A single, wobbly legged cow with BSE in 2003 set off a wake-up call that
reverberated through the Canadian livestock industry and forced many producers to rethink their complacent attitudes toward national traceability.
The economic devastation that followed led to intense discussion on individual identification and tracking of animals for food safety and disease control.
Julie Stitt, former executive director of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency, remembers the resistance the agency encountered in 1998 to the concept of attaching bar coded ear tags to all cattle.
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At the time, only about 10 percent of the herd was identified. Ten years later, attaching electronic ear tags to cattle and bison is considered part of doing business.
“There are huge accomplishments in 10 years for very limited dollars and it has been totally industry led,” she said.
However, implementing full traceability with identification, premises registration and animal movement for all livestock species in Canada remains uncertain as meetings continue and regulations are unwritten.
“There is always a Catch 22 when we are dealing with some of this. If there are no hard regulations in place, then it becomes a consultation-social marketing exercise where you really have to work together,” said Brent McEwan of Alberta Agriculture, who co-chairs the federal-provincial team on traceability, which consists of 15 government and 22 industry representatives.
“We are building an insurance policy through traceability to deal with an emergency quickly, effectively and get on with commerce.”
A federal mandate is expected this year with timelines and expectations for traceability for all agriculture sectors.
Cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry are the main focus but other commodities are expected to join soon with plans tailored to each sector’s needs.
Farm location registration is a key component of the national plan and will be co-ordinated by the provinces because they manage land registries. Quebec is the only province to complete premises identification and traceability.
When the concept of national food traceability was introduced as part of the agriculture policy framework under the Liberal government, 48 hour traceability for all products was a goal.
“We have got a few holes we have to fix, but it is more education and training for producers to assist them and assure they are doing the right things,” McEwan said.
“I don’t think we have 48 hour response, but we are working toward it.”
To make traceback work, the national team must also build one electronic portal linking all databases that would allow access to industry and government.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, chief provincial veterinarians and provincial emergency services may need access if there is a health concern or a natural disaster where animals and people have to be quarantined or evacuated.
However, agriculture and food producers want assurances their personal information will be protected.
Chris Gould, a horse breeder from Mayerthorpe, Alta., said cost and privacy protection are two stumbling blocks to national consensus.
“Until there is clear agreement on those two issues, then some of the other practical steps are not going to be moving forward as fast as they might have or could have,” said Gould, of the equine traceability group.
“Overall, the plan is being done in an appropriate manