EID Readers

[SADIE]

I just got home from the first set of 5 government Federal & Prov reps PFRA meetings scheduled aroung the province.

That is another story another place and another time.

That DVD jewel Case cover was made after the 2010 June 15 hearing and after I got my written result in Sept 2010.

The middle tag---of course---ripped ear.

The bottom button with the back gone came in from the research done at Fairview Animal Tech College. This came from a colleague Dr. Art Shatz who was the Bovine Practioner of the year in 1969 WCVM first graduating class. He practiced for years at the huge multiman clinic in Wainwright Alberta. This evidence came in from their research and that was the first finding of the heavy weight RFID blob falling out of the ears on the cows at the Fairview college.

The top tag is when producers that had problems and had RFID tags in the ears of adult animals for at least 2 years started looking at the backs of the buttons and seeing the first crack around the washer.

As this evidence came in and was forwarded to CCIA technical personnel in Ontario who by the way knew their was a problem but CCIA wouldn't let him pursue that avenue. Once this started to come in the companies (ALLFLEX) started to increase the plastic material on the buttons.

After 2009 and with several heated conversations with ALLFLEX reps the veterinarians were able to convince AllFLEX to be able to purchase extra buttons --bags of 25 to have on hand with longer pins for adult animals.

This came about because of the wrecked buttons while trying to apply this RFID in RETAGGING in cows and especially BULLS. This was also made available for the BISON people also to be able to purchase extra Male Buttons for these animals.

This DVD has grown in length with new information being added as it comes forth. It is now close to 60 minutes in length showing the progression of this story.

Sean I appreciate you candid input. You know me. I wanted to follow that route also but not no more.

The lies to cattlemen, the false propaganda,the lack of Canadian Field trials,

It now has become another issue of the industry. IF it works for Grassfarmer, dogpatch and you Sean Do it and I hope you make extra $$ in your efforts.

I will only do what I have to. I will tag only to prevent the extra charge at the market if one is missin. CFIA threats I am not worried about any longer---I beg them to try and apply another tag fine to me---I have asked them to.

I won't be very easy on them this time. I know how and who I can suppena and It will be people that are or where leaders of the CCA or CCIA I want to put on the witness stand as My witness and under oath ask them the questions that I want to ask.

Oh the media would love another story on this one.

[grassfarmer]

Sean, you are a technical and system design type guy
- what do you think specifically about the reader
systems shown in my original videos? Quite
impressive eh?

[smcgrath76]

GF - A couple of things, not necessarily system designed.
RFID can work, and these systems can work from a technical perspective. I am not
sure how hard we have tried to make it work for low cost as the actual technology
is pretty cheap. I don't like the UHF tags (that can be read from a long
distance) as they can't be used to collect data, since any reader will pick up
tags in too large a radius. Useful if you are trying to track bears, not if you
are trying to weigh cattle. They are useful if you just want traceability with no
value add (eg: scan a truck and get a list of the animals on board.
I think there is opportunity in these systems to do things like: Auction mart
individually weighing calves on the fly and giving back a weaning weight report,
etc.
I doubt we we will ever see these implemented for several reasons...
1) limited political will
2) declining volumes through auction
3) most guys don't really care
RFID really don't serve a purpose unless you are going to use them. For
traceability putting them in at the loading chute is fine. For on farm
identification, most aren't going to use them. If you are selling cattle direct
and have some sort of data feedback arrangement, they have added value.
To be honest I can't see why you would even put a floppy tag in a calf at birth
unless you were going to weigh them at weaning, or have some sort of record
system.
We have seen issues with specific batches of tags here (some of what Sadie shows)
and there needs to be continued tracking of losses and construction standards, but
by and large we have very few losses. The pasture system is in a conundrum
(although less so now) as they are federal and can hardly not mandate a National
ID tag as a requirement. If they wanted to innovate they could have easily done
some of these weaning weight provision or AI programs that folks could have
accessed. I saw tail tags and RFID being used successfully in Australia over 10
years ago to access markets. We were using RFID tags in progeny test cattle long
before national ID and I was convince then.
I think our marketing system sucks and until that changes there is no way for RFID
not to be a cost and instead become an opportunity. Use of RFID in the US is
growing for the very reason that calves with an RFID that are age and source
verified are commanding more $. I think this cattle shortage will make some of
this differentiation go away to the long term detriment of the industry. I really
believe that BSE provided us with more innovation than we have had in a long time,
although it definitely also created a lot of hardship and losses. I think it
would be interesting to make RFID non-mandatory and see if there was a premium for
age/source/rfid tagged cattle. I think there would be, but I appreciate the
challenge of traceback only being effective if it is on everything.

