04/08/08 Animal ID business plan

A new plan for the National Animal Identification System. I'm Bill Scott. Back after this. First comes the idea, then you develop a business plan. That's exactly what's happened to the voluntary National Animal ID system. Undersecretary of Agriculture Bruce Knight told a group of cattlemen about the plan KNIGHT "Now I know its unusual in the federal government to go to a business plan but I knew of no other way to do this to really show these are the steps that need to be taken over the next three to four to five years, the rational for why its going to take there, the steps it will take to get there and the financial resources it will take to get it there." The 'there' that Knight refers to is 48 hour traceability. The business plan sets priorities on where USDA should make its investments, possibly in areas like data standards. KNIGHT "How do you overhaul what is done at the state vet's office to speed up traceability? How do you get it out from a shoebox full of paper records under somebody's desk to a state of the art system that will let us more forward quickly in the event of a disease outbreak." The first step toward animal ID is getting producers to register. Knight says there are one and a half million premises in the US but today only about one third of them are registered. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott