In the coming weeks, the National Pork Board will be hiring regional swine identification coordinators who will work with state pork producer associations and state ID coordinators to encourage producers in each state to register their premises.

“Simply stated, NAIS is about maintaining the national herd health and ensuring that we can quickly control and recover from disease outbreaks,” said NPPC President Joy Philippi, a producer from Bruning, Neb. “Getting each producer’s premises registered and entering the premises number in each state’s database is the only way to create an effective and functional NAIS.”

NPPC and the Pork Board formed an identification implementation task force made up of producers and other industry stakeholders to enhance the existing swine ID system, which was set up in 1988 and used successfully to eradicate pseudorabies from the commercial herd. The organizations are expressing their support for the NAIS by urging all pork producers to register their premises by Dec. 31, 2007.

The NAIS is a partnership among industry and state and federal animal health officials. The purpose of the system is to help protect producers’ premises and livelihoods in the event of an animal disease. Producers who register their premises can be assured that they will be notified quickly when a disease outbreak might put their animals at risk.

About 40 percent of swine premises already have been registered, and NPPC and the Pork Board are working diligently to get the remaining premises registered as soon as possible. The effort is being made possible through a cooperative agreement between USDA and the Pork Board on premises registration – the first such agreement to be signed between the agency and a livestock industry organization in support of the NAIS. Under the agreement, USDA is making $400,000 available to assist the pork industry with its premises registration efforts.

ThePigSite News Desk