Food Safety News Cites TraceGains’ William Pape

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 20, 2009 --

NAIS: Simpler Technology Fuels Fire according to William Pape in the Nov 14th issue of Food Safety News. William Pape is the co-founder and EVP of TraceGains, Inc., a software company that makes the food supply chain safer and more profitable by helping companies produce better finished goods faster and more cost-effectively. Pape said, “No sooner have most people pronounced NAIS dead-on-arrival, than a number of recent events may have breathed life back into the U.S.A.'s National Animal Identification Scheme. A combination of market forces aligned with a simplified tracking technology, and some rare positive news may have reinvigorated USDA's moribund, voluntary animal traceability initiative.”

Even though the U.S. House of Representatives had voted to cut off funding for the NAIS as part of the Farm Bill, a joint House-Senate conference committee agreed a few weeks ago to continue funding the program to the tune of $5.3 million for fiscal year 2010-2011. This funding is a reduction from the $14.2 million authorized for last year and less than the $14.6 million the Senate approved, but the program will continue.

The second piece of good news for NAIS supporters is that U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in Washington, D.C., dismissed a civil suit filed by the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and a group of Michigan cattlemen against the USDA and the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) over the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The group's suit, filed last September, sought to enjoin the implementation and enforcement of NAIS. The suit was dismissed primarily because Judge Collyer ruled the program was voluntarily adopted by state departments of agriculture and was not federally mandated.

Even with all of these developments, make no mistake -- NAIS is still on life support, and it may still die. But when the marketplace speaks and producers begin to feel the pinch or bulge in their wallets, or, God forbid, we have the type of catastrophic event Dr. Teagarden prophesies, even the most hardened producer will either adapt to the new reality or leave the business. Simplified technological approaches may help tip the scales, and we have seen within our own animal tracking commercial activities over the last eleven years that our simplified technologies are the ones most often embraced. As is so often the case, technology can pave the way towards adoption or rejection.



The mission at TraceGains (www.TraceGains.com) is to make the food supply chain safer and more profitable by helping companies produce finished goods faster, better, and more cost-effectively. Supplier Compliance is a food safety firewall that allows companies to detect and eliminate problems in the supply chain before they are incorporated into finished goods and shipped to customers. By reducing ingredient variability, the finished product becomes less costly to manufacture, performs better, and ultimately increases customer satisfaction. S