Source & Age Verified Cattle:
Sorting out what it all means and what your options are.

One of the hottest value added topics in our industry involves Source and Age Verified Cattle. With all the interest and buzz circling around these opportunities, its no surprise that there is also a growing amount of confusion about what actually makes up a Source and Age Verified animal.

Many of you may have already been approached by packers, feeders and/or buyers requesting that your consignors complete a verification form or affidavit in line with their lot or company’s source and/or age verification requirements.

Many of these forms are part of a new set of programs approved by USDA that will qualify calves to be marketed as beef for the Japanese marketplace, while others are just purely a paper affidavit with no export affiliation whatsoever.

The most important thing for you to understand is that just because your consignors have completed an affidavit those calves may not be eligible to be sold as beef for the Japanese market.

To start clearing up some of the confusion surrounding all of these different forms let’s begin with a series of definitions:

Beef Export Verification Program

(BEV) - A BEV is a series of product requirements that the USDA and an export market (example-Japan) agree upon and demand of any supplier wishing to export beef into that country’s marketplace.

• The supplier must have in place, or be a part of a USDA-approved Quality Systems Assessment (QSA) program or a Process Verified Program (PVP) that meets all of the BEV requirements.
• Eligible beef products must be derived from cattle that are 20 months of age or younger at the time of harvest.
• Cattle must be individually identified and traceable back to the ranch of origin. (*Note – Neither Japan nor USDA specify Visual vs. Electronic ID – so long as each calf is uniquely and individually identified and that identifier matches all records. Individual QSA programs may have specific tagging requirements.)
• The records for each calf must indicate either the actual date of birth of each individual calf being sold; or if the producer has a group of calves born in the same calving season each calf may be identified with the actual date of birth of the oldest calf born in the group.
• Example – A producer has 20 calves born between Feb. 20 and March 20, he has the option of assigning each calf with its actual individual birth date or if the oldest calf was born on Feb. 20, 2005, all 20 calves would then be assigned the birth date of Feb. 20, 2005.

Quality Systems Assessment Program

(QSA) – A USDA established set of guidelines that will qualify cattle for Japanese export.

• Any packer, feedlot, auction market, producer, animal health company, or other related company or group can follow the USDA guidelines and, if approved offer a QSA program under which producers can enroll their cattle to qualify for Japanese export. Each program may have unique features but the basic elements outlined by USDA will require the producer to identify animals, document birth dates and have a written management system.
• To date there are 43 approved QSA programs that have followed the approval process and been granted the right by USDA to begin qualifying cattle for Japanese export. A list of programs is available online at www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/arc/qsap.htm.
• Each of the QSA programs has been approved and audited by USDA. As an approved program they can qualify producer’s cattle for export. By doing so they are accepting responsibility for each producer’s management records validating the age and source verification claims.
• Only the cow/calf producer can enroll a calf in a QSA program and all animals must have been enrolled by an approved QSA prior to being sold in order to qualify for Japanese export.
• To protect the integrity of the program, USDA and each of the approved programs will be required to do regular audits of program and producer records to confirm that all records are in place back to the herd of origin, validating the birth and source info for individual calves.

Process Verified Program

(PVP) - The PVP is similar in design to the QSA programs with the exception that the PVP also makes claims and audits all management claims made by the program.

• Example – A PVP program may verify and audit only source and age info or it may also include all natural claims, preconditioned claims, etc.
• To date there are 23 USDA-approved PVP’s that have followed the approval process and been granted the right by USDA to begin qualifying cattle as Process Verified. A list of programs is available online at http://processverified.usda.gov.

What does it all mean to you... As a marketer you may be wondering what all of these “three letter words” mean to you and your consignors.

• Basically, USDA and in this case, the Japanese have laid down a set of requirements that our beef must meet in order to be exported onto their consumers shelves.
• Our government and the Japanese government don’t seem to be concerned with any product attributes other than how old the calf was when it was harvested and whether or not we can trace each individual animal being harvested for export back to the farm or ranch of origin.
• If you are asked by a buyer to complete an affidavit on cattle at your market you need to make sure you know what you are signing or asking your consignors to sign.
• Talk to your buyers... ask them to clarify what they are wanting to accomplish with this source and age verified information. Do they just want the information or are they buying these animals for Japanese export?
• These QSA and PVP programs may be a great opportunity for many producers, but if your consignors are not already enrolled in a QSA or PVP program then you as a marketer CAN NOT represent the cattle as being eligible for export to Japan.
• If your consignors have completed an affidavit and have records on hand to validate the claims being made then you can represent them at sale time as being simply Source and Age Verified – but again, this does not mean they are qualified for export to Japan.

What are your options... if your buyers are demanding QSA or PVP program cattle that are eligible for export to Japan then you and your consignors have these options:

1. Enroll consignors’ cattle directly into one of the USDA approved QSA programs offered by a packer or feedlot.
   • This is not the recommended option as it limits a consignor’s ability to sell his livestock to multiple buyers interested in the program cattle.
   • If a consignor is enrolled in one of the approved QSA programs by a packer or feedlot, he/she is only approved for that program. He/She would not be eligible to sell program cattle to anyone but that program. To be eligible to sell to multiple QSA buyers he/she must have been enrolled and approved by each of the programs looking to purchase the calves and keep separate records for each of the programs.
   • Example – Rancher Smith enrolls his cattle into the QSA program offered by Swift and Company. Rancher Smith would then be limited to selling his export eligible cattle to Swift. He could sell to another source but the calves could not carry the claim of being QSA approved for export.
2. Enroll consignors into a USDA approved PVP program that is independent of any one packer or feeder.
   • This is the recommended route for the markets and producers to take.
   • If enrolled independently through PVP program a consignor can market his/her calves to any interested buyers as being eligible for export to Japan.
   • Markets could create a relationship with one of the PVP programs to enroll multiple consignors and have organized PVP qualified Source and Age Verified Sales.
3. Each market has the option of applying for its own QSA program to gain the ability to enroll and approve its own consignors’ cattle.
   • This may not be the most practical option for most auctions due to the costs associated, difficulty in managing the data to be traced back and the liability associated with accepting responsibility for consignors’ records and management.

One final note... all of this information being traced back for export qualification has absolutely no link to the National Animal Identification System that is being designed by another agency within USDA.

Participation in a QSA or PVP or even completing a general Source and Age Verification affidavit is absolutely voluntary. It is a value added opportunity that you and your consignors can discuss as an option in your marketing plans.

If you have any questions about this issue or for more information, please contact Kristen Parman, VP of Membership Services for Livestock Marketing Association at 800-821-2048 or email Kristen at kparman@lmaweb.com.