This project aims at testing an improved Livestock Identification and Registration System (LIRS) in Cambodia and Laos. Such a system is critically important to address and manage animal movement, to provide a platform to a develop traceability system, and improve animal health and production in both countries. The LIRS is considered as a concrete foundation for promoting export of quality livestock and livestock products. 

Cambodia and Laos are situated in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) together with China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The GMS countries have enjoyed a remarkable economic growth, with 7.5% gross domestic product growth on average between 1992 and 2014, with considerable expansion of trade in agriculture products. However, trading in livestock and livestock products still faces many technical challenges. These include Transboundary Animal Diseases (TADs) such as the Food and Mouth Disease (FMD), food safety, traceability and quality assurance. The prevalence of TADs such as FMD, and more recently African Swine Fever (ASF), is a major challenge in Cambodia, Laos, and GMS countries, as the country shares borders with five other FMD-endemic countries.

Animal identification and traceability systems are crucial for animal movement management in the control of TADs along with vaccination, improvements in public awareness of the importance of biosecurity, disease reporting and surveillance, and rapid emergency disease response capacity.

Currently, some GMS countries like Cambodia and Laos have no functioning livestock identification system to facilitate safe trade and control movement of livestock and livestock products. As Laos and Cambodia are important trade routes for livestock, the presence of a reliable and acceptable animal identification and traceability system is instrumental for the prevention and control of transboundary diseases that can have a devastating impact on the livestock sector.

Without reliable livestock identification and traceability systems, trading livestock and livestock products from these countries to more lucrative regional export markets, like China and Vietnam, will be difficult to achieve.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the two countries to develop and implement a Livestock Identification and Registration Systems (LIRS) through a regional Technical Cooperation Project (TCP).

From 2019 to 2021, this TCP aims to strengthen government’s capacities, particularly General Directorate of Animal Health and Production, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Cambodia and the Department of Livestock and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Laos, to monitor livestock movement and strengthen disease control. This action will also support famers of the two countries to improve stable supply of livestock products for domestic and regional export.