Dairy Industry Welcomes Govt Decision on NAIT

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Dairy Industry Welcomes Government Decision on NAIT

DairyNZ and the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ) say the new national animal identification scheme (NAIT) is an important step forward for New Zealand agriculture.

DairyNZ Chairman Hon John Luxton says it’s in the interests of dairy farmers to enhance New Zealand’s capability in the animal traceability area.

“Given the importance of the dairy industry to the New Zealand economy, it is vital that we have the best biosecurity protection and response in the world. This includes being able to rapidly and effectively manage and contain any animal health outbreak to minimise the negative economic impacts on farmers and the industry,” he says

Australia, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina have already implemented such traceability systems while the US and Canada are developing them.

DCANZ Chairman Malcolm Bailey says over the last decade there has been increasing consumer pressure both here and overseas with people wanting to know their food is safe.

“The dairy industry can trace back when, how and where a product is produced, but it hasn’t been able to pin it to a particular cow, and consumers want to know that now. A comprehensive identification and traceability system will enable us to do this,” he says.

Mr Luxton says in working on the development of NAIT, DairyNZ and DCANZ’s aim has been to ensure the scheme provides maximum value to farmers at the lowest possible cost.

“We have worked to ensure industry ownership of NAIT and strong industry oversight of the design and establishment phase to ensure farmers get the right tool from the process.

“We have championed an approach which will see all at-risk species included as soon as possible in a user-friendly, cost-effective system. NAIT must be compatible with existing dairy industry animal identification schemes and will link seamlessly with new data initiatives including a revitalised dairy Core Database. This will enure farmers get the maximum possible return for their investment in data, he says.

ENDS

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