Sheep Industry Represented at ID Meeting
October 14, 2005
October 14, 2005 -- The National Animal Identification Stakeholder meeting was held in Kansas City on Wednesday, Oct. 12. Lyndon Irwin, Ph.D., chairman of the American Sheep Industry Association's (ASI) Production, Education and Research Council made comments on behalf of the sheep industry. Others who attended representing the sheep industry were Paul Rodgers, ASI deputy director of policy, Sandy Snyder of Wyoming and Stephanie Sexton of Iowa.
The primary purpose of the meeting was to provide interested parties with the opportunity to comment about the proposed privatization of the animal ID tracking database. It was estimated that more than 300 people attended the meeting, indicating the significant interest in the subject.
Irwin's comments included the following: The sheep industry has a "level of comfort" with the existing APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) scrapie database which has been in place for more than five years with few problems. We feel that our industry has demonstrated that an animal identification program can gain industry acceptance. With several years of sheep identification records being housed in the APHIS database, we know of no problems with confidentiality.
<< Back