The Citizen, 2006-03-16, Page 24Telling their age
The age verification program guarantees the age of the animal and can be used to help trace
it back to its herd of origin. (Bonnie Gropp photo)
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THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006. PAGE A3.
Agriculture 2006
Bee industry Inds better way with program
By Bonnie Gropp
Citizen editor
There-had to be a better way. Now
they've found it and it's in the best
-interest of beef producers to get on
board.
When; the U.S. border opened to
cattle under 30 months of age in July
2005, a dim light in the BSE tunnel,
the only way to determine age was
by dentician. This is -based on the
third incisor and whether it has
erupted through the gum.
"This was subjective to feed, breed
and environment," said Dan
Ferguson co-ordinator of the food
safety program, verified beef
production with the Ontario
Cattlemen's Association: "Everyone
knows it wasn't the best, but that was
all they had at the time."
Another problem Ferguson said
was that while the cattle beast may
not have appeared to have had an
eruption when sold, during
processing, the inspector may have
seen white. This was costing the
industry a good deal of money to the
tune of $300-$400 an animal.
A recent study determined that if
65,000 cattle a week were going to
market, one to two per cent, were.
over the age limit, resulting in a loss
of roughly half a million dollars.
The question was how to get the
animals into a database and have
them age verified. The Canadian
Cattle Identification Agency set up a
website so producers could input the
birthdate of cattle to cross reference
with the CCIA tag number.
The verification must be done by
the herd of origin.
Ferguson said that as of January,
1.7 million had been registered,
which is better than 10 per cent of
the total number in Canada. "It's
starting to roll ahead."
While there is no financial
optimistic that, with the premium the
number will continue to rise
significantly.
The cost of dial-up service and the
time it takes to enter the information
is the price to register, said
Ferguson. "It does take awhile to
enter a rigorous bunch of firewalls to
get into the system, then to register
there are a bunch of different
questions to be answered."
While this may be detrimental to
some registering, particularly those
not comfortable with computers,
Ferguson said there are options.
Many farm retail stores will input
the information if the farmer buys
the tags from them. "Bring the
information back to them and they'll
go through the headaches."
There are also opportunities
through Beef Improvement Ontario,
with the Bluewater Calf Group and
with some veterinarians.
"There are other options besides'
fighting the website yourself."
Another point that Ferguson
makes is that if a producer has had a
number of calves Korn and is
uncertain on the birthdates he can
default to the earliest calf. "They
lose. a bit on the youngest calf, but
it's good to know they have this
option because if they get busy and
think they can't get this done, we
don't want them to get hung up on
that. They can just age verify to the
Continued on A4
incentive to encourage cow/calf
producers to register, Cargill is
paying a $19 per head premium, he
said for the age verified calves.
"There is no' carrot dangled in front
the cow/calf guys but this is a bit of
a reward for the, finishing guy. And
they will then be looking for age
verified calves when buying so the
hope is the benefit will trickle down
to the cow/calf producer who has
age-verified animals."
Considering the number that had
already registered, Ferguson feels
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