Farm animal IDs will point the way to food safety

In the wake of food health scares such as mad cow disease (BSE), a compulsory animal identification system needs to be adopted, a new report says today.

The Meat and Wool New Zealand report says there is a need to improve animal identification or "traceability" to meet the needs of safety-conscious consumers in Europe and Asia.

In a framework - which will go to the industry for consultation - it has recommended a mandatory system be put in place by October 2007.

Starting with cattle and deer, every animal on every farm will be given a unique identification number it will carry all the way to market. Cattle identification schemes are already mandatory for all major trading partners except the US.

Meat and Wool chairman Jeff Grant said that while New Zealand had a good voluntary system, it was vital from a marketing perspective that international customers could be given the assurance of a national ID system.

"The whole thing has been totally driven by BSE," Grant said.

He said customers in countries such as Japan and Korea were demanding that sort of assurance.

About 97 per cent of the dairy herd is already catalogued through Livestock Improvement's breeding data base. The report says that system and other tracing done by the Animal Health Board for bovine tuberculosis provide good coverage but there are gaps.

Grant said the cost of a national system did not have to be huge. The existing framework could be built on so the 2007 timeframe was achievable. New Zealand's livestock is almost exclusively grass-fed making the risk of a BSE outbreak negligible.

But Grant said the first question international consumers ask about beef was not where it was from, but: "Is it safe?"