| Age Verification |
CIFIA agrees with provisions to accept birthdate information as alernative to dentition analysis, in determining animal age at slaughter |
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued an April press release indicating that, with border closings and BSE, there is an obligation to monitor and regulate meat going into the food supply. And, because BSE has not shown itself in animals under 30 months of age, dentition analysis would be used as the tool to determine age of animals.
However, the dairy and beef industries countered by stating they would like age verification as an alternative to dentition.
The CFIA accepted this recommendation and will now accept birth date information, as an alternative to dentition, initially for domestic meat inspection purposes. Hopefully this alternative can be extended prospectively to live cattle exports, subject to country of import endorsement.
Birthdate information can be submitted by producers, online directly to www.clia.livestockid.ca/ CTS. This website is administered by the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency.
Dairy producers submitting birthdate information to the CCIA must associate the information with the identification numbers of the approved NLID/ATQ tags applied to calves. Producers must also keep a written or electronic record (tagging and calving) of the information in the event of an on-farm inspection visit to verify accuracy.
All birth dates entered in the CCIA database are subject to third party auditing. Audits will be initially conducted by CFIA inspectors, but may eventually be conducted by provincial governments, private veterinarians, brand inspectors, or other independent parties authorized by a government body.
CFIA is expected to amend its Meat Inspection Manual of Procedures to specifically state that valid Certificates of Registry can be accepted at the abattoir for age verification purposes.
Development of the necessary programming is currently underway to allow breed associations and third parties to provide this data directly to CCIA. Privacy information laws and protocol will be practised with designated industry partners in providing this service.
While future developments will be published in the Info Holstein, you may contact Registrar Glenn Cherry for further information.