040129 Pork Producers' Comments Sought on Animal ID Plan

Input from pork producers and their allied partners is being sought on a draft of the US Animal Identification Plan (USAIP). The USAIP focuses on enhancing the nation's ability to locate and trace individual animals and/or groups of animals within 48 hours if an animal health emergency should arise.

Mark Engle, the Pork Checkoff's director of swine health, who serves on the National ID Steering Committee, encourages producers to go to to review the document. "Hopefully, producers will review the swine sections in the USAIP and express any concerns. We want to implement something practical and effective," Engle says. Under this plan, each location housing pigs would have a unique number under a standardized system.

While the pork industry already uses group/lot ID and individual ID, current identification systems can be enhanced by establishing a standardized national premises identification system, Pork Board says.

"We have had mandatory identification regulations for swine in interstate commerce since 1988," said Engle. "Therefore, we are simply looking at means to enhance an already effective system. We clearly understand the areas that need improvement and will work to finalize a plan that is not only efficient and effective, but also producer friendly."

The aim of the national identification system is to provide the opportunity to more effectively address foreign and domestic animal health threats.

The USAIP has involved more than 100 animal industry and state/federal government professionals from more than 70 allied associations/organizations, including the National Institute of Animal Agriculture and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

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