Animal Disease Traceability Status Report for USDA, APHIS, Veterinary Services

Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry (ME DACF)

rev. February 2021

Michele Walsh, DVM

State Veterinarian, Maine

• ME DACF Traceability goals, 2021 and beyond: Maine continues to use a 

combination of a paper-based system and electronic databases to record all of our 

livestock data, but has made significant progress in digitizing most of the animal 

movement information that comes to our office and encouraging our constituents, 

particularly private veterinarians, to take advantage of all electronic resources 

available. Through six virtual large animal veterinary continuing education meetings 

(FY20 and FY21) and regular written, electronic and in-person correspondence with 

Maine’s agricultural stakeholders, we keep information exchange between ME DACF 

and our animal agriculture sector open, eliminating the need for an animal 

identification advisory group. We have adopted and integrated SCS/CoreOne

software and have consistently used the funds from our ADT cooperative 

agreements to contract with an individual to transfer files and enter and manage 

animal health data. As of FY17, we have made aspects of ADT – specifically animal 

movement data entry and CVI processing and animal traces – the primary

responsibility of ME DACF administrative staff. We continue to work with TraceFirst 

on webinar trainings to maximize our understanding and fluency with SCS/CoreOne. 

Our most recent projects focus on utilizing CoreOne and/or EMRS to document and 

track any disease investigation-related visits to animal premises and related 

quarantines. We will continue to integrate our Reportable Animal Disease (RAD)

database into CoreOne also. As of FY17, all of our RAD reports are digitized. For 

FY21 and beyond, we aim to make Premises ID and import permits available to 

constituents online, and will further develop the resources and educational

materials re: ADT available on our newly-expanded, state-based ADT webpage:

https://www.maine.gov/dacf/ahw/animal_health/adt/index.shtml

• Vision Statement: Since this Road Map was drafted twelve years ago, we have made 

substantial progress toward an electronic-based system of livestock health 

information. In FY17, Maine approved the use of the mCVI (now AgView) software, 

and in subsequent years we have added other companies that meet the 

USAHA/USDA Data Standards for eCVIs, including Global Vet Link/GVL and USDA 

VEHCS. Other programs are under consideration as requested by our veterinary 

practitioners. Our staff actively promote the use of such programs to increase our 

progress towards the digital age with regular reminders as our large animal 

veterinary CE meetings (mentioned above.) We need to continue to transition our 

accredited veterinarians toward using electronic CVIs, digitized test charts and, to 

the extent possible, electronic form of animal identification. Please see Section IV 

below for details on progress we’ve made towards these digitization goals.

• Mission statement: Our mission is to continue to make more improvements over 

the next three years in animal disease traceability, specifically through increasing 
Maine veterinarians’ access to traceability software; maximizing our use of 

SCS/CoreOne data management capabilities; through continuing education of 

livestock stakeholders on the ADT rule and the advantages and importance of 

official ID; and through training of our own staff on innovations in this field.

• Traceability requirements: we accept as a strategic goal being able to sustain and

continue development of a state-wide infrastructure for advancing animal disease 

traceability compatible with state, territory and USDA standards.

Programmatic goals:

o 2021 (10th year):

o Maintain ID tracing skills in at least two staff positions, providing 

more flexibility if staff resign or are allocated to other work 

priorities.

o Continue to improve standard operating procedures (SOPs) and 

outreach and education efforts with constituents to improve 

documentation of interstate and intrastate movement of cattle, 

sheep, goats, swine and horses, as established in previous ADT CAs. 

For example, in FY20, with the cancellation of agricultural fairs and 

exhibitions due to the COVID pandemic, we increased our outreach 

and education re: Animal ID requirements for 4H/FFA youth by 

partnering with state 4H leadership to distribute informational 

materials and promote a series of online workshops and tagging 

instruction videos produced by ME DACF staff. In 2021 and beyond,

we will continue those education efforts with a focus on recordkeeping for FY21, with specific activities contingent on pandemic 

mitigation recommendations.

o Convert import permitting and Premises ID allocations to digital

system - Execution of TPM exercises by ME DACF will adhere to 

updated in-house SOPs, which include attention to our import 

permitting system, which we will convert to an on-line request 

system, as well as ME DACF monitoring of auction and livestock 

show and sale activities to maximize compliance, minimize 

transgressions and facilitate producer education regarding the 

benefits of the ADT Rule.

o 2022 (11th year):

o Continue activities detailed above and refine data sharing with other 

state and federal entities.

o 2023 (12th year):

o Continue activities detailed above and refine data sharing with 

other

state and federal entities.

