Robert Pore's Ag Blog

KEARNEY – Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) Director Greg Ibach today announced two new projects during a press conference at Huss Livestock. Ibach announced the start of an educational and promotional campaign called “Locate In 48” and kicked off a new animal identification pilot project associated with the State’s role in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The new “Locate In 48” promotional campaign focuses on educating Nebraska landowners and those who handle or manage livestock on the importance of registering locations where animals are kept. It’s an extension of the Department’s ongoing premises registration efforts. The campaign tagline refers to a system that will allow a 48-hour traceback if an animal disease outbreak were to occur.

Ibach said, “We already have had great cooperation, with roughly 9,000 premises registered to date. The goal of this new campaign is to heighten individuals’ awareness of the importance of traceback. Every premises registered will help us in the event of a disease outbreak, but a comprehensive database will be most effective.”

“Premises registration will help to protect animals, increase consumer confidence in the nation’s food supply and better connect farmers and ranchers to the global marketplace,” said Ibach. “We are very excited to introduce the ‘Locate in 48’ campaign to the state.”

A new web site, www.LocateIn48.com, is available for more information on the “Locate In 48” campaign, as well as for those interested in registering a premises.

In addition to the “Locate in 48” introduction, Director Ibach announced the rollout of a new animal identification pilot project. The movements of 200 cattle with special radio frequency animal identification tags were tracked during the sale at Huss Livestock, using hardware and software installed as part of the demonstration project.

“Nebraska is a national leader in the cattle industry, and we need to stay engaged in the development of the NAIS. This pilot project is an important step in understanding the intricacies of tracking the thousands of animals we move into and out of our auction barns on a weekly basis,” Ibach said. “While we hope the project runs smoothly, we do expect to find some kinks. This will be a learning experience.”

Four other Nebraska locations have agreed to participate in the pilot project, including Burwell Livestock Market, Creighton Livestock Market, Valentine Livestock Auction Market and Ogallala Livestock Auction Market. For the project, each market has installed equipment and software to manage movement information. The markets also each have been provided 5,000 radio frequency ear tags to distribute to cattle producers who agree to sell their livestock through one of the five cooperating markets.

NDA Animal Identification Coordinator Royce Schaneman said the project has been designed with a number of goals in mind. “We will gain real-life data on tag retention rates and the abilities of different hardware to successfully read those tags in a market setting,” Schaneman said. “Many different factors can influence the tracking equipment, from the weather, to the lighting, to the type of fencing a market uses.

“We appreciate the flexibility of the auction markets and our product vendor partners in this demonstration project,” he said.

Ibach was joined at the press conference by John Wiemers, NAIS coordinator for the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Rick Shoemaker, auctioneer for Huss Livestock.

“USDA is pleased with the progress the Nebraska Department of Agriculture is making, especially in the area of premises registration which is fundamental to the implementation of the National Animal Identification System,” said Wiemers. “We look forward to working with Nebraska and analyzing the results of the pilot project.”

Huss Livestock auctioneer Rick Shoemaker said he was pleased with the results of the first run of tagged cattle and is looking forward to continuing work on the pilot project. “As one of the major markets in Nebraska, we feel we need to provide our customers with the best tools available to market their livestock,” he said.

The pilot project will run through October. It is being funded through part of a grant NDA received from the United States Department of Agriculture last year.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The indefinite suspension of the current round of trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization this week is a boon to U.S. consumers who could have lost vital food safety regulations, according to a new report by Food & Water Watch.

The WTO General Council, the highest level decision making body of the WTO, comprised of high ranking officials of member governments, is meeting over the next two days in Geneva in the wake of a stalemate. If the negotiations had proceeded, a growing list of food safety and labeling laws, ranging from limits on levels of toxic chemicals in food to restaurant sanitation regulations, would have been in violation of the WTO rules according to What’s Cooking? Food Safety Gets Burned By the WTO.

The report is available at: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/foodandglobaltrade.

“Our trade representatives must look beyond a trade agenda that benefits corporate agriculture and will only increase the threats to our food supply,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “The World Trade Organization is simply not an appropriate venue for making decisions about food safety, which is evident in the current collapse of the negotiations.”

WTO negotiations have major implications for domestic food safety laws, the report explains. Countries could have been required to prove that their regulations on animal husbandry, fishing, fish farming, food processing, labeling, storage, transport and even restaurant sanitation are “not more burdensome than necessary.” And many countries already identified an expansive list of food safety and labeling regulations in other countries that they would like to see removed, such as:

· strict limits on the concentration of heavy metals such as lead and mercury in seafood
· strict testing for residue of the antibiotic chloramphenicol in shrimp, crab and crayfish (the drug is banned in the U.S. and the EU)
· country-of-origin labeling for fish
· a series of sanitation, packaging and labeling requirements.

