Accurately estimate the effect of current electronic ID (EID) implementation in beef calves on tracing effectiveness and to estimate the necessary level of EID needed to support rapid, accurate and…

This federal Cooperative Agreement award, valued at $185,909.00, was issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care Program (CFDA 10.025). The purpose of this 2-year project is to accurately estimate the impact of current electronic identification (EID) implementation in beef calves on the effectiveness of livestock traceability. The awardee, Kansas State University, will generate a national dataset on beef cattle movement and impose varying levels of EID tag usage and premises readers to assess traceability performance. The results will provide estimates on the optimal level of EID implementation needed to achieve a nationally significant traceability network for disease control efforts. The target audience includes state/federal regulators, livestock veterinarians, and beef producers. Findings will be communicated through presentations, reports, and peer-reviewed publications.

Accurately estimate the effect of current electronic ID (EID) implementation in beef calves on tracing effectiveness and to estimate the necessary level of EID needed to support rapid, accurate and nationally significant traceability. We will generate a national movement dataset for beef cattle and impose a range of percent EID implementations for both tagging and premises readers. We will impose shipment sorting and mixing at auction markets and subsequently analyze the traceability performance of shipments. The project will provide estimates of the traceability performance from current levels of implementation up to 90% tag rates and 90% of premises with readers. This will provide estimates of the value of additional EID implementation and the level of implementation needed to achieve a useful and nationally significant traceability network for beef calves. The target audience for the project will be state and federal regulators/decision-makers involved in ADT implementation and policy decisions and disease control efforts. Additionally, livestock veterinarians advising clients on the value of traceability for disease control will benefit from this project. Finally, producers will benefit from knowledge of the needed level of ID to facilitate disease control efforts. We will communicate to cattle producers at the annual U.S. Cattletrace meeting and will offer to provide a report to ncba. We will communicate to state and federal regulators/decision makers through presentations at usaha annual meetings and to practicing veterinarians through the american association of bovine practitioners. Additionally, we will communicate results to a scientific audience and provide documentation to regulators and practitioners through research conference abstracts and presentations and a referred journal publication.