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Nebraska receives only $130,000 for animal identification efforts
KEARNEY, Neb. (AP)--The U.S. Department of Agriculture has doled out $11.64 million to states, American Indian tribes and others to help develop animal identification systems.
Nebraska, one of the country's leaders in cattle production, received $130,000. An eight-state regional request for $1.2 million that included Nebraska received no funding at all.
Greg Ibach, deputy director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, said he did not know why the state, which had asked for $500,000, received relatively little.
"We were really disappointed the regional request didn't get any at all," Ibach said Aug. 10 at the 2004 Nebraska Grazing Conference.
Two other top cattle states, Kansas and Texas, were awarded $805,000 and $1 million, respectively, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Other states allocated more than $500,000 included Florida, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota and Pennsylvania.
Joining Nebraska in the $100,000 to $150,000 range were Ohio, Vermont, West Virginia and New Jersey.
Ibach said he planned to ask federal officials just what happened.
The $130,000 is to be used over the next year to help establish identification numbers for every facility that raises livestock.
Ibach said it won't be enough money to adequately test such a program for a state with huge numbers of cattle.
Nebraska leads the nation in commercial livestock slaughter and it is third in all cattle and calves with 6.25 million as of Jan. 1, according to the February Nebraska Agriculture Fact Card.
Date: 8/25/04
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