Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Directors sought for animal tracing company

Updated at 6:05 am on 9 February 2010

The organisation behind a national animal electronic tagging scheme is calling for applications for directors of a new company that will be set up to manage the project.

The Government has decided the National Animal Identification & Traceability scheme will become compulsory for cattle farmers next year and deer farmers the year after.

The system is designed to limit the trade impact of a disease outbreak by allowing stock to be traced back to their home farms.

NAIT chair Ian Corney says a new temporary company will oversee the establishment of functions and infrastructure to operate the animal I/D scheme until a permanent body is set up.

US scraps its traceability scheme

Meanwhile, a persistent critic of the NAIT scheme and its compliance costs, Federated Farmers dairy chair Lachlan McKenzie, thinks a change of heart about animal I/D in the United States raises further questions about New Zealand's plans.

The US Department of Agriculture has scrapped its proposed animal traceability system, opting instead to come up with a new, lower-cost strategy for tracing livestock diseases.

The scheme had been in the planning stages for five years, but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says it needed to be dumped because of opposition from farmer groups.

The New York Times has reported that the earlier scheme, planned after the discovery of a cow infected with mad cow disease in the US, received $US142 million in federal funding before it was canned.

Mr Mckenzie says the cost was a major factor in the US U-turn.

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