Release Date: October 06, 2005
MADISON, WI --The dairy industry has put its self in center stage at the World Dairy Expo in the animal identification arena. IDairy, a group of six leading dairy organizations, announced Thursday it will work to facilitate a national animal ID system.
Representatives from the American Jersey Cattle Association, Holstein Association USA, Inc., National Association for Animal Breeders, National Dairy Herd Improvement Association, National Milk Producers Federation and Professional Dairy Heifer Growers Association all came together today to urge dairy producers to register their farm premises as the first step toward a national animal ID program.
“We cannot wait for the government, other industries or an animal disease to force dairy farmers into an animal identification system. We need to come together as an industry and protect the dairy sector through national animal ID,” said the newly formed IDairy organization.
While the U.S. Department of Agriculture decides on the logistics of a national ID system, IDairy will take steps to further the dairy industry along in the process. The industry is uniquely positioned because more than half of the 9 million milking cows are already identified through dairy organizations.
IDairy hopes to have all dairy cows identified prior to the 2009 goal set by USDA.
In order to accomplish this, IDairy has three phases. The first phase is to have farmers register their premises; next, farmers have to identify each animal; and finally, the transfer of data from the individual systems to a national database will be the third phase of IDairy.
IDairy will soon be able to track how many premises are registered and provide information to dairy farmers to make each step of this process as seamless as possible. Down the road, IDairy will provide tag criteria and specific instructions on the best method of identifying each dairy animal.
Visit www.idairy.org for the most up to date information involving national animal ID and the organizations involved.
