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FRANKFORT, Ky. — Livestock farmers and other businesses now can go online to register their premises in the National Animal Identification System.
“This service will take a lot of the hassle out of premises registration,” said Tim Turney, director of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Division of Producer Services. “People can follow the easy, step-by-step process right at home.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture set up the system on the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Web site. Farmers, stockyard owners and other destinations for farm animals may go to www.kyagr.com, click on the online premises registration link, and follow the instructions.
The Department, along with the Kentucky Beef Network, the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Association, the University of Kentucky, Kentucky Farm Bureau and other partners, is seeking to register every agriculture-related premises in the Commonwealth as the foundation of an electronic animal identification system. The system will enable authorities to trace an animal back to its farm of origin within 48 hours in the event of a disease outbreak. With such capability, an outbreak can be addressed quickly and precisely, keeping the economic impact on Kentucky farmers to a minimum.
Nearly every livestock producer group and market group has endorsed the premises registration process.
USDA will require premises registration and animal identification by January 2008. The final step in the process – collecting and reporting defined animal movements – is scheduled to become mandatory in January 2009.
More than 133,000 agricultural premises from all 50 states, five Native American tribes and two U.S. territories have been registered.
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For more information on the National Animal Identification System, click here.
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