WASHINGTON - US farmers and ranchers will take the first step toward a nationwide animal tracking system in mid-2004, a programme intended to swiftly pinpoint the history of livestock suspected of mad cow disease or other dangerous diseases.

The goal of the voluntary programme is to identify within 48 hours of a disease outbreak, the animals involved and the farm, ranch or feedlot where they were raised so the disease cannot spread.

That would be faster and more reliable than the welter of systems that producers now use. Numbering systems vary from farm to farm and producers often track different information.

Cattle can have two or three owners - or more - before slaughter. Hogs and poultry also can have a number of owners.

Officials say investigation of the nation's first mad cow case in Washington state was eased because it involved a dairy cow and dairy farmers tend to keep extensive records because cows are in their herds for years. Beef cattle often are slaughtered at age two.

Scott Stuart, a spokesman for the identification project, said it already was on a fast-paced work schedule so "it's hard to see things will be sped up" by the new US mad cow case.

Farmers, a fiercely independent group, have been wary of "trace back" and national identification systems in the past as undue intrusion into their affairs. However, some farm leaders say a nationwide animal ID plan would help assure food safety.

"If we have a (mad cow) incident, we better be able to trace it back fairly quick," said Missouri Farm Bureau President Charles Kruse in an interview in early December.

A meat industry official said the discovery of a mad cow case in Washington state would put animal ID "on the front burner. No one with any stature will oppose it now."

It would begin with states assigning an identification number for each farm, ranch and feedlot by July 2004. By February 2005, ID numbers for individual animals or a group of animals would be available for issuance.

(Agencies via Xinhua)