ESTEVAN, Sask. – Government efforts to establish a national livestock traceability system should not duplicate what the cattle industry established through the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, producers say.
Federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers decided about a year ago to establish a national program. A task force was struck last fall and ministers are scheduled to meet again later this month.
CCIA executive director Julie Stitt told the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association annual convention that more industry consultation is required.
It sounds like much of what the ministers want is information CCIA already has but doesn’t routinely share, she said.
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They want information about individual animal identification, movement and location and are looking to the Canadian Livestock Identification Agency for guidance.
“What we’re saying is we already have all three things,” said Stitt, noting that CCIA also works with other species.
“We almost have to defend what we’ve created. It’s the same as what they’re proposing.”
She said the cattle industry has never said the CCIA can share the information provided by producers with another national body.
“That was our commitment to producers when we sold this program.”
She said provinces want information they’re not currently getting and that while working with the provinces in times of crisis is fine, an entirely separate system isn’t necessary.
Producers have to be vigilant about maintaining control of their industry and CCIA, she added.
Saskatchewan agriculture minister Mark Wartman said traceability, age verification and identification must all be available. He has established an advisory committee to help the province work with the industry.
“We need a committee so it’s not chaos, so that everybody is basically moving in the same direction,” he told reporters after speaking at the convention.
The committee was scheduled to meet this week.
Wartman added that age verification should continue to be voluntary.
The stock growers passed a resolution to lobby the federal and provincial governments so that the CLIA and any provincial traceability program does not duplicate CCIA’s work.
