On March 5, 2021, the RA Deputy Minister of Economy Tigran Gabrielyan organized a deliberation meeting to discuss the program on numbering and registration of bovine animals in the Republic of Armenia, which was approved by the RA Government during its session on June 11, 2020.

The meeting was attended by the Deputy Head of the Food Safety Inspectorate Narek Hayrapetyan, the Director of the “Agricultural Services Center” SNCO Garnik Hovhannisyan, representatives of the “Center for Agribusiness and Rural Development” (CARD) and other stakeholder institutions.

The objective of the project is to introduce and execute a system of universal numbering and registration of bovine animals in the country, which, being an information platform on the number of bovine animals existing in the country, their distribution and movement, as well as mandatory veterinary measures that bovine animals undergo in the country, will provide an opportunity to significantly improve the control of animal diseases and prevention of their spreading, as well as the level of animal origin food safety.

“Activities on numbering were planned to be carried out last year, but, unfortunately, the process was postponed because of the war. However, even in those conditions, the Government prioritized this program and we will try to implement it this year”, said Tigran Gabrielyan adding that the numbering process is already planned to start in May-June this year.

According to the Deputy Minister, the activities on bovine animals numbering will be carried out by the veterinarians cooperating with the “Agricultural Services Center” SNCO who participated in the special training courses, who will put numbered tags, register, and enter the relevant data in the electronic system.

Narek Hayrapetyan, the Deputy Head of the Food Safety Inspectorate, in his turn, stressed that within the framework of the program on bovine animals numbering and registration in Armenia, the Food Safety Inspectorate was authorized with an important function of control of the process and comprehensive organization of animal slaughtering at slaughterhouses.

“As you know, until recently the number of slaughterhouses in the Republic of Armenia was not sufficient to carry out full control, but effective March 1 of this year we shifted to the intensified control regime by the 5th form, and this will be continuously applied”, said Narek Hayrapetyan.

During the meeting a number of issues were discussed in relation to the effective implementation of the program, organization of training courses for the personnel applying the numbered tags, launch of an appropriate electronic system for numbering and registration, as well as implementation of program awareness-raising activities and provision of advisory activities in the communities.