November 07, 2003

by Barry Wilson, The Western Producer 

The president of a Canadian company promoting a new food tracking system is urging the federal government to make the system mandatory and help livestock producers pay for some of the record-keeping costs.

Jake Burlet, president of Viewtrak Technologies Inc., told the House of Commons agriculture committee Oct. 21 that a national system requiring all links in the food chain to be part of a traceability system would "restore market confidence" after the bovine spongiform encephalopathy incident and in any future food safety crisis.

Viewtrak's system would require farmers to keep records of the life of animals, including birth and movement details, feeding and medication records and other relevant data. It would be stored in a database available "within 10 seconds" from a secure website.

He said if all farms were required to be part of it, fallout from an incident like the May 20 announcement of a case of BSE could be contained because a scan of the animal's tag would indicate lineage, place of birth and other information important to customers.

"What we're asking for is federal leadership with regard to solving this national problem because it's not good enough for Alberta or New Brunswick or Quebec to make a decision," he told MPs.

"I think federal legislation would be beneficial in helping facilitate the cattle industry adoption of ... at least a minimal record-keeping system and that is going to go a long way in regaining our international markets."

In a later interview, Burlet said federal legislation should make compliance with the system mandatory.

"There also is a cost and the government could encourage farmers by promising to pick up some of that cost."

Burlet told MPs that the cost would depend on how much information is stored, but he estimated that at a minimum, it could be equivalent to the cost of ear tags - more than $1 per animal.

He said Viewtrak has the technology in place, is already storing data on 20,000 cattle and is considering several pilot projects.

"This is not a discussion regarding developing a concept to meet the industry's and the market's need," he told MPs.

"It's discussing and introducing that there's a solution that's available today and there are existing initiatives around the country which could be used as pilot projects .... It's cost effective, it works and it meets the market demand."

He said the data can be tailored to demands of foreign customers worried about a disease outbreak in Canada.

"It's a real opportunity to leverage existing programs like the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, use that as a foundation to build around this existing immediately available technology to develop record keeping, to meet the needs of Canadian producers and meet the needs of our marketplace partners which, in the end, will determine how successful the Canadian cattle industry's future is," Burlet said.