11/21/05 Pilot project shows "group lot" works

American Rancher November 21, 2005 Cattlemen who have attended their state association conventions in the Pacific Northwest this fall have been getting an update on the Northwest Pilot Project which is looking at what will and won't work in an animal identification system. Ric Stott of AgriBeef is involved in that effort and says one thing the pilot project has shown is that the "group lot" concept works in selected situations. He says it mirrors the way ranchers sell and ship cattle and feedlots buy them. Stott: "What we have shown is that we can record a group lot transaction, a movement of a group of animals off a ranch onto a feedlot. Then that feedlot may want to sort those animals, co-mingle them with others. They can individually identify those animals and at the end of the day slaughter those animals. Individually track those animals movement to the packing plant. Then ultimately the USDA would have the accessibility in the system to trace that individual animal back to the feedlot and all the way back to that group and back to the ranch. So we found that works very well in the system and can be a functional opportunity which is very important for the western states." Now it's a matter of convincing the USDA who has been told by an industry advisory panel that group lot won't work. To which Stott says; Stott: "We've go the proof. We've shown that it does work and can be traced back within seconds." I'm Bob Hoff.