Located in middle area of Shaanxi province, Chengcheng County is a pilot county of LHESP in Shaanxi. It is also one of three pilot counties where the Animal ID and traceability system is being implemented. As well it has the goal to produce one million pigs. A training of the Animal ID and traceability system was held in the Chengcheng County Communist Party School from June 9-10, 2009. The purpose was to train the participants in the proper use of the Animal ID and traceability system and there by to improve their capacity for prevention and control of important animal epidemic disease to protect livestock product safety.

In total, 76 trainees from each township and county husbandry center attended this training session.

Wang Junrong, from County Husbandry Center, chaired the opening ceremonies. First, Chen Xingmin, deputy director of Chengcheng county husbandry center announced training schedule and training discipline. Zheng Yongmin, director of Chengcheng county husbandry center, Javier Burchard, manager of LHESP Beijing Office, Marvin Genno, LTTA of LHESP Shaanxi Office, Gao Juxing, director of Shaanxi Animal Inspection Institute gave opening speeches. Zheng Yongmin emphasized, as a one million swine project county, the most important work is to do a good job of animal epidemic prevention. The animal ID and traceability system is an effective method to prevent animal epidemic disease scientifically, thereby ensuring the development of swine production in Chengcheng County. Javier Burchard looked at positive and negative examples of international animal disease traceability cases respectively to show the importance and necessity of implementing animal ID and traceability system. Dr. Marvin Genno spoke on behalf of the Project welcoming all the trainees. He hoped they could use what they learned from the training in future work.

Dr. Melvin Hoffer, who will be the next LTTA in Shaanxi office attend the training as well. Before the start of the training, he gave a short presentation introducing himself. This was a good beginning for his future work in Shaanxi.

Ren Xiaoling, Dai Dehua, from the Shaanxi Animal Inspection Institute, Lian Haoxiang, Shi Tian were trainers for this training. Ren Xiaoling presented the current situation of the Chinese Animal ID and traceability system, its background and related rules; Dai Dehua, answered questions and issues of using Animal ID and traceability system. Lian Haoxiang and Shi Tian, from Beijing Yuan Wanggu Company guided the trainees in the proper use of the reader and gave them some hands on experience with the reader. Trainees were interested in this part.

In post-training evaluation, some trainees said, they are key people who will use animal ID and traceability system to conduct animal epidemic disease prevention. This training was a very good opportunity for them to master new techniques and get to know the operation of the new system. It will be very useful for their future work.

Opening ceremony	Dr. Melvin Hoffer give presentation

Trainees are on the class	Handle practice of reader by trainees