Nebraska Launches Traceability Program

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture is launching the Solutions for Ag Verification Enhancement (SAVE) project. Its goal is to facilitate a system that verifies products as coming from Nebraska and traces them to the producer level.  Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns believes a traceability system will help protect access for Nebraska products in the international market.

The project stemmed from Gov. Johanns’ trade mission trip to Japan just days after a Canadian cow was found to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Johanns said the Japanese asked what measures were in place to guarantee “Nebraska beef” exported to their country hadn’t spent time in Canada.

In 2002, Japan’s trade included $347 million in Nebraska ag products, emphasizing the importance of addressing such concerns.

Ag Director Merlyn Carlson said the SAVE project is not intended to create competition for the various animal-identification and management systems currently available. The project’s goals are to find a way to relate them to each other and to support traceability systems for other ag products.

Carlson asked industry representatives to serve on the SAVE committees.