“Nothing will move forward on an official basis until those ISO standards are published, which is probably two years away,” said Brunet-Burgess, adding UHF tags would still need lab and field testing after that.Īccording to the agency’s website, producers have purchased more than 134 million tags (as of early February). “Discussion regarding the move to a new technology which uses ultrahigh frequency has been going on for over a decade,” the agency noted in its November news release.Īnd that debate won’t be settled anytime soon as UHF must first be approved by the International Organization for Standards. ![]() ![]() However, while UHF technology is more efficient and allows for more in-depth management of cattle, it also uses a different tag reader. ![]() In November, the agency announced it had modified its database system so that UHF “secondary” tags would link to regular tags. Regular tags use RFID (radio frequency identification), which has a shorter range. They allow groups of animals to be read all at once and also have a longer range, so you can scan the entire group in a pen or when they’re being loaded. The next big change here could be tags using ultra-high-frequency technology (UHF). “There’s very little sharing of linkage between them.” “Each state is doing their own thing,” said Brunet-Burgess. lacks a federal database as traceability is left up to individual states. On the other hand, some countries “have nothing at all” and even the U.S. And some countries in Europe have a passport system - every animal has a passport, and every movement is recorded in there.” All the animal movements are reported, or at least documented. “There are some countries that have full traceability. “We’re definitely with the upper end of countries that are doing something about it, and everybody’s on board,” she said. There are some gaps in the system and a package of amendments is under consideration, covering things such as mandatory reporting of individual animal movement (instead of just groups).īut compared to other nations, Canada has a fairly robust system, said Brunet-Burgess. “A few years ago, there were problems with tuberculosis in Canada. “Sometimes it is not always outbreaks or at the highest level of public concern or made public,” she said. While the BSE crisis demonstrated the importance of being able to track livestock, the system has been used at other times, said Brunet-Burgess. There are separate traceability systems for dairy cattle and pigs.) (Goat and cervid tags are already available, but not mandatory yet. Bison and sheep were soon added, and plans are underway to add goats and farmed cervids (deer, elk, and moose) to the list of traceable species. “We feel it’s a huge risk if we don’t do something at this point,” Julie Stitt, the agency’s then general manager, said in 2001.īeef cattle were the first to come under the system, which is based on three elements: animal identification, premises identification and tracking animal movement. and that was in the minds of many who backed the creation of the agency. But bovine spongiform encephalopathy was already rampant in the U.K. The organization held its first meeting in March 1998 - and as it turned out, that same month, a cow was born on an Alberta farm that would five years later become the country’s first BSE case. ![]() “It’s an everyday thing now - resistance is minimal,” said Anne Brunet-Burgess, general manager of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. Simone Demers-Collins, a widely recognized authority on food quality, nutrition and food safety, has been inducted into the Alberta Agriculture… Demers-Collins is new Hall of Fame inductee
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