April 28, 2011

 

Cattle traceability not to slow Canada's sale process

The current traceability platform of Canada's Alberta can be implemented at cattle auction markets with little or no effect at all on the rate at which cattle are being unloaded or sold, the province reports.

 

The provincial agricultural department released data on Tuesday (Apr 26) from its 10-month Alberta Auction Market Pilot Project, run at six markets in the province between October 2009 and July last year.

 

"We are pleased that this pilot project showed that there was little or no impact on wait times for cattle to be unloaded, or to the length of sales," Agriculture Minister Jack Hayden said.

 

However, the project report also calls out a number of potential weak links in such tracking systems, such as tag types and tagging compliance.

 

The project met its performance goal of a minimum 95% read rate of animals with functioning RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, the province said. In all, 248,335 cattle were delivered to the markets; another 25,857 animals were age-verified through the added checkpoint.

 

"Fundamentally the pilot project proved that it is possible to scan cattle at the required speed and with the required accuracy within an auction market environment," the project report said. All six sites topped the 95% minimum read performance on RFID tags within the first two weeks of operation.

 

Movement data gathered at the six markets was uploaded directly to the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency's (CCIA) Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS).

 

Reading systems, the province said, were configured "to meet the unique approach of each auction market to receiving, shipping and processing cattle, and to minimise the impact on speed of commerce."

 

The distance cattle moved between unloading and penning at the markets was "slightly increased, but had little or no impact on wait times for cattle to be unloaded," the province said.

 

The "bigger challenge," the report said, will be to make sure cattle arrive at markets with functioning RFID devices and with accurate birthdate information so their age verification data can be made available at the time of sale.

 

"Current protocols with respect to retagging animals with missing, non-reading or bar-coded ear tags and correcting data with obvious mistakes do not allow these issues to be addressed at the 'speed of commerce.'"

 

The project report also noted "significant" differences in the performance of the different CCIA-accredited tags in use in Alberta. Some "consistently performed at an exceptionally high level of read performance (over 99%) while others were consistent under-achievers."

 

Tag placement in an animal's ear also had an "enormous impact on retention and readability of the different products throughout all pilot sites, which could have been easily avoided," the report said.

 

It was also "extremely noticeable" that compliance rates on cattle tagging were highest leading up to the expected January 1, 2010 date for elimination of bar-coded ear tags, the report said.

 

"It was also noticeable that the compliance rate immediately slipped once producers realised the 'no bar-codes' policy was not going to be enforced."