[kato]

The way I heard it from those who were doing the trials at the auction marts with these tags is that they didn't all read. And when they didn't all read, it slowed things down a LOT when they had to go back into the group and track down the one that the scanner didn't pick up. The main intention was that traceability should not slow down the speed of commerce, and the scanners didn't meet that requirement. They weren't able to catch all the tags.

For example, if I hauled my calves to a mart, for a presort, and one out of a bunch didn't scan, so they put them off to the side, then ran them through again when they had time, and then finally ran them over the scale, I would not be happy with the shrink on those calves. That's called slowing down the speed of commerce.

Before this traceability is going to work, there needs to be scanners that pick up every single tag every time. Less than that is just going to make the system less efficient, and guess who will pay for that?

We will.

I have no problem with traceability and tracking and all that if it can be used as a tool to get more money out of our cattle. The problem is that we don't get more money for our trouble. All we get is red tape and paperwork. And dragged into court.

No one else in this world will do extra work without being paid for it. Why are we expected to?

[smcgrath76]

So here are a couple of thoughts...
Can we not just read on feedlot
arrival/processing which is done on an
individual basis? How many tags are
lost between farm and feeder?
Next question - which markets might we
lose if we eliminated trace-ability?
What would be the impact on price?
Next question - is taking cattle to the
auction market really target marketing?
Does that develop a premium or target a
specific market? Why does this deserve
a premium (not saying it doesn't - just
wondering)?
Are there new ways of marketing we are
missing by failing to use/adopt
technology? eg: neighbours selling
together using a direct approach and
known genetics with an accompanying
spreadsheet with health records tied to
RFID tag.
I do think the way it is done today
leaves no room to extract a premium, but
just putting in or failing to put in a
tag does not in my mind justify a
premium for cattle. Prior to RFID there
was no premium for cattle that came in
with a handwritten floppy tag vs. those
that came in empty eared. There was a
premium for larger drafts of quality
cattle from reputation herds.
I think a large part of this debate is
really a marketing debate about the
future of the auction system and how
comfortable we feel dealing without it.

[grassfarmer]

Some great points to consider Sean. Personally I'm
not looking to gain a premium by attaching any kind
of ear-tag as it obviously doesn't add value per se
to the animal or to the beef. I really, really believe
we need a traceability system and by that I don't
mean knowledge of the farm/ranch of birth. We
need to know the movements of the animals in case
of a severe health breakdown like F M. The current
system of manifests and brand inspection would be
so woefully inadequate in face of such a crisis that
I'm more than happy to invest $3 per animal to
achieve a better system. Unfortunately all the $3s
I've spent to date have been for nothing because
nobody thinks there is a need for a real movement
tracking system.

[kato]

I'd like to hear some opinions on what the difference would be if, for for instance, an animal tested positive for fmd at an Alberta plant.

Immediately all cattle transport and sale would stop. Just as on May 20, 2003. The country would be cut in half at the Ontario Manitoba border. This plan is already in place. All the animals at any given auction mart or feedlot would be considered as having been exposed. The auction mart cattle would be in trouble, because they wouldn't be allowed to move anywhere. The cattle on farms would not be allowed to be sold until massive testing had taken place. The borders would be closed.

How would rfid tags affect any of these measures? I'd really like to know. As far as I can tell, everyone would be shut down no matter if they had anything sold from their farms in the recent past or not, simply due to the traffic between farms and the highly contagious nature of the disease. Having your cattle tagged wouldn't make any difference since there would be nowhere for them to go anyway.

