File photo of goats on display at the Hanover Agricultural Fair in Grunthal, Man. in August 2019. (Dave Bedard photo)

Fairs, exhibitions concerned over new traceability proposals

Event volunteers may lack skills needed, association says

The Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions (CAFE) says proposed federal regulations regarding livestock traceability are putting animal events across the country at risk. Their concerns centre around new directives centred around moving and tagging which they say would affect Canada’s 5,000 fairs, rodeos and other events. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has proposed that […] Read more

File photo of goats on display at the Hanover Agricultural Fair in Grunthal, Man. in August 2019. (Dave Bedard photo)

CFIA seeks feedback on traceability, animal ID amendments

Producers have until June 16 to comment on proposals

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is now seeking comment on its proposed amendments to livestock identification and traceability regulations. The regulatory proposal would address what the agency calls “gaps” in the current system, including: adding goats and cervids as animal species that share diseases with other regulated livestock, and therefore subject to traceability requirements, shortening […] Read more


Compared to other nations, Canada has a fairly robust system when it comes to traceability, says the general manager of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency.

It’s been 25 years of livestock traceability

On the right track: Tracking livestock is now pretty conventional, but it wasn’t always — and still isn’t in some countries

Reading Time: 3 minutes It was groundbreaking in its day, but 25 years later — and well over 100 million ear tags —it’s hard to imagine the days when there was no livestock traceability. “It’s an everyday thing now — resistance is minimal,” said Anne Brunet-Burgess, general manager of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. The organization held its first […] Read more

dot platform at agsmart

Pandemic speeding up adoption of technology

Online ordering and virtual contracts commonplace, traceability and autonomous machines getting new push

Reading Time: 5 minutes Like it or not, the farm of the future will run on technology — and that future has become ever closer because of COVID-19. “It’s been a pretty big disruption for a lot of businesses,” said Wes Anderson, senior fertility specialist at CropPro Consulting. “It has forced a lot of our clients to use technology […] Read more


Olds College launches fully traceable beer

Olds College launches fully traceable beer

Reading Time: < 1 minute Olds College Brewery has launched Barley Trail, a traceable beer using blockchain technology and barley grown on the college’s Smart Farm. Consumers can scan a QR code on every can to learn about the complete journey the ingredients took from field to glass. The initiative used Decisive Farming’s farm management technology (My Farm Manager and […] Read more

(Obhecc.com)

Ontario’s broiler egg tracking systems backed for upgrades

Systems used to track broiler hatching egg and chick production in Ontario will get upgrades using federal-provincial cost-shared funding. The federal and Ontario governments on Monday last week announced up to $141,450 through the Place to Grow: Agri-food Innovation Initiative, a Canadian Agricultural Partnership program, for the Ontario Broiler Hatching Egg and Chick Commission (OBHECC). […] Read more


Cattle grazing in a field

Cattle traceability app upgraded

Reading Time: < 1 minute The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) is making it easier for producers to report mandatory traceability data and stay compliant with an improved Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) MOBO app. The upgraded and free app enables easy access to the CLTS database from Android and iPhone devices and is more user friendly than the basic […] Read more

Walmart cited the contamination of romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona (pictured in this file photo) with E. coli when announcing its leafy greens suppliers will soon have to participate in a blockchain system. 
The contaminated lettuce from the Yuma area sickened more than 200 consumers in three dozen states this spring, and is blamed for five deaths. It took days to trace the lettuce back to the farms that grew it.

The brave new world of blockchain

Digital traceability has suddenly been thrust into the food sector

Reading Time: 5 minutes If there was ever any doubt that agriculture would someday run headlong into the blockchain space, it was quashed on Sept. 24. That was the day Walmart announced its leafy green suppliers would be required (in a year’s time) to participate in a blockchain-driven system providing full-chain traceability of their produce. In recent years, Bitcoin […] Read more


Pooling cattle from audited sustainable beef operations and tracing the beef every step of the way is a big logistical challenge — but now that it’s been done, it could open doors to new markets for cattle producers.

A new dawn? Sustainable beef puts money in producers’ pockets

It’s only $10 a cow, but pilot marks the first time producers 
have been paid for their stewardship efforts

Reading Time: 4 minutes The first rubber-meets-the-road test of the years-long effort to make sustainable beef a paying proposition has been a success. After three months of testing, the Canadian Beef Sustainability Acceleration pilot project has shown that tracing certified sustainable cattle and beef through the supply chain is possible at current volumes. “It’s one of the first times […] Read more

Cattle producers urged to get premises identification number

Cattle producers urged to get premises identification number

Reading Time: < 1 minute The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency is urging Alberta livestock producers to prepare for new livestock traceability regulations that once enacted will require them to have a valid, premises identification (PID) number. A producer can call Alberta’s PID registry at 310-FARM with a legal land description to confirm or acquire a PID, or contact a field […] Read more