Analytical Blog

The trip to Australia was absolutely amazing!  There was a great deal of differences between the beef and sheep industries of the United States and Australia.  The visit that I chose to review for this post was from the second day of the trip, the seminar at Biosecurity Victoria.  This seminar was about the National Livestock Identification System that Australia has put in place.  The main reason that the system was put into place was for traceability of the animals for disease and hormone purposes.  This system is working extremely well there, since all parts needed, the industry and government, are working together financially and in implementation.  As of right now the program is only mandatory in cattle, but they are working to make it mandatory in sheep as well.  How the program works is that each animal has an electronic ear tag in their right ear.  Every time the animal is sold or sent to slaughter the tag is scanned.  There are several types of scanners that can be used, the most popular ones are hand wand scanners and stationary scanners attached to chutes.  The system keeps track of a great deal of information, including, date of birth, vaccinations, diseases, who purchased and sold the animal, etc.  It can pretty much keep track of any information that the owner feels is necessary.  Many of the producers we met during the rest of our trip use the NLIS as a management tool and it has worked very well since the government keeps track of the records and they can never be lost.  I really feel that the U.S. could learn from the NLIS used in Australia.  It was costly to start up, but the government and industry worked together to make it possible and successful. I really did learn a great deal from this trip (more than just what I have listed here) and I would like to thank everyone from KSU who made this trip possible with all of their hard work! THANKS!!!! G'day mates!!!