New livestock tagging facility approved in Maryland

Jul 21, 2015

Facility will be in Hagerstown

Hagerstown’s Four States Live Stock Sale has been approved as an official tagging facility by the Maryland Department of Agriculture, allowing the auctions to apply official identification to the livestock. A practice that the USDA’s Animal Disease Traceability Rule deems necessary.

The tagging practices are designed to be able to identify any animals quickly should an outbreak occur, and to release healthy animals from outbreak investigation. The rules apply to all animals except feeder beef breeds (feeder beef breeds could be included in the future.) Animals moved interstate to another approved tagging facility are exempted from the tagging requirements as long as they’re identified upon arrival.

Tagging

Certified tagging sites can also accept animals arriving from other states without a veterinary inspection. Tagging facilities can charge for services, but Four States currently offers the service free of charge.

Other tagging facilities in Maryland include the Westminster Livestock Auction in Carroll County and the Grantsville and Friends Livestock Auctions in Garrett County.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture also extended the Pesticide Usage Survey deadline to Saturday, August 15^th.

“This crucial data will help agriculture and industry professionals understand what is being used, and it will provide public and environmental health experts with information that can help them focus their research and monitoring efforts,” said Agriculture Secretary Joe Bartenfelder.

New for the survey are questions relating to the time of year the pesticide was used and which crop was targeted for the application.

Completion of the survey is voluntary but high response rates are important to ensuring the data is as accurate as can be before it’s sent to the National Agricultural Statistics Survey.

They’ll be contacting people after August 15^th who haven’t completed the survey.

Video: Swine Industry Advances: Biodigesters Lower Emissions and Increase Profits

Analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG emissions) in the Canadian swine sector found that CH4 emissions from manure were the largest contributor to the overall emissions, followed by emissions from energy use and crop production.

This innovative project, "Improving Swine Manure-Digestate Management Practices Towards Carbon Neutrality With Net Zero Emission Concepts," from Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal, under Swine Cluster 4, seeks to develop strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

While the management of manure can be very demanding and expensive for swine operations, it can also be viewed as an opportunity for GHG mitigation, as manure storage is an emission source built and managed by swine producers. Moreover, the majority of CH4 emissions from manure occur during a short period of time in the summer, which can potentially be mitigated with targeted intervention.

In tandem with understanding baseline emissions, Dr. Rajagopal's work focuses on evaluating emission mitigation options. Manure additives have the potential of reducing manure methane emissions. Additives can be deployed relatively quickly, enabling near-term emission reductions while biodigesters are being built. Furthermore, additives can be a long-term solution at farms where biogas is not feasible (e.g., when it’s too far from a central digester). Similarly, after biodigestion, additives can also be used to further reduce emissions from storage to minimize the carbon intensity of the bioenergy.