Performance measures: Location identification: We have received training from our 

USDA APHIS VS district 1 partners on EMRS and have fully assumed responsibility for 

issuing premises identification for Maine farms. See notes re: automation of that 

allocation system, above. Official ID: As prescribed in the ADT rule and updates to 
that rule. Tag distribution: System described in FY21 ADT work plan. We have 

initiated education, outreach and distribution of free RFID tags to cattle 

veterinarians as well as dairy and beef producers as of January 2021; tag allocation 

tracked via in-house (state) database, as well as SCS/CoreOne and, eventally, AIMS. 

Record keeping: electronic and paper combination until we have faith that the 

electronic system is failproof. Multiple issues with accurate extraction of data from 

both EMRS2 and SCS/CoreOne reinforce need for back-up. No commuter herds. 

Data shared with other state, federal and tribal entities upon request. Currently, we 

accept both paper and electronic CVIs. No current plans to discontinue paper CVIs 

until state budgets prohibit reorder of forms.

Information technology plan: The development of this plan is entirely dependent on 

resources which are currently very meager, outside of our USDA cooperative

agreement. USDA assistance continues to be critical in moving this initiative in the 

right direction.

Resource requirements: We rely on at least 0.5 FTE staff position, provided via the 

USDA ADT CA, to carry out the investigations associated with ADT violations, in a 

non-animal disease outbreak situation. We don’t anticipate any additional space 

needs and we will use in-house IT personnel or USDA TPM employees when we

need assistance to conduct urgent tracebacks. 

Organizational needs: We don’t anticipate any change in organizational 

infrastructure at this time.

Executive Support: The current executive (the Commissioner of Agriculture) is fully 

supportive of enhanced animal disease traceability.

Coordination and Oversight: Within the socio-political group, the State Veterinarian 

bears overall responsibility for advancing animal disease traceability. She is also the 

Department’s primary representative on the state’s Emergency Response Team so 

she is actively engaged in emergency preparedness and response. Since 2018, our 

Asst. State Veterinarian for Animal Welfare (shared position with Animal Health) has 

developed expertise in emergency management and oversees outreach and training 

exercise opportunities related to emergency response involving animals. The State 

Veterinarian has responsibility for assigning tasks involved in implementing the plan. 

Feedback is obtained through active engagement with producer groups and 

accredited veterinarians. 

Policy: No policy amendments have been necessary to align state policies with ADT 

rule.

Staffing: Currently, handling animal disease traceability information is shared 

between the diagnostic laboratory director, the clerk for the Division of Animal and 

Plant Health, the ADT Technician (a USDA-funded portion of our Poultry Health 

Technician’s position) and to a lesser extent, the State Veterinarian and the 

Assistant State Veterinarian. This situation will continue over the next three years, 

with possible elimination or absorption of the ADT Tech’s responsibilities into the 

DAPH Clerk’s responsibilities.

Budget requirements: With the exception of the ADT/PHT employee, who is funded 

by a USDA ADT cooperative agreement, all of the above-mentioned individuals are 

funded by state general fund dollars. They of course have numerous other job 

responsibilities in addition to ADT. The question asked by the previous Maine State 

Veterinarian persists: how can anyone insulate against budget shortfalls in the 

current climate of budget austerity and fiscal uncertainty? Unfortunately, ADT is not
a high priority in the minds of most state legislators when animal disease 

emergencies are not underway. ME DACF continue to education our state peers 

about the importance of preparation, and the limited expansion of some ME DACF 

staff hours is a tiny step in the right direction.

Outreach: Accredited veterinarians: We continue to offer continuing educational 

meetings for large animal veterinarians. We always take the opportunity to remind 

these individuals of their responsibilities as accredited veterinarians and will 

continue to do so in the future when the ADT rule becomes law. Livestock markets: 

We only have one market and our livestock specialist attends this market every 

week to assure that animals are correctly identified and that only health animals are 

offered for sale. We have used this forum to educate producers and livestock 

dealers about the ADT rule and enforcement of official ID requirements (eg scrapie 

tags.) Livestock industry: We continue to attend monthly and annual meetings of 

each of our producer groups and they are well-versed on the ADT rule. Outbreaks of 

SECD and HPAI have underlined the importance of traceability to our pork and 

poultry stakeholders. CWD has captured the attention of our state and federal 

wildlife colleagues, as well as our captive cervid producers. We’ll continue to 

provide education and outreach to this vital community. Our primary species are 

dairy cattle, beef cattle, swine, sheep, goats and poultry.

Monitoring: We rely on SCS/CoreOne to retrieve data on number of animals and 

number of shipments, as well as animal import and export data. Paper records and 

an Access database of eartags, as well as animal auction databases provide 

additional or supplemental information as needed.

V. Traceability implementation: Please refer to the FY21 ADT CA work plan for details.