Farm-Scape, Episode 2282

The general manager designate of the Canadian Livestock Identification Agency plans to focus on strengthening the lines of communication among livestock groups as the agency forwards efforts to create a national multispecies traceability system.

The Canadian Livestock Identification Agency is coordinating the development of a national multispecies identification and traceability system for Canadian livestock.

Ron Axelson will begin easing into the role of general manager November 1st.

He says, during his involvement in Alberta's cattle feeding industry, the livestock groups in Alberta have been very successful in addressing over arching issues such as the environment and food safety.

In the ag industry for years we tended not to collaborate with each other, the various sectors and, as a result we haven't been able to accomplish anywhere near as much as perhaps we could have if we had been working together in a collaborative fashion.

The ag industry does not have a lot of resources available to it.

We're under resourced and count heavily on the input we have from our producers so it only makes sense that on overarching issues, such as traceability, that we pool those resources, that we pool the energy that we have out there within the existing organizations so that we can do a much more effective job on behalf of all producers and that will probably be one of the key messages that I will bring early to the CLIA.

Axelson notes the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency has done a good job in putting together its program for cattle producers which provides a great opportunity to avoid having to reinvent the wheel when creating a multispecies system.

He observes Canada's cattle industry has set the mark for animal identification and now, moving into traceback, is well in front of the competition.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.