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FRANKFORT,
Ky. — Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer has announced
that the Kentucky Department of Agriculture has been
awarded a $269,093 grant from the United States Department
of Agriculture for animal identification projects.
“Animal
identification is a top priority of my administration,”
Commissioner Farmer said. “Farmers want to be able to
contain a disease outbreak and minimize the economic
impact of an outbreak. Consumers want to know where
their food comes from. I am committed to animal identification
for the good of consumers as well as the livestock industry,
and I want Kentucky to be a model for a national identification
system.”
Two-thirds
of the KDA grant will go toward establishing a system
for identifying every farm premises in Kentucky. There
are 87,000 farms in the state, according to the Kentucky
Agricultural Statistics Service. The premises identification
part of the project is expected to take about two years,
State Veterinarian Dr. Robert Stout said.
The
rest of the grant will be used to track 1,500 slaughter
cows in the 10-state Southeastern Livestock Network
to the Shapiro packing plant in Augusta, Ga.
“We
want to show how the system will work and then take
the next step toward implementing the system throughout
the Southeast,” Dr. Stout said.
The
Shapiro plant is one of a handful of packing plants
in the nation that serve the McDonald's restaurant chain,
said John Stevenson of the Kentucky Beef Network, which
will work with the KDA to execute the project.
“We
hope that, through relationships with the state veterinarians,
we can test the system to trace animals back to their
farms of origin,” Stevenson said. “We hope to prove
we can provide the needs of a national identification
system.”
The
Kentucky grant was one of 29 grants to states and tribes
totaling $11.64 million for animal identification projects.
USDA
has set a deadline for mid-2005 for all cattle, swine
and small ruminants slated for interstate movement to
have individual or group/lot identification.
Kentucky
producers have used electronic identification systems
to sell beef cattle in the state's Certified Preconditioned
for Health (CPH-45) sales for several years.
Earlier
this year, Commissioner Farmer assembled a working group
to guide development of a statewide animal identification
system. He also asked the Kentucky General Assembly
to appropriate funds to help Kentucky livestock farmers
with the costs of tags used in the animal identification
system.
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