livestock inspections
DP |
Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture |
|
|
DP |
Caucus and COW |
|
|
X |
Third Read |
|
|
|
As Passed the House |
|
Permits the Director of the Department of Agriculture (Director) to adopt a mandatory self-inspection program for livestock.
HB 2363 passed the Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee unamended.
The states’ interest in livestock inspections began in 1887 when the Livestock Sanitary Commission (later the State Livestock Board) was established in the Arizona Territory. The State Livestock Board was responsible for livestock regulation through 1990. Livestock inspections are now a subprogram of the Arizona Department of Agriculture’s Animal Disease, Ownership and Welfare Protection Program. The Livestock Inspection Subprogram protects owners of livestock against theft, and livestock from abuse, by regulating all facets of livestock ownership and movement and maintaining documentation of livestock activity.
According to the June 2000 Auditor General Performance Audit a typical inspection costs the Department $14.00 but recovers only $3.75 or less in fees. The study also indicated that Arizona Law requires the Department to conduct thousands of inspections that are potentially duplicative. In FY 1999, 180,000 cattle were unnecessarily inspected. The Auditor General recommended improving the livestock inspection process.
The Arizona Department of Agriculture currently has a Livestock Self-inspection program. According to Department Rule, R3-2-702, any owner or operator of a ranching operation producing at least five cattle or 10 sheep, an inventoried dairy operation using at least five dairy cattle, or an inventoried feedlot operation moving at least five cattle per year to a state or federally inspected slaughter establishment or to a recognized Arizona livestock auction, may apply for a self-inspection certificate book or cab card, or both, to move livestock.