Canadian Cattle Go Techno with RFID

Author: George Luker

Canadian Cattle will be leaping a little into the future shortly. Cattle producers in Canada will have to tag all of their calves and cattle with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) ear tags. The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) has set a date of July 1st. 2010 as the day that all Canadian cattle must be tagged with a CCIA Approved RFID ear tag. Visual ear tags will no longer be used in the Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) for their national animal traceability system.

July 1st. is also Canada Day; so on Canada’s birthday Canadian cattle go techno with RFID.

The Canadian Food and Inspection Agency (CFIA) will be enforcing the new mandatory regulation for livestock. Canada had made tagging cattle with RFID ear tags mandatory since September 2006, for all cattle leaving its farm of origin. The CCIA had allowed cattle producers time to change from visual ear tags to RFID ear tags.

The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency has six approved RFID tags to be used in their Canadian Livestock Tracking System, which enables the trace back of animals during a disease outbreak, such as Mad Cow disease.

Radio Frequency Identification is proving more and more to be a reliable, stable, and secure form of identification for livestock. One of the main benefits of RFID is the speed you could read head of cattle through a race way alley, and also the fact that RFID tags are error free in identification.

Canada, along with Australia, the UK, and Uruguay are among the leading countries in the world for animal traceability systems, which are RFID based systems.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/agriculture-articles/canadian-cattle-go-techno-with-rfid-2583255.html

About the Author

Livestock-ID: Animal Identification Resources, is a blog dedicated to helping producers and professionals with the various types of Animal Identification

List of CCIA Approved RFID Tags

The average age of farmers in the United States is 57 years old and it is increasing in most areas. Many ranchers manage to improve their operation and make it more sustainable.  The goal is to leave the land better than we received it so that future generations will benefit. But farmers retire and their children are leaving the ranch, so who is going to be left to run it?

What can we do as ranchers to cultivate our youth? The first way is help young people discover their connection to the land and to their food. Ideally, this should begin at an early age.

Introduce your own children, grandchildren, and even your neighbors to life on the farm. Encourage them to take part in farm activities. Give them the responsibility of caring for the garden or animals. Don’t just simply give them chores. Teach them what you are doing and why. Involve them in the vision of the farm and decision-making. Let them take “ownership” in the ranch.

Bring your message to other children and adults. Talk to a local teacher about coming to school and presenting what you do and why it is important. Better yet, have your children talk about it. Speak at an event and/or put up an educational display. See if you can donate food for a meeting or event. Bring a farm animal to school or some other event for a visit and to talk about it. Have a petting zoo. Donate the use of an animal to spend the summer in a local park for visitors to enjoy. Show your animals or produce at the local fair and be there to engage children and other people in conversation about it. Some events provide the opportunity to “meet the farmer”.

Invite kids to the farm. Plan a field day or school field trip. Get them on their hands and knees to look at the soil and plants. Host a Fitting and Showing Clinic. Make it “hands on” so they can experience what ranch life is like. Let them clip a calf or make a rope halter. Let them make mistakes and learn from the process.

Be willing to mentor a young person. I have a young friend who wants to be a farmer when he grows up. He comes out to the ranch every so often. I introduce him to some new aspect of the farm and let him participate in a few activities. Then I send him home with a dozen farm fresh eggs!

Allow a youth to keep an animal project. That’s a great introduction to a first project. They learn about animal care from an experienced rancher/showman and they learn responsibility in the process.

Sponsor youth market animal project. Support your local FFA, 4-H, and other youth activities. Put together a judging contest or practice show. Perhaps have an event at the fair where experienced kids teach others about raising or showing cattle.

These are just a few ways to help create that important connection among young people, their food, and the land. If that connection is nurtured and the “value” of the ranch, animals, and food is established, then it’s likely that more young people will consider staying on the farm, thus creating a sustainable future for all of us!

Sandra M. Matheson

Matheson Farms

http://bigdogcattle.com/mathesonfarms

www.mathesonfarms.com

www.sustainableagresource.com

Cattle traceability has been evolving for the last 20 years, Identification has migrated from branding to Tattoos, then visual ear tags, and now EID (Electronic Identification) Tags.

Current identification in cattle is visual ear tags; this is the most cost effective form of identification to beef cattle producers. Visual ear tags does have its down side, as it is open to human error, in reading the visual tags, it is time consuming, and visual id on tags can get worn and faded.

Livestock-ID Blog provides complete information on Animal Identification, in all forms of cattle identification from visual ear tags to RFID ear tags.

EID tags are more superior to visual tags, and provide much more value to the cattle producer, as well as the food supply chain.

Benefits of EID Traceability:

EID tags can be read with an RFID reader at a distance, minimizing close contact with cattle.

EID tags can be read at a fast rate.

EID tags have a unique identification number, so there is no duplicate error. The tags also have the country code embedded in the transponder, giving the EID tag an extra form of country identification. In the United States these tags are meet COOL (Country of Origin) requirements.

EID tags eliminate human error in reading the visual identification.

The tag identification, when read with an RFID read, can be downloaded to cattle software for additional rancher management. An effective management tool for tracing various activities within the herd, from vaccinations, and insemination records to other needed management options.

With new technology on the market today from RFID readers to software, this can save cattle producers money, labor, and time in keeping up with the daily tasks of cattle management.

Cattle management software provides the additional tools and information needed for cattle producers to make sound decisions on their cattle.

Livestock-ID, Animal Identification Resources, A blog dedicated to producers, helping with Animal Identification.

Just like Beef Producers celebrate May as “Beef month,” our friends in the  Dairy industry began celebrating June as “Dairy month” in the 1930′s.  And for some us, we benefit daily from their hard work and as livestock pasionado’s (person passionate about something) we must stick together.  So let’s raise our milk-filled-glasses to the dairy industry and take a look at these facts.

Got milk?”  Well over 15 years ago, the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) launched the campaign “Got Milk?” to defend milk’s share of beverage consumption in California and nationally. Rarely does a campaign last this long and get licensed to multiply parties as it has.  The success of this campaign is every marketers dream.  The “Got Milk?” campaign was so successful business schools across the country use it in case studies and in books.  If you haven’t seen it a (or are just too young to remember), the print campaign featured a full gamut of celebrities from sports icons, to fictional characters, to entertainers with milk mustaches on their faces.

Whether or not you drink milk, eat yogurt, ice cream or sour cream, you probably eat more cheese than any other dairy product.  Just think about all the pizza Americans eat each day!  And speaking of ice cream, Iowa hosts two great brands –Blue Bunny in Le Mars, Iowa and Anderson Erickson in Des Moines, Iowa.

While it’s still all about the “teets,” the evolution of milking is long past the days of a milking stool.  Today we have robotic milking systems (no joke).  Innovators in the Netherlands designed a milking system so that dairymen no longer have to fight employee turn over or performance issues and can free up their time for social activities.  Since cattle are creatures of habit, smart and adaptable the Lely roboticmilking system launched in 1992 and today is world renowned.   Watch it in action here.

Quick dairy facts:

*8.33 million dairy cows in the 23 major U.S. states

*On average one cow produces 1,823 pounds of milk per month

*The 23 states for which the USDA reports milk production are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

*24 cows/day are milked at the Iowa State Fair Milk Parlor (on average)

*LeMars, Iowa is the ice cream capital of the world

(Facts sourced at: Hoard’s Dairyman, Iowa State Fair, Blue Bunny)

And to sum it all up, take a look at this video, SERIOUSLY, you have to take the :60 seconds of your life and be amused by this clever, humorous and fun rap video promoting milk.