| Posted August
19, 2005, as reported by just-food.com: Every
animal on every farm needs to be traceable, according
to the Meat and Wool New Zealand report. The report which
comes amid world wide food health scares such as mad cow
disease and bird flu recommends a compulsory animal identification
system be adopted by October 2007, the New Zealand Herald
reports.
The report also cites a need to improve animal identification
or "traceability" to meet the needs of safety-conscious
consumers in Europe and Asia.
Starting with cattle and deer, every animal on every
farm will be given a unique identification number it
will carry all the way to market. Cattle identification
schemes are already mandatory for all major trading
partners except the US.
Meat and Wool chairman Jeff Grant said that while New
Zealand had a good voluntary system, it was vital from
a marketing perspective that international customers
could be given the assurance of a national ID system.
"The whole thing has been totally driven by BSE,"
Grant said.
He said customers in countries such as Japan and Korea
were demanding that sort of assurance.
Grant said the cost of a national system did not have
to be huge. The existing framework could be built on
so the 2007 timeframe was achievable. New Zealand's
livestock is almost exclusively grass-fed making the
risk of a BSE outbreak negligible.
But Grant said the first question international consumers
ask about beef was not where it was from, but: "Is
it safe?"
|