Tracing all the auction and feedlot rfid tagged cattle back to their farms of origin wouldn't help anyone else sell their cattle, because all cattle would be considered suspect. It's not like export customers are going to say "I'll let your cattle come here because you had them tagged and they weren't involved." Not going to happen. Even the cattle on the east side of the country would have the same restrictions placed on them.

Tags or no tags, it's all on hold for everyone until all cattle are tested and cleared. Even if the source was found sooner rather than later.

[grassfarmer]

F and M is different to say TB in cattle - you don't
have the luxury of time on your side to test and
decide what to do next. To limit the damage you
need to find where it is, isolate it and either
slaughter or vaccinate to eradicate it. Diagnosis is
largely made on inspection - animals that are clear
one day can be showing symptoms 3 days later. It's
a raging infection that spreads like wildfire. As soon
as you find a case there are many more through
previous contacts hence the need to know who has
been where, through which auctions, which trucks
were used etc.
You don't have the luxury like they did with the first
BSE case in 03 to spend weeks sifting through
manifests and brand inspections and only finding
half animals in the finish up. That is a disaster
waiting to happen.
Animal health officials, local vets etc would be
quickly overrun in the face of a large outbreak just
doing trace backs and diagnosis. Call in the army to
assist the kill squads if you go that route. A massive
cull brings media pressures and public outcry - you
think XL was a media issue? wait until you have a
million cattle to kill for F and M.
Exports stop until a period of time after the last
case has elapsed although I believe the zoning has
been set up so that east could still export if the
cases were in the west - I assume that will be
honoured internationally. There will be a welfare
issue as cattle back up on ranches, feedlots or in
auctions with no way to move them and extra feed
being moved to alleviate this brings added risk of
moving the disease around.
Tags don't prevent F and M but tags used to their
full potential in a complete tracking system might
make the difference between stamping out the
disease outbreak at the 50,000 head versus
500,000 or more mark.

The 2001 outbreak in the UK is said to have cost 10
million animals their lives. I think we have a duty to
be better prepared than they were, not less
prepared like we are now.

[15444]

GF, your a smart fella. You should know by now that F&M is complete BS. It doesn't affect humans and animals can recover from it.

Absolutely no need to euthanize animals who contract the disease. A PR nightmare that is completely avoidable.

I realize the Brits didn't have anything to in their possession to stop their government from walking all over them on F&M. And maybe that's the way you guys like it.

Over here, it would be a different story. At least for the ones who care.

[grassfarmer]

So what is your solution? let it run rampant through
the entire countries livestock population and keep us
locked out of export markets for years? That would
be financial suicide.
You won't get a choice on this - it will be the beloved
CFIA running the show. I suppose you could organise
a red neck type militia to meet the officials at the
farm gate with weapons but from what I've seen it's
impossible to organise a group of more than about 6
ranchers to work together on anything.

[kato]

I would put zero faith in the splitting of the country saving anyone regarding exports. Maybe with a different disease, but not with this one.

What's more likely to happen is that the U.S. will be considered contaminated as well. Even if we stopped the border instantly, there are Canadian cattle in the U.S., and even though they are supposed to be accounted for, I can't see anyone allowing for "slippage". Besides, there is meat crossing the border, farmers crossing the border, and groceries crossing the border. It's just too big.

What is more likely to happen is that fmd vaccine will become the norm, and with enough pressure from our neighbours, which we all know they are not afraid to use, fmd will no longer be the boogie man of the livestock disease world, and will become a non-issue.

Based on past experience here, as soon something is causing a problem with the American's ability to make money, it is suddenly not an important thing. Remember how BSE was the end of the world when we had it, and suddenly it was not one when it was found in the U.S.? TB has caused lots of hardship in Manitoba regarding exports, but it's not that big of a deal in states where it's common.

[SADIE]

Right on Kato

I will email my brother who works for Novartis and now lives and is retiring in Colorado area. Both he and his wife are/were veterinarians who practiced in the Provost clinic till 1994. They both got jobs and traveled the world with Merial and now Novartis living in Georgia, South Dakota and now Colorado area.

He has been in charge of regulatory affairs on vaccine protocal and many times has been all over the world with their company a major manufactorer of those types of vaccines like FMD.

I will email and have a phone call conversation or face to face within the 6 months at a family planned gathering to catch up on his world.