Schering-Plough? Schering-Plough!

If you'd told me yesterday that Schering-Plough Animal Health (SPAH) would be the company chosen to tackle the USA's animal ID scheme, frankly I'd have been somewhat sceptical. I could have suggested a whole handful of more likely frontrunners, so the news that SPAH took line honours in this particular race did come as rather a surprise.

But really, why not? Tracking schemes have significant potential to evolve into tools for tracking and managing animal health. And of course, it's a subsidiary, Global Animal Management, rather than SPAH itself that's at the heart of the ID story.

Global Animal Management has been named as the first National Animal Identification System provider by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The company will use its Animal Tracker program to feed data directly into the USDA's information system. This will allow producers who are already using the company's Tri-Merit age, process and source verification program to easily become members of the animal tracking part of the system.