European Union | Searching For A Competitive Advantage: Will Ireland Use DNA ...

European Union

Searching For A Competitive Advantage: Will Ireland Use DNA Animal Traceability?

Irish farmers are keenly aware of their position as major suppliers to the rest of the European Union (EU) to whom they export the great majority of their production. They take care to promote the image of Ireland as a green pastoral country, with a strong agricultural history and culture.

Having at first regarded traceability of animals as an onerous and costly obligation, they have now adopted it as a highly positive element of marketing and as a weapon for attempts at protectionism by lobbying for the same regulations to apply to imported beef. But will they stop here?

Matt Dempsey, editor of the influential Irish Farm Journal recently suggested they should: “We now have new technologies. We have an animal health system where every animal is handled and samples taken as well as full traceability mechanisms – it’s time to link up the capacities and get definitive DNA profiles for every animal in the national herd. If a product is then sold as Irish then we would be in a position to easily present solid evidence. We need supervision of this legislation, we need accurate labeling and we need enforcement with proper penalties. The issues are too serious to be continuously ignored. The technological capacity is now there. It must be used. The cost would not be high.”

U.S. producers, who must fulfill requirements of the Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) program administered by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, may wonder if this suggestion might lead to further impediments to trade in the EU.

“European farmers have been exposed to a growing array of production requirements, including traceability, animal welfare and environmental,” according to John Brook, USMEF regional director for Europe, Russian and the Middle East. “If Ireland moves to DNA testing to fully guarantee ‘Irish beef’ as a marketing tool, that’s one thing for U.S. producers to consider.”

Today this discussion may appear farfetched, but so did the current traceability requirements at the time of their implementation. Brook notes full traceability was implemented within a few months, and today is firmly embedded in the EU regulations and practices.

European Union

Searching For A Competitive Advantage: Will Ireland Use DNA Animal Traceability?

Irish farmers are keenly aware of their position as major suppliers to the rest of the European Union (EU) to whom they export the great majority of their production. They take care to promote the image of Ireland as a green pastoral country, with a strong agricultural history and culture.

Having at first regarded traceability of animals as an onerous and costly obligation, they have now adopted it as a highly positive element of marketing and as a weapon for attempts at protectionism by lobbying for the same regulations to apply to imported beef. But will they stop here?

Matt Dempsey, editor of the influential Irish Farm Journal recently suggested they should: “We now have new technologies. We have an animal health system where every animal is handled and samples taken as well as full traceability mechanisms – it’s time to link up the capacities and get definitive DNA profiles for every animal in the national herd. If a product is then sold as Irish then we would be in a position to easily present solid evidence. We need supervision of this legislation, we need accurate labeling and we need enforcement with proper penalties. The issues are too serious to be continuously ignored. The technological capacity is now there. It must be used. The cost would not be high.”

U.S. producers, who must fulfill requirements of the Non-Hormone Treated Cattle (NHTC) program administered by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, may wonder if this suggestion might lead to further impediments to trade in the EU.

“European farmers have been exposed to a growing array of production requirements, including traceability, animal welfare and environmental,” according to John Brook, USMEF regional director for Europe, Russian and the Middle East. “If Ireland moves to DNA testing to fully guarantee ‘Irish beef’ as a marketing tool, that’s one thing for U.S. producers to consider.”

Today this discussion may appear farfetched, but so did the current traceability requirements at the time of their implementation. Brook notes full traceability was implemented within a few months, and today is firmly embedded in the EU regulations and practices.