What does the cattle industry have to learn from Walmart? When it comes to low cost, highly effective tracking and monitoring, the answer may be “more than you might think,” said David Moss, chief operating officer of Livestock Identification Services Ltd.
Moss is an outspoken supporter of replacing the current radio frequency identification (RFID) cattle ear tags with passive (non-battery-equipped) ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags – exactly the same technology Walmart is in the process of implementing to track every individual item in each of its stores.
Read Also
Horns aren’t unlocking anytime soon on livestock transport standards
Standards good enough meet the definition of “humane” animal transportation still vary widely between what what industry wants, what animal rights advocates want and, between the two, what federal regulators decide is good enough.
Walmart has the science of making money perfected and so, not surprisingly, its interest in UHF technology is purely bottom-line driven. UHF tags allow for individual tracking in continuous, real time – of every single piece of salable product from the manufacturer through final sale. The goal is to minimize inventory while still reducing out-of-stock issues, optimize movement between locations, track changing consumer demands, and provide more product information to customers.
Moss’s interest in UHF tags stems from the limitations of current ear tags, which employ a low-frequency technology first used in the Second World War.
Current ear tags are frustrating to read. The read rate is slow (one animal at a time), the read range is narrow (about two feet), retention is questionable, and tags aren’t readable if oriented in the wrong direction (such as when a producer tags the top of the ear or if the animal turns its head during reading).
In contrast, UHF tags can be read at 60 tags per second regardless of orientation up to 60 feet away. Instead of streaming cattle one at a time, UHF technology could allow cattle to move as a group at “the speed of commerce” through a wide alley and still be read far more accurately. With dual antennas, the UHF technology can also be read at close proximity when producers are working individually on an animal.
Moreover, current ear tags only send back the tag number when energized by a reader: they don’t store any additional information and there is no capacity to write data to the tag. In contrast, each UHF tag has 64 KB of read/ write capacity, which means a tag can include information such as an animal’s birth date, treatments it has received, and a record of weighings, move-m ents, and other data. This sort of information offers a marketing edge, particularly to specialty markets, according to Moss.
Moss has spent over a decade working towards improved livestock information management and animal traceability. He said he sees UHF technology as an obvious answer to many complex biosecurity, marketing and revenue-maximization issues within the cattle industry.
Moreover, he said, the cattle industry is perfectly positioned to benefit from the billions of dollars and piles of man-hours Walmart and others have spent perfecting, shrinking, and decreasing the per-unit cost of UHF technology. Today, UHF chips are ISO approved, widely available, mass produced, cheap, and would require very little adaptation to be utilized in the cattle industry, he said.
A reader – which a producer could use to help optimize the management of individual animals in a herd due to the much enhanced read range – costs about $300. In contrast, RFID hand readers cost about $1,500, while tags cost about $3 each and a full-panel reading setup can cost up to $100,000.
That said, Moss is one of the few actively supporting a shift to UHF technology in Canada.
“I feel pretty alone right now for advocating this new technology,” said Moss. “I may be naive, but if it’s cheaper and better, and the readers are cheaper and it makes sense for your business, I’m at a loss as to why anyone wouldn’t want it.”
So why hasn’t the cattle industry already jumped on board with this technology?
Moss said he believes the simple answer is that the cattle industry has not yet demanded a shift towards UHF. Perhaps it’s new enough technology that the industry isn’t yet knowledgeable or comfortable enough to support it. (To be fair, as recently as two years ago, UHF technology wasn’t nearly as cheap, easily packaged, or functional as it is now.) Or, perhaps industry organizations are afraid of a producer backlash to change, remembering the uproar generated by the switch away from bar codes a few years ago.
UHF chip utility and functionality is currently being studied by the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in collaboration with Alberta Agriculture and Livestock Identification Services. UHF tags have recently been approved for use in the U.S.
———
“Ifeelprettyalonerightnowforadvocating thisnewtechnology.Imaybenaive,but ifit’scheaperandbetter,andthereaders arecheaperanditmakessenseforyour business,I’matalossastowhyanyone wouldn’twantit.”
David Moss
Chief Operating Officer of Livestock Identification Services
———
Ear tag rules:
Required for all cattle, sheep, and bison leaving the herd of origin in Canada.
The national livestock identification program is administered by the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency in co-operation with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags:
Several low-frequency RFID tags are approved for use in Canada; all operate in the 125134.2 kHz frequency range.
There are two approved technology platforms – full duplex (FDX) and half duplex (HDX) – and tag readers in Canada must be able to read both. When scanned, FDX transponders communicate continuously with the tag reader, simultaneously receiving and transmitting information to and from the reader. However, an HDX transponder receives a signal from the tag reader and alternates transmitting and receiving at a very high rate of speed.
Can only read one tag at a time within a two-foot range.
Ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags
Come with active, semi-active or passive battery assistance.
Operate in 860 -960 MHz range.
The technology is improving and becoming cheaper because of the interest of large multinationals, such as Walmart, which use the tags for product tracking.
Can read 60 tags per second from as far away as 60 feet.
Recently approved in the U.S. as an acceptable form of livestock identification.
