On September 8, the Head of the State Service for Food Safety of MOA, RA (hereinafter Service) had a meeting with Ronald Ruiz, expert of the Swiss Cooperation Office to discuss the animal identification issue.
The head of the Service said that it was intended to carry out registration and identification of agricultural animals, through consolidation of special labels to ears containing coded information, which would enable to make more controllable the movement of animals and more efficient the control of diseases and anti-veterinary-epidemiological measures of diseases, while creating a complete data base.
Given the fact that the large-scale process of identification will be carried out in the Republic for the first time, the Head of the Service highlighted the importance of international cooperation and experience with experts and professional institutions, which will allow to implement the project successfully.
Hovhannes Mkrtchyan, the Head of the Veterinary Inspection of the Service was also present at the meeting, who informed that a pilot project had been implemented in Vayots Dzor marz previously, involving 23 thousand cattle, due to which now it is possible to avoid possible obstacles and shortcomings during the identification process.
Ronald Ruiz, sharing his experience in this area, the involvement of farmers in this project and the issue of adequate training of specialists considered an important prerequisite in this project.
The expert expressed his willingness to support this project. Agreements were reached at the end of the meeting on further steps of cooperation.
The Service continues the works to involve donor agencies and to fully implement the animal identification project.