With the discovery of a BSE (mad cow) case in Washington State in December of 2003, the landscape of dairy and other species changed forever. As investigators struggled to track the animal back to her farm of origin, and then her birth farm, it became obvious that the US food chain was at risk unless a lot of time and money were devoted to developing a tracking system that would centralize the monitoring system and allow investigators to quickly track and isolate disease and other food born illnesses. The goal was set of 48 hour tracking.

The US food production chain is made up of many different species from catfish to goats to cattle. There may be different tracking methods used between species. For example, chickens will be identified by lot, rather than individually, and some animals (perhaps horses) might be identified by tattoos. Within the dairy/beef industry, the method of choice is Radio Frequency IDentification.

RFID is a technology that is beginning to be used in many industries, and seems to be only in the infancy of what may be seen in the future. RFID has been described as an electronic bar code. Trains have an RFID box on the end where a caboose used to be to monitor the train. Warehouses are beginning to put RFID chips on pallets so they can be scanned to quickly determine what a pallet contains. Retailers like Walmart and Target are beginning to put them on individual products for the purpose of tracking. EZ Pass, used on toll roads is another form of RFID.

In the dairy and beef industry, RFID takes the form of a button ear tag. While there are other forms RFID could take, button tags seem to be the best option. Other forms used are uterine boluses, and implants. Ear buttons have the benefit of being easy to apply, and being visible, so it is not necessary to have a reader to see if RFID is present. Another consideration is that it is necessary to be sure that there is no risk of the device finding its way into the food supply. The buttons have proven to have a high retention rate, are easy to apply, and a relatively low cost, currently costing between $2-3.

Getting a nationwide system in place is obviously a huge undertaking. The US agricultural industry moves animals rapidly from one place to another, meaning that a young animal may be purchased, resold as a breeding age heifer, resold as a springing heifer, sent to a heifer raiser, brought to the milking herd, taken to a show, have several progeny, sent to a sales barn resold by someone hoping to get a better price, sent to a packing plant. The goal is that if need be, she could be tracked through all of her contacts within 48 hours.

There will need to be a central database, run by the federal system. There will need to be a network to send information in from farms, shows, sales barns, and slaughter houses. There are major debates on who will have access to the database. While the database would be of tremendous use for those within the industry who can benefit from animal tracking (studs, cattle marketers, researchers etc.), there is also a great deal of risk from those who would wish the industry harm, animal rights groups, terrorist organizations and others. One of the things necessary for the system to work is for congress to grant exemption to the database from the freedom of information act, which allows any US citizen access to national databases.

The preliminary thing needed are premises IDs.  To make the system work, individual names need to be transparent. All the database needs to know is animal movement. Each place an animal might reside is called a premises. Premises might include farms, shows, heifer raisers, truckers, sales barns, slaughter houses, packing houses. Each of these places will need a premises ID, and some way of reading the RFID tag. WHAT DEFINES A PREMISES? What if a farmer has more than one farm? The national policy is that it is up to the state, and the PA policy is that it is up to the farm. If you are comfortable with your record keeping system being able to track animals from farm to farm, register each as a premises. If you are not, enter your enterprise as a premises. The advantage of multiple premises is that if one farm is quarantined, it does not affect the rest of the farm.

RFID FOR MANAGEMENT

For most people, RFID is simply another ear tag. It will eventually replace the metal USDA tag. (And actually is easy to apply, and has a better retention rate.) For some herds, and in particular, larger herds, the RFID tags can be used for management purposes as well. Using Bluetooth enabled handhelds loaded with PocketDairy, and RFID readers, farm managers will be able to make identification and data entry quicker and more accurate. DHIA technicians will also be able to use the same technique to increase accuracy and speed in test day entry.

HOW DOES THIS AFFECT LANCASTER DHIA?

In the long term, DHIA should be the driving force behind national ID because we have the infrastructure, and the the field staff to implement the program. There are probably business opportunities for non-DHIA farms as well, as affiliates help with the tracking and tagging of animals. There will also need to be a central organization controlling the distribution of tags, because there may be cases where the only tracking available is to know that the tag came from an individual farm.

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