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RFID Cattle Traceback system in Australia is broken

PORKER

Well-known member
ABA commissioned report finds NLIS flaws

Friday, 26/06/2009

An independent consultant says the cattlle industry's animal identification system is so flawed it needs to be totally overhauled.

Scott Paterson was commissioned to do a study of the effectiveness of the National Livestock Identification System by long-time opponents to the scheme, the Australian Beef Association.

He studied 57,000 head of cattle across 17 ABA-member properties to check how well they could be traced in the event of an animal disease outbreak; a key reason for the scheme's introduction.

Cattle producers have to put a radio frequency tag in the ear of each animal before it leaves its property-of-birth under a compulsory system introduced in Australia in 2005.

But the scheme is costly, at about $3 per tag, and Mr Paterson say there are too many breakdowns in the system to make it reliable.

He claims his study showed over 34 per cent of slaughtered cattle sampled did not have 'lifetime traceability'.

Eighteen per cent of those are so-called 'orange tag' cattle, whose origins were unable to be clearly traced at the time the scheme was introduced, which he says is understandable.

But 16 per cent of them are marked by white tags, that for some reason 'lost' their long-term traceability due to breakdowns in the system.

Mr Paterson says the NLIS system is only as accurate as the data entered into it, and says, in the IT industry, they have a phrase "garbage in - garbage out".

He says if a cattle producer doesn't record each movement of livestock from one property to another, then the system breaks down and loses its effectiveness as a disease traceback tool.

Ed Klim, from Safemeat, the body that looks after NLIS, refutes the study's findings and says no action will be taken a result of the ABA-funded investigation.

He says the system is audited each quarter by state governments, and in the March quarter, just 6.5 per cent of cattle in Australia lost their lifetime traceability.
 

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