Traceability Boondoggle

[Happytrails]

In the endless campaign to sell the useless, expensive, and destructive RFID tag traceability scheme, Alberta Agriculture has released two new reports. http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/newslett.nsf/all/agnw17930

They analyze the traceability pilot projects at 6 auction markets for costs and metrics. Guess what, the reports are written by ITS, the company that supplied the equipment for the pilots. Objective? Your call.

One thing that jumped out at me was a massive discrepancy in the heads of cattle reportedly scanned in each report. The cost analysis claims that they scanned 328624 cattle. The metrics analysis which dealt with the same markets over the same 9 months came up with 248335. Wow. No wonder both reports stated that their data had to be "cleaned up" to be useful.

IMO the only parties to which the data is useful have jobs related to its collection. Heck, BIXS is having trouble getting going. What makes Ritz, Hayden et al think they can force it on the industry without harming the businesses and people they have swore to benefit? HT

[SADIE]

Q--Happytrails--How much government money has gone into the BIXS program?

Happytrails--I hope you didn't mind I copied your comment from your other post to fit this under this thread. I believe it can belong here as well.

All of these programs (CWB, traceability, and gun registry) are aimed at seizing control of personal property. If some chose to submit willingly to the power mongers they have every right but please leave me out. We have just elected a government that has promised to reduce the coercion for 2 of them. Right on and lets make it 3


Once the governement and all the beaurocrats and other arms of the governement spend many more taxpayers dollars on this current traceability system only then we might have a chance to make it 3 for 3.

One thing positive for the Long arm gun registry. The serial numbers on the long guns at least stayed on the rifle when it is registered.

Without the constant cross-referencing of the RFID eartag numbers as they are being replaced along the production path from cow-herd to slaughter plant traceability will continue to be lost.

[Happytrails]

Hey Sadie I guess its just you and me on AV...the rest are all out working. Oh well, maybe that is why the ag department put those reports out now. They hope nobody will notice.

One thing for sure, the government guys working on traceability are out there but apparently don't want to talk about it. I thought that a provocative approach might draw some opposing fire but apparently they are out of ammunition. There ARE some important issues to be decided. The best interests of the industry demand an open discussion. What we have been getting is a bluff and a snow job.

Beyond the problems with tag retention I have come to believe that any system of animal ID that has no visual confirmation is doomed to failure. As soon as you scan 2 cattle into a pen you can't tell which is which without scanning them again. To make ID #'s work in the real world they would have to be associated with a description of some sort. Might be possible but it is not part of the present proposal.

There are lots of other issues I would encourage fellow AV'ers to raise. Remember this is the beef forum, not sheep. HT

[Happytrails]

About the BIXS program Sadie, I don't know how much gov't money is in it.

I am sure BIXS will work for those dedicated to it (maybe even my own operation, I have inquired). Copying it for an industry model is where the problem arises IMHO.

[SADIE]

Just got the call last night for PFRA delivery take in date Coteau Pasture West side of Lake Diefenbaker on May 16.

This is the pasture that has Animal Dangle tag ID, RFID and the Fly tag (manditory since 2000---sand fly problem).

One patron I know is doing a great job with records on his cows and calves. He still uses the Brisket Tag in his cow-herd. I personnelly didn't like this approach and have watched his herd since 1995 when I became patron at that pasture. Now with permanent ID that is visable on that cow his record system with RFID eartag placement and replacement is in order because of his PERMANENT VISUAL ID in place.

A second cattlemen who runs 60 cows was soil testing at my farm yesterday. He is elderly fellow (like alot of us on agriville--possibly) commented that he has his own private pasture but RFID tagged his cow-herd following the instruction of the 2009 CCIA poster that was splattered at auction markets and in magazines indicating the wording to that affect.

I gave him a copy of the CFIA monetary fines penalty relating to RFID eartags that can be levied on a Canadian Cattlemen.

Special reference was made to the 183-185 section ----re-applying new RFID tags to the same animal and cross referencing and deregistering the RFID eartag lost from that animal.

Enclosed is two posts---one with the CCIA poster propaganda and the second is the list of the monetary fines act that is in place at this time.

Time to Tag up the cow-herd one more year. Sure envy cattlemen that have their own private pastures at this time.

[SADIE]

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[SADIE]

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[smcgrath76]

Just to add a couple of cents worth...
Some industries (dairy) have gone to the
expense of a double tagging system. I
am not in favour of that, unless one tag
is a steel bangs type of tag. I think
an RFID type of system has to happen to
do traceability, but issues with
retention and responsibility need to be
sorted out. I think the national ID
system is and will be important to
trade, but that at the farm level we
have been stuck with a lot and not given
tools to make it particularly useful.
HT - a description would not work very
well at our place, and brands are only
regional. At our house the description
would be tag# 12345678, black cow.
Our own system of tagging is as
follows...
CCIA tag, Dangle tag (Z tag), brand at
yearling stage (slick calves are worth
more so we chance it), steel tag on all
replacement heifers, DNA tag on all
replacements. So our entire cowherd,
although they have lost some tags are
identified in 5 different ways and worst
case I could pull hair and match them to
the sample submitted to the lab.
We use all of these to add value to what
we do, but I would definitely not
prescribe them for industry.
Some of the items they are taking about
as far as tracking animal movements
within farm are incredibly onerous in
their present discussion state and I
can't imagine how most producers would
handle this. We track movements using
our cow/calf software, but it has more
to do with pasture management than
traceability.
In all the years of CCIA tags, we have
hit one batch of tags (2009) that were
terrible for retention, other than a
group we tested for CCIA that were
subsequently not approved.
I think we could probably benefit from
the KISS principle and empower the value
added component a bit better and things
will somewhat take care of themselves.
I know we can't teach uncommon sense to
those in enforcement, but we need that
component as well.
If it comes to stolen cows, I prefer my
local brand inspector.

