Securing value

However, the system begins and ends with the effectiveness of the RFID technology. Glenn Fischer, Allflex senior vice president of sales and marketing, agrees on the need for minimum performance standards for the benefit of the entire beef industry chain.

“A baseline performance standard set by the demands of the marketplace would level the playing field, up the ante of competition for manufacturers, and synchronize a system at every stage in production,” Fischer says. For NAIS to truly be effective, he says there needs to be a direct value tipping point for cattlemen to incorporate RFID technology into their operations.

Fischer says a real problem rests in the diversity of products marketed to producers that don't meet accepted standards. As producers purchase various RFID equipment, the result is that several technologies filter through a single auction market facility, feedlot and processor.

“Consider this — if at a single point of production, cattle are marked with visual tags, brands and several electronic tags, there is no way for all of these systems to coexist in the marketplace. Dollars will be lost if an auction market can't validate the claims because their software can't recognize your tags,” Fischer says.

As a cattle producer, Ebersdorfer came to the same conclusion: “Because everyone uses so many different EID tags, I think it's going to be too big of a hassle for the packers. What's the point, if we can't identify our products from pasture to plate? What does the U.S. label really mean if we can't trace it back to the source?”

The conclusions from KSU's RFID studies certainly show that standardization will help technologies to function at every single point in beef production, creating value for everyone involved. Taking action towards that goal, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) met last month to discuss RFID technology and develop the minimum performance standard with KSU, USDA, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and individual manufacturers in attendance.

“It is our hope that once a solid set of standards has been developed by the taskforce, it will be utilized by RFID manufacturers to further the cause of consistent, reliable animal identification across North America and beyond,” Rickard says.

The initial standards will be available for discussion at the next meeting in Vancouver, Canada, with the goal of a final draft to be on the ballot in the summer of 2009.

Associated Figure

Amanda Nolz is Editor of BEEF Daily and BEEF Daily Blog (www.beefmagazine.com).