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National Disease Traceability System Gets Off the Ground in Kansas
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Aiming to improve animal disease traceability, the CattleTrace initiative was first launched in Kansas in 2018 as an industry-driven pilot project. The program quickly gained momentum, piquing the interest of ranchers, livestock markets, feedlots and major packers across the state, and it’s already found its way to nine additional states.
Although its two-year pilot project is coming to an end, CattleTrace is just getting started – and the next step is national participation.
“As a voluntary national disease traceability system, CattleTrace complements the existing USDA regulations; it’s a proactive measure we can take to mitigate the risk of a major disease outbreak,” says Cassie Kniebel, manager of the CattleTrace program.
Industry Support
In the CattleTrace system, each cow has an ultra-high-frequency ear tag. When cattle walk by readers set up at various points of the supply chain, their tag numbers (also known as animal IDs) are captured along with the time, location and date.
“We want to move at the speed of commerce to ensure the industry can maintain business as it does today,” Kniebel says. “With that in mind, we made sure to implement technology that would be able to read the tags on groups of cattle simultaneously rather than only one at a time. The readers are also capable of collecting data even if the tags are covered with mud or if it’s raining outside.”
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Kniebel calls CattleTrace an “end-to-end traceability system.” In other words, it helps create a timeline of where each animal was and with whom he or she had contact in order to pinpoint the origin of disease and stop an outbreak if needed.
Although there is an investment on the producer level, as it costs $1 per head to fit each cow with a CattleTrace ear tag, Kniebel likens the process to purchasing an insurance policy.
“You hope to never need the policy, but if you do, you certainly appreciate it,” Kniebel says. “If there’s a disease outbreak and a producer’s cattle have CattleTrace ear tags, they’ll know if those cattle were impacted or not – and they can get back to business.”
The program is extremely valuable to producers like Brandon Depenbusch, vice president of Innovative Livestock Services, Inc., in Great Bend, who also serves as chairman of the CattleTrace board of directors. “A disease outbreak would be absolutely devastating to our entire industry,” Depenbusch says.
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Depenbusch has been involved with CattleTrace from the beginning, ever since someone from the Kansas Department of Agriculture approached him and asked if he’d like to be part of getting a system like this off the ground. Having hoped for some form of disease traceability for years, he readily agreed to participate. In his role on the board of directors, he also advocates for his fellow farmers and ranchers. “We listen to producers and take their input very seriously,” he says.
Privacy and Peace of Mind
Because the CattleTrace program is operated by a private, not-for-profit organization (U.S. CattleTrace), its board of directors determines how the data is used, who can access it and when it’s accessible. According to Kniebel, the board has elected to keep all information collected private and secure, storing it in a cloud-based database that is only accessed in the event of a disease outbreak.
“The data we collect is essentially a tool in the toolbox, and it’s only pulled out when absolutely necessary,” Kniebel says. “There are practices already in place to handle a disease outbreak, but CattleTrace makes the existing system more robust and can speed up the effort to stop the spread of disease.”
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Depenbusch emphasizes that CattleTrace was built for producers, by producers, with their best interests in mind – and the more who participate, the better the entire industry will function going forward.
“As an industry, we have too much at stake to not have a system like this in place,” Depenbusch says. “Having a nationwide traceability system will allow producers to more quickly identify at-risk animals and quarantine them, which will minimize or eliminate the spread of disease. There’s no question about it: CattleTrace benefits all of us.”