“The current WTO stalemate is good news for family farmers and consumers throughout the world,” said Edouard Morena, the European campaigner for Food & Water Watch. “We now have an opportunity to promote a different model of trade rules, which respect each country’s right to protect its own food supply.”

By ARS News Service

Just like people, farm animals need phosphorus to stay healthy. Now, a new barley for feeding to cows, pigs, chickens--and perhaps even farm-raised trout--not only provides this essential nutrient, but does so in a way that helps the environment and barley growers, too.

Agricultural Research Service plant geneticists Phil Bregitzer, Donald Obert and Victor Raboy in Idaho and University of Idaho colleagues Juliet Windes and James Whitmore developed the new, eco-friendly grain.

Named "Herald," it is the first commercial-quality barley that provides a greater proportion of its phosphorus in a bioavailable form--that is, more readily absorbed and used.

That's according to tests conducted by the ARS scientists, all of whom are with the agency's Small Grains and Potato Germplasm Research Unit in Aberdeen, Idaho.

Compared to other top-yielding feed barleys like Baronesse and Colter, Herald had about 10 percent less total phosphorus, but had more than three times as much phosphorus in the bioavailable form.

Bioavailable phosphorus is less likely to end up in animal manure and be carried away by rain runoff from pastures and fields into nearby streams, rivers and lakes, or seep into underground water supplies intended for people to drink.

Superior bioavailability of this nutrient in the novel barley should save growers the cost of feeding phosphorus supplements to farm animals. What's more, Herald barley produces excellent yields. So, growers don't have to sacrifice quantity to take advantage of the unique barley's pollution-lessening trait.

Herald barley is the latest addition to a line of crops--including corn, rice and soybeans--that are low in the hard-to-digest or, for some animals, completely indigestible form of phosphorus known as phytic acid. These low-phytic-acid feeds build upon earlier work in which Raboy used conventional plant-breeding procedures to chemically tweak seeds' phosphorus makeup, resulting in the prized, low-phytic-acid trait.

Seed companies and plant researchers can acquire supplies of Herald seed from the Foundation Seed Program at Kimberly, Idaho.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

The Global Early Warning and Response System (GLEWS) is the first joint early warning and response system conceived with the aim of predicting and responding to animal diseases including zoonoses worldwide.

This system builds on the added value of combining and coordinating the tracking, verification and alert mechanisms of OIE, FAO and WHO.

Control at early stage

"From an animal health point of view, controlling contagious animal diseases in their early stages is easier and less expensive for the international community. In cases of zoonoses this system will enable control measures that can also benefit public health," explained Dr Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE.

As demonstrated throughout much of the globe, weaknesses of early detection and rapid response for animal diseases, and the inability to control major diseases at their source, have contributed to the spread across borders of diseases of animal origin such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza.

Better prediction and prevention

"In such a context, the main expected outputs of GLEWS are better prediction and prevention of animal disease threats, through sharing of information, epidemiological analysis and joint field missions to assess and control outbreaks in animals and humans.

"That will lead to the development of improved coordinated response to emergencies worldwide," said Dr Samuel Jutzi of FAO’s Agriculture, Biosecurity, Nutrition and Consumer Protection Department.

An important step forward


"History shows us that the earlier we can detect a zoonosis, the early we can take action to reduce the threats to people.

"Today, the spread of avian flu reinforces the fact that the animal and human health sectors must work closely together, and that early detection and coordination is critical. This new network is an important step forward." explained Mrs Susanne Weber-Mosdorf, WHO Assistant Director-General.

The information gathered through the tracking and verification channels of each organization will be shared using the GLEWS web-based electronic platform and jointly analyzed to decide whether to issue common early warning messages.

These alert messages will describe the possible implications of disease spread among animals at national, regional and international level and its potential public health impact.

If there is a clear indication that a joint on-site assessment or intervention is required, the response mechanisms of the three organizations will be activated in a collaborative fashion.

Nebraska Farm Bureau has urged U.S. Sens. Nelson and Hagel to support a bill to allow drilling for oil and natural gas in portions of the Outer Continental Shelf.

S. 2253 would allow access to much-needed oil and natural gas resources located in the Outer Continental Shelf, Farm Bureau President Keith Olsen said in a letter to the senators. It would exclude any area east of the Military Mission Line, unless agreed upon by the Secretary of Defense, and any area within 100 miles of the coastline of the State of Florida.

"Nebraska Farm Bureau has a long-standing policy in support of environmentally sound exploration and production of oil and gas in the OCS," he said, noting that currently farmers and ranchers are facing historically high energy costs. High natural gas prices are particularly burdensome because they factor into fertilizer, irrigation and heating costs, he said. Olsen noted that, "For a number of years, federal energy policy has encouraged the use of natural gas, particularly as a fuel for generating electricity, without making any effort to increase domestic supplies."

Unless exploration and development of domestic natural gas reserves is advanced as proposed in S. 2253, farmers and ranchers will face continuing high fertilizer and energy costs, Olsen said.

The House already has adopted similar legislation.

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