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FRANKFORT,
Ky. — Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer
has asked the Kentucky General Assembly to help the
Commonwealth's farmers meet new federal animal identification
standards.
“The
U.S. Department of Agriculture wants a national 48-hour
animal traceback system in place by July 2005,” Commissioner
Farmer said. “The implementation of this federal program,
I fear, will not come without significant regulatory
and financial burden to Kentucky's producers.
While I will be aggressively searching for federal funds
and will attempt to reallocate some Department resources
for this effort, I wanted to make sure the legislature
understands the difficulty of implementing this program.”
Jim
Akers, integrated resource management coordinator at
the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, told
the House agriculture committee on Thursday that the
button ear tags cost up to $2 a tag. Each tag contains
a computer chip that maintains a bar code with a 15-digit
identification number. The chip emits the bar code in
the form of a radio signal that would be read by devices
at stockyards and other collection points.
A
demonstration of the electronic identification system
will be held Feb. 20 at 1 p.m. EST at the Washington
County Livestock Market.
The
Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the Kentucky Cattlemen's
Association and the University of Kentucky College of
Agriculture are developing the radio frequency identification
system. They are in the process of tagging some 10,000
head of cattle this winter. The Kentucky Agricultural
Development Board awarded the KCA a $2 million grant
in 2003 for implementation of the system.
Kentucky
had more than 2.4 million cattle, 370,000 swine and
22,000 sheep in 2002, the last year for which statistics
are available. A 2003 study commissioned by the Governor's
Office of Agricultural Policy found that Kentucky had
between 100,000 and 150,000 meat goats.
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