Why Animal Disease Traceability Matters to Cattle Producers
Question of the Week: Who is on your team?
I like to think of people working on or for cattle operations as members of that operation’s team and it is imperitive that all members of the team work together for the best interest of the ranch.
That team can consists of employees, veterinarians, nutritionists, accountants, bankers, other ranchers or anyone else who helps drive your ranch forward.
Do you have a list of who is on your team and are they all on the same page with the direction you want the ranch to go?
Why Animal Disease Traceability Matters to Cattle Producers
Callahan Grund is a cow-calf producer in Kansas but is extremely passionate about his day job with U.S. CattleTrace. Grund is the Executive Director for this non-profit company that focuses on building a nationally significant traceability system for animal disease in the beef industry. Grund shares what traceability and biosecurity are, why they matter to all cow-calf producers in the United States and some potential solutions being explored to create an effective traceability system.
What is Traceability?
Traceability, the quality of having an origin or course of development that may be found or followed. This is the definition of traceability provided by Google. This is a broad definition of a word that can be used to describe consumers’ desire to know where their food comes from, marketing cattle in a way that allows feeders to know the genetic basis and origin of cattle and the ability to track the origin of a disease if there is an outbreak. When you think about all the different buckets of traceability, the United States already has a partial system. The use of EIDs and RFIDs and the use of value-added programs has created a degree of traceability starting in the cow-calf sector. However, when it comes to disease traceability; there is not a complete system in place. Grund said, “Having 70% of the industry participating in a traceability system would be nationally significant.” He hopes to see the industry there in the next 10 years, but there is still some work that needs to be done.
Why Does this Matter to Beef Producers?
Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is currently in two-thirds of the world. Even though FMD hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since 1929, it is something beef producers need to be cautious of. If you are wondering why beef producers need to be concerned about FMD even though it isn’t in the United States, it is because of the economic impact it could have on individual ranches, rural communities and the entire beef supply chain.
Grund said, “We do need to be prepared because we've seen other segments of the protein industry impacted by animal diseases. The swine industry was faced with African swine fever and the poultry industry with high-path avian influenza. These diseases are real and they're detrimental to business. We can all see that with the price of eggs right now. The price increase is not just because of inflation, that is because of high-path avian influenza. So you know, trying to work on those traceability systems and those tools is really important. It will allow us to be on a level playing field with the rest of the world and be able to continue to be a leader like we are in the protein segment across the world today.”
The other aspect cattle producers need to understand about animal diseases is how quickly they can spread. “Think about the tip of a ballpoint pen as Foot and Mouth Disease. If I stick it in the water at a feedyard, that's enough variant to affect 10,000 head of cattle. So, think about how rapidly that can spread. If those 10,000 head were in a pen right beside a road and a truck drives by, they're shedding enough virus at that point to infect a truck that is 20-30 yards away from them at that point. So, it spreads literally like wildfire. That's why it's important to have a system that could quickly and accurately trace it, to be able to isolate those diseases,” said Grund.
Now, what happens when FMD or another major animal disease occurs in the United States? Ultimately, things need to be shut down to stop the spread of the disease and find the source. Without a traceability system, there is no telling how long this would take but we do know that halting business would be detrimental to cow-calf producers and economies that rely on agriculture.
Biosecurity & Traceability Solutions
Currently, the United States has done a great job improving the education component of this industry challenge. However, we still have a long way to go. Grund likes to think about traceability from the perspective of each state. “The reason I talk about it from a state perspective is I think in the U.S., that's where traceability and disease preparedness and response really start and end. You know, USDA is a good support function in that realm, but the states are kind of the leaders as it regards to traceability, and how that works for not only the beef cattle industry but other segments of the agricultural industry too,” said Grund.
Traceability looks different in each country, but where other countries have an advantage on the United States is that they have more tools in the toolbox to create a bookend system if needed that can track cattle from birth to harvest and through ownership changes.
Grund said, “You know, thinking about some of the other countries from a traceability perspective, that's a tool that's not currently in our toolbox today. We have the ability to do some bookend traces, and we have a system that works pretty good for cattle over the age of 18 months. But if you look at our whole food supply chain, there's a really big piece of the puzzle missing, and that's feeder cattle. You know, they're the cattle that move the most and provide the most meat into our supply chain. From a food security standpoint, that's something that we need to take a hard look at is how do we start incorporating that class of cattle into a traceability realm to allow our animal health officials to have the opportunity to be just as good as every other country out there from a traceability perspective, trade perspective and a business continuity perspective if we ever get into a disease outbreak?”
The use of EIDs is one opportunity to create a bookend traceability system in the United States. Cattle would have to be assigned one of these tags once they leave their ranch of origin or before to make this system effective. The cost of EID tags ranges from $2-$6. These prices are slightly higher when compared to the price of a regular dangle tag that is already being used but does not include the price of any software or other readers to go with them. Grund encourages cattle producers to think about how using EIDs and software that goes with them can help them be better managers through data collection and analysis along with being a part of the animal disease traceability solution.
At the end of the day cattle producers need to understand what would happen if a disease outbreak would occur and think about how that would impact not only their livelihoods but also the economic impact it would have on their rural communities. It’s not so much a matter of if it happens so much as when. Ask yourself, how can you do your part to prepare your operation, state and country for such a scenario.
