new tracking devices being used in Idaho.

England discovered a few of those glitches at Emmett's livestock sales yard, about 25 miles northwest of Boise, where he was checking electronic identification tags attached to the ears of a volunteer's herd. He had a hard time getting within range of many of the calves -- the tag reader only works within a foot of the tag.

Another system employs personal digital assistants, "but the Palm Pilot screen shatters at about zero degrees, so that won't work in some areas," England said. "One electronic tag reader wouldn't read at zero degrees."

England and others are test-driving the systems, underwritten by some of the $1.1 million in federal grant money Idaho received. The grant also will pay for a registration database of all the places in Idaho beef producers keep cattle.

For now, producers can register their business locations voluntarily at no charge. But England and other industry experts predict some kind of system -- electronic tagging, branding, or something else -- could become mandatory within a few years.

Most ranchers seem reconciled to the idea. "It's something everybody knows they need to address," said Guy Colyer, owner of Colyer Herefords in Bruneau, a small town about 50 miles southeast of Boise. He has about 350 cows that eventually will be tagged under the new system.

"It's going to be a complicated situation for most producers, but with the electronic system they're developing it's not going to be impossible," Colyer said. "It's another tool to give the consumer more confidence that their beef is as safe as can possibly be."

But the notion of government tracking grates on some ranchers, who hold dear the western notion of independence and freedom from government controls.

Glenn Elzinga, the owner of Alderspring Ranch in Tendoy, Idaho, is raising 440 cattle that are hormone and antibiotic free and never taken to feedlots. He said it should be up to the consumer -- not the government -- to find out where their beef is coming from.

"Folks can do this by going to farmers markets or directly to farms, asking at their stores. There's information on the Internet for people interested in their beef," Elzinga said. "But a national ID system is an unnecessary cost in a nation where most consumers don't even care. ... Most people aren't even concerned about the country of origin."

Animals can be more easily tracked in the western states because the industry there already has a cattle-brand registry. States east of the Mississippi should create a similar system, Elzinga said, and leave the national government out of it.

But most ranchers have reacted positively, said Ernie Robinson, president-elect of the Idaho Cattle Association.

"It's a good idea that will protect the market for beef. I think everybody will accept it because they all realize that we need a tracking system," said Robinson, who plans to volunteer his herd of more than 700 cows for the project.

Though implementing the system is bound to cost producers some money, high beef prices make it easier to bear, Robinson said.

"When prices are good, everybody can swallow something like this a lot better. Calves are bringing up to $1.20 and $1.30 a pound right now, and it used to be 60 or 80 cents," he said.

The tracking system may also boost prices in some markets. "It will pay off with organic beef, where you can prove your animal has never had antibiotics," England said.

Enacting the tracking system won't be easy. "We have a lot of cattle changing hands and moving around the region on any given day," said Julie Morrison, a coordinator with the Northwest Pilot Project, an industry tracking project also supported by USDA grants. "I don't doubt the tracking technology is out there, but the bigger challenge is getting it up and running."

Ultimately, Morrison predicts, any tracking system requiring too much time, money and paperwork will drive producers away. The pilot project is testing several different ways of tracking animals, looking at everything from using traditional branding to radio frequency identification tags, Morrison said.

"It's up to producers to make it work. That's why we're trying to develop a producer-driven project to test all these scenarios," she said.

After the Idaho Department of Agriculture finishes registering all cattle locations, it will solicit volunteers to try out tracking systems, said state Veterinarian Clarence Siroky. Some of the federal grant money will be used to help producers buy those systems.

For instance, if a rancher volunteers to share tracking information and cover the cost of new ear tags, Siroky said, the state may offer to pay for the tracking software. No production-related information would have to be shared with the state -- simply the location, interaction and purchase or sales of the livestock.

"This will be invaluable in case of a highly contagious disease such as foot-and- mouth disease," Siroky said.

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