[kato]

I think the problem is not with traceability, as much as it is with 100% compliance requirement/zero tolerance policy for a system that is not 100% reliable.

As long as there is even a 1% loss rate with any ID system, there is no justification for fines in the thousands of dollars. It's overkill, unproductive, and only alienates everyone involved. Every time we load cattle in a trailer, we're worrying that we missed a tag, or that they might lose one on the way.

We carry the cost. We carry the risk of fines we can't afford. We carry the dangers of retagging. We carry the responsibility for the whole system.

And we DO NOT get a return on our investment. We get vague promises about how this will help open up markets, but don't really know if it's true. Is it any wonder resentment is the main reaction to this whole enterprise?

Why should a cattle producer who has a calf lose a tag on the way to the truck be put in the same criminal class as a convicted drunk driver? The fines are the same, if not higher.

[Happytrails]

Good discussion. It occurred to me reading your post SMC that the way your cattle are marked makes them traceable to you with or without the RFID tag. BTW description could include sex, age, brand, dangle tag, color, etc. All of those things IMO are more relevant than the ID tag because they are visible.

On another note I had a situation 2 mornings ago that was no big deal but would be if movement tracking is brought in.

After breakfast I left on an errand and encountered a group of yearling steers coming down the road less than a quarter mile from our yard. They had been reported earlier and I knew where they came from so I carried on. I thought they would probably end up in our yard but I had no gates open to allow them to mix with my cattle so wasn't worried. When I returned home two staff from the feedlot were gathering them into my corrals and they proceeded to haul them home. Tomorrow I am going to use the same corrals to load some pairs heading to summer pasture.

I'm not worried and I don't think I should be. But if you looked at this incident the way the traceability folks do I just co-mingled my herd with about a hundred thousand head. There are several thousand head at the feedlot turning over pretty regular and from a lot of sources. If you want to count all the cattle that the feedlot cattle have been proximate to in their life I think a hundred thousand is likely conservative. Is it relevant? IMO not.

If some disease breaks out at my place or the feedlot of course we would target both places. You don't need scanners to figure that out.

Cattle being live animals don't always file a travel plan. The number crunchers and computer geeks think they can capture their movements on a giant spread sheet. They are going to miss a lot. Probably enough to make the exercise useless. Imagine, 14 million cattle all going for something to eat at daybreak 365 days of the year. HT

[smcgrath76]

Actually HT if you can argue that you co-
mingle cattle at your place you are
eligible for a low more funding for
chutes, tag readers, etc.
I agree that movement tracking on farm is
darn near impossible for a lot of folks at
the level being discussed.

[kato]

As for the disease outbreak issue. Remember back to the morning of May 20, 2003.

How long did it take to shut down the cattle business in Canada? About a half an hour. The news hit. When it got to our auction mart the sale stopped right there with animals in the ring. Everyone packed up and left. Owners were called to pick up the unsold cattle, and everybody went home.

If FMD hit, the response would be identical. The cattle actually in transport at that moment would be the only thing moving. Only the ones "on the road" would be of concern as far as stopping the spread of disease. How many are on the road at any given time? Compared to the general cattle population, not that many.

It's not the tags of the cattle in the trucks that they need to trace. It's the trucks themselves.

[grassfarmer]

Absolutely not Kato - you underestimate the problem of FMD versus a non-transmittable thing like BSE. When you mention the BSE outbreak though remember how the traceability system in use then failed? weeks and weeks trying to trace cohorts and movements through brands and auction mart slips and they still never did find them all.

Problem with FMD is once it's diagnosed its a time period after infection so there will likely have been many movements and contacts since the initial cases. It is critical these are traced ASAP. Asking owners to pick their animals up from the auction and haul them home isn't too bright if there were infected cattle at the auction. Of course if there were infected feeder cattle at the sale the previous week they could be scattered far and wide by now - infecting feedlots, the trucks they were hauled in, any subsequent animals hauled in those trucks or moving through the same auction. It seems like no-one believes how difficult an outbreak of FMD is until you have to live through it. We absolutely need a traceability system that works and we just do not have that at the moment.

[wilagro]

Holy s***, will somebody please either fix this software or instruct users as to how to use it.

I had to copy and paste into Notepad in order to make sense of the text in these discussions as the formatting is all over the map. Of course the graphics are discarded with this process but the graphics were screwed anyway.
==

[smcgrath76]

GF - I agree with a large part of what
you say. One of the biggest challenges
now vs. FMD in the 1950s is the distance
and speed of movement of cattle. That
is a big concern.
I don't see a lot wrong with a system if
cattle can be scanned on the way into
and out of a truck and tied to a
manifest. The problem is still that
there are a lot of issues with the
technology and the issue of who pays.