Welcome to The Dairy Mail

Liza Burger
The idea of traceability is not yet an established notion in South Africa, despite the fact that a number of processors and producers of meat and milk are already incorporating the advantages of monitoring systems. It is especially the sheep meat industry – specifically in the Northern Cape – where great strides have been taken in the field of identification and traceability of animals.

Elsewhere in the world laws governing the food chain of the most agricultural products exist to enable the tracing of these products back to the farm of origin.

The identification and traceability of livestock are recommended by the World Organisation for Animal Health and supports the implementation of traceability systems internationally.

The New Zealand way
Currently, New Zealand is in the process of upgrading its animal identification and traceability system.

The primary goal of this upgrading process is to improve the management of biosecurity threats and to protect the huge export market that agricultural products from New Zealand enjoy.

The National Animal Identification and Traceability (NAIT) is a system that was launched in 2006 already. The NAIT system makes it possible to follow the animal from birth until the post mortem inspection. Currently, participation is still optional, but will become compulsory in 2011 when legislation regarding traceability is passed.

New Zealand exports about 90% of its milk and the NAIT system will enable the country to ensure better food security standards to its export partners, especially in the event of contagious disease outbreaks. The system will be able to track infected animals, monitor the spread of the disease and confirm 'clean' animals.

Monitoring movement
Europe is currently a leader on the traceability technology front and the practical monitoring of animals. Different kinds of ear tags, radio frequency identification transmitters (RFID) and even bolus radio transmitters (a specially designed electronic identification transmitter that is swallowed by the animal and remains in the stomach) are used in tracking animals. This limits the risk of moving animals – even across borders.

In the Netherlands, for instance, it is common practice to raise bull calves for slaughtering in countries like Poland. This entails the movement of animals across German territory to Poland and back to the Netherlands where companies such as Vion will process veal. It is also common to raise replacement heifers on other farms, locally or elsewhere in Europe, before the heifers are integrated back into the Dutch milk production system.

To do this, the monitoring of the movement of individual animals is very specific. The cow's health status and possible exposure to infectious or contagious diseases are confirmed by a veterinarian and indicated on a detailed map linked to a central data base. This makes it possible to enforce a virtual quarantine where high-risk animals will be indicated until the danger of disease or the containment of such disease has been confirmed.

Global uses
In the European Union, the use of certain animal treatments and medicine are anathema and the consumer typically wants to know if his food is free of antibiotics and hormones. Traceability is a big issue and is highly regarded throughout the food production chain. The monitoring of animal diseases like foot and mouth disease and zoonosis like Rift Valley fever, tuberculosis and brucellosis, is from the national herd's point of view economically important.

It was the prevalence of mad cow disease, or BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in Brittain that finally brought the consumer's need for traceability to the fore.

Mad-cow disease, that can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease in humans, resulted in consumer confidence in England plummeting almost over night. On top of this, a ban on the import of British beef to the EU was imposed.

To counter the effects of BSE, the British government employed a computerised cattle-tracking system in 1998 to help restore consumer confidence in beef.

Since 1998, all cattle (milk and beef) must be identified with a primary and secondary ear tag within 20 days after birth.

Within seven days after receiving their ear tags, animals must be registered to receive their 'passport'. This will be used to monitor movement, slaughter and deaths of animals.

In countries such as Britain, Canada, the USA, Japan, Argentina, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the EU member countries, the value of a reliable, electronic traceability system has already been realised. These countries are in various stages of implementing systems and legislation related to traceability.

The biggest motivation for Canada to employ its own identification and traceability system came with the impact that BSE had on its export market in the USA. In 2003, a single cow from Albert was tested positive for BSE during a routine survey. Although the animal's carcass was not processed for human consumption, she did enter the animal feed food chain. The result was that the infected animal potentially reached 1 800 farms as a component of animal feed.

The USA is the biggest importer of Canadian cattle and imported more than 1,7 million cattle in 2002, and was critical of how long it took the Canadians to determine the origin of the BSE outbreak.

In answer to this, Canada decided to elevate its traceability capacity by introducing bar coded ear tags and to replace paper based tracking with RFID transmitters. These measures now make it possible to monitor the movement of animals until they are exported or slaughtered.

The development of the Australian traceability system (National Livestock Identification System or NLIS) was motivated by the European export market's potential demands. Since 2006, it is compulsory to monitor the movement of cattle in Australia and all cattle moved from their farm of origin must be tagged with a low frequency RFID transmitter.

In the Netherlands, the Identificatie en Registratie system is in use. This entails a centralised computer data base, managed by the ministry of agriculture, nature and food quality, which individually monitors the movement of every registered animal. Bar-coded ear tags are used in this traceability system and handles an average of 12 million data transactions a year.

Japan has a compulsory traceability system that's been in place since 2003. Individual bar-coded ear tags and a specified monitoring system effectively enables the Japanese consumer to trace a steak on the shelf back to the individual animal with the help of web-based information.

In 2003, Argentina started monitoring cattle aimed for the EU animal product market. The traceability system has been adapted to include a permit system to monitor the movement of animals. Since 2007, all cattle must be tagged at birth. It is expected that the national herd will be completely fitted with ear tags in 2017.

South Korea installed a compulsory monitoring system with related legislation already in place since 2004. The farmer, processor and government work together to make this system work. The new traceability laws determine that livestock without bar-coded ear tags may not be slaughtered. RFID transmitters are also used more frequently in this country.

Brazil's traceability system has been in such array that the country has lost millions of dollar in potential exports to the EU where the Brazilian system is deemed inferior. The system, which is seen as unreliable by the EU, has been in use since 2002. It was initially focussed on animals earmarked for export to the EU, but an audit uncovered so many mistakes in the programme that the EU director general for health and consumer issues classified it as undependable. The end result was a ban on the import of Brasilian meat to the EU.