Keep reading...
Electronic ID project funds announced
The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently announced $1 million in cooperative agreement funding available to support animal disease traceability and electronic identification for cattle. The funding is for projects to help USDA increase the accuracy, efficiency and cost effectiveness of traceability. The projects should also support the cattle industry’s identification needs to enhance animal management and marketing.
The projects are intended to document how to link ultrahigh frequency backtags with other identification devices to collect animal movement and disease program data while still maintaining the speed of commerce. The projects will explore adding radio frequency identification to backtags to support traceability in markets.
Accurate animal identification helps animal health officials when responding to animal diseases, which ultimately reduces the economic impact on owners and affected communities.
According to the USDA, to meet the goals for this funding, the projects will demonstrate capturing of animal movement data at the speed of commerce and how that data can be stored and shared for traceability purposes. Specifically, the projects would address some/all of these objectives:
- Evaluate the effectiveness, economic feasibility, and durability of ultra-high frequency (UHF) back tags;
- Document what ability back tags have to supplement non-UHF official identification in various livestock settings;
- Develop mechanisms/ processes for advancing use of electronic ID and records;
- Define effective and sustainable models of data sharing between industry, states, and USDA;
- Integrate third party data systems into USDA’s Animal Health Events Repository-AHER (Sharing private information with USDA is not necessary to participate in the AHER system);
- Conduct outreach and education to help producers understand long term value of a traceability system to the cattle industry; and
- Help producers get PINs and official tags simply by industry groups serving as tag managers.
Projects are anticipated to begin during or before summer 2019.
Interested cooperators are encouraged to work collaboratively with the Minnesota Board of Animal Health and apply no later than June 7, 2019 by following the instructions on Grants.gov. Search for “Radio Frequency Identification Project” if the direct link doesn’t work.
New U.S. One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization Workshop Report posted by the CDC
The CDC posted the final workshop report from the U.S. One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization Workshop jointly hosted by the CDC, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the USDA.
During the workshop, participants voted on a list of priority zoonotic diseases to be jointly addressed by human, animal and environmental health sectors in relevant U.S. federal agency programs using a One Health approach. This marks the first time multiple government agencies in the U.S. worked together to prioritize zoonotic diseases of national concern and is a critical step towards a coordinated U.S.-specific approach to One Health.
The workshop report outlines the process, the resulting list of prioritized zoonotic diseases, and discussions and recommendations by the participants on how to work together to address the diseases and strengthen One Health. Click here to access the report.
|
