Carding Cows
Radio frequency, retinal scanning, DNA labeling. Technologies for identifying people privy to top secret meetings or methods used at airports to screen foreign visitors to the United States?
Not necessarily. These could be methods the U.S. National Animal Identification System (NAIS) might someday use to locate any agricultural premise exposed to a foreign animal disease. Since last Christmas – while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) feverishly tried to locate the source of a single cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – there’s been a clamor for all livestock to have identification that tracks the animal’s movement through the production system.
This spring, USDA Secretary Ann Veneman sketched the framework for NAIS. NAIS, she said, will be developed in three phases: (l) an evaluation of current federally funded animal identification systems, discussions with producers and others involved, and drafting any regulatory or legislative proposals needed; (2) a regionalized effort targeted at selected species; and finally, (3) national implementation. Veneman called upon both public and private support.
NAIS will be voluntary until confidentiality concerns are fully addressed. Cattlemen are particularly worried about being asked to comply with Freedom of Information requests, and by doing so, disclose private business and financial information. They are asking Congress to pass an exemption from such requests as well as legislate safeguards for their personal data.
Seed money for the project is being provided by the Commodity Credit Corporation to the tune of $18.8 million. Two-thirds of this amount will go to cooperative agreements to evaluate new systems. (President Bush’s fiscal year 2005 budget has $33 million allotted for the program, also.) However, USDA wants the program to be technology-neutral, so that each organization can choose what works best for it.
Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bill Hawks expressed hope that USDA could begin issuing premise identifications later this year.
Although USDA has a lot of authority to forge ahead on an animal identification program of its own, lawmakers, of course, would like to have their say. Of the several bills pending at press time, cattlemen and the American Farm Bureau Federation favored one by Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE).
Hagel’s bill would direct USDA to get on with animal identification by amending the Animal Health Protection Act. It also would protect producer confidentiality and allow states and third-party vendors to participate.
Note: Cattle, of course, aren’t the only animals to deal with in any identification program. There are about 50 million hogs in the United States scattered among more than 75,000 producers – with three out of five producers having fewer than 50 animals. Such numbers, Veneman has said, help demonstrate some of the challenges in getting a national identification program going.
A Hot Time in China
China/U.S. trade is on the political front burner as elections draw closer. Critics of the Bush administration point to the U.S. trade deficit with China of $124 billion last year. Defenders, on the other hand, say that U.S. exports are on the rise there. In fact, they went up about 28 percent in 2003.
U.S. agriculture has a lot at stake. China now takes 10 percent of total U.S. food and agricultural exports. And Chinese imports of these products have nearly tripled in just the past two years.
Of significant note, agriculture was a major player this spring in high-level trade talks in Washington, DC. When U.S. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans pronounced the talks “very fruitful” before press cameras, he was flanked not only by the Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, but also by Ann Veneman and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick.
A mere week after that press conference, the administration – again in front of the press – flatly refused labor and industry requests to consider slapping duties on Chinese imports. To do so, argued Zoellick, would lead America “down the path of economic isolationism.” A better choice, chimed in U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, is “persistent engagement” with China – presumably to coax it to change its ways enough to qualify for a “market economy” classification.
The administration is taking heat for supposed failure to “get tough” with China and thereby protect American jobs. Democrats charge that U.S. workers are losing jobs because of cheap Chinese imports that the Chinese keep really cheap, they say, by unfair labor practices and holding their currency at artificially low levels relative to the U.S. dollar.
Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Bush’s contender for the presidency, claimed that the administration refuses to use the rules of world trade to keep China from taking the United States “to the cleaners.” The White House, he said, “is all talk and no action.”
Some China watchers were wondering why the administration didn’t merely tell U.S. labor interests – notably the AFL-CIO, the nation’s labor and industry organization – that it would study the allegations against China. Such a study would well take until past the November elections.
But Zoellick stepped right up to the plate, so to speak, on that issue: “We do not need to conduct a year-long investigation to know that there are serious concerns with labor rights and working conditions in China, as there are in many other developing countries. We do not need a year-long investigation to know that we have serious concerns with China’s policies on the value of its currency.”
Note: China and the United States have signed an agreement to establish a consultative mechanism on food safety and animal and plant health issues. To put it in Veneman’s words, “As our agricultural trade continues to grow and thrive, we must make every effort to quickly identify and address differences to maintain trade.”
A Cluck Here, A Moo There
In other trade developments in the Far East, Hong Kong has agreed to reopen its market to U.S. poultry exports. This is welcome news for the U.S. poultry industry, because Hong Kong ranks third for U.S. poultry meat, totaling $219 million in 2003.
Unfortunately, however, the news hasn’t been so good in Japan. Japan continues its embargo on U.S. beef until the United States tests 100 percent of its cattle for BSE. The administration is continuing to try to break the impasse, proposing to Japanese Ag Minister Yoshiuki Kamei that both the United States and Japan adhere to international scientific standards for BSE testing.
Note: USDA has certified seven laboratories connected with universities to test for BSE. And officials have made it clear that only those labs can test for BSE – and only those labs can buy the kit of chemical reagents needed to run the tests.
Never mind that a private beef slaughterer in Kansas, which aims at the Japanese market, has built a lab staffed with scientists ready to meet Japanese demands for testing all animals.
In denying the company the testing capability, USDA Undersecretary Bill Hawks said that if that company was allowed to test every animal it would imply “a consumer safety aspect that is not scientifically warranted.”
The big meat packers, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and feedlot owners are against the idea of anything that might lead to testing of every animal. Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), whose district stands to lose hundreds of jobs if the particular slaughter house closes, charged USDA officials of “old-school bureaucratic thinking…afraid of change and new technologies.” v
Make Mine Scrambled
Here in America, it’s another good news/bad news scenario. For the good, Mexico has reopened its borders to U.S. beef products. Mexico is the second largest export market for U.S. beef, following Japan.
For the bad, a federal judge has taken USDA to task on how it’s handled reopening of the Canadian market – and at press time, it appeared that USDA had, pardon the ag reference, “egg on its face.”
In April, USDA posted on a Web site that it had expanded the list of beef products allowed from Canada to include ground beef, beef with bones, tongue, and liver from young animals. Trouble is, the judge noted, USDA was still “in the middle of a rulemaking to determine whether to take such a step.”
USDA as much as admitted it had ignored its own regulations and rescinded the order. The final rule is expected sometime this summer.
June 2004 Render