USDA Pushes Plan to Move NAIS Forward

The ATPS includes a messaging system with IT companies' networks that allows the USDA to go directly to a particular company for four points of information about a specific animal—the animal ID number, the premises ID number, and the date and event for each RFID tag read. The IT company will be required to provide that data to the USDA, and could also provide other information, such as the animal's breed or health issues, though they will not be required to do so.

All seven points are intended to make the system fully operational, Wiklund says, by providing data quickly to health officials and encourage maximum use. Thus, in the event of an emergency involving a diseased animal, officials and animal producers can quickly trace back the entire history of where an animal has been. The long-term goal of the NAIS program is to complete a trace-back within 48 hours.

The NAIS program's overall strategy is also to develop a critical-mass level of participation. In order to reach that critical mass, the USDA estimates it needs to have identified 70 percent of cattle with traceability to their origin of birth. The department also hopes to improve traceability for other types of livestock—primarily swine, horses, poultry, goats, deer and elk.

Subsequent to the 2004 launch of the NAIS program, cattle producers in all 50 states have begun registering their livestock premises on a system based on the one in use by the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium (see Wisconsin Ups RFID-Adoption Incentives for Cattle Growers), modified for use in their particular state. Of those states, eight chose to continue using their own statewide tracing system. In 2005, several hundred cattle producers joined the NAIS system, Wiklund says, and millions of records have been stored in the data repository.

According to Wiklund, the NAIS program next hopes to sign up as many premises as possible, and to take steps to integrate livestock electronic data capture and reporting technologies into existing disease programs. Such technologies include PDAs, RFID handheld interrogators and tablet PCs.

By 2007, 420,000 premises had been registered, representing about 30 percent of all those throughout the United States. The full business plan can be accessed at the NAIS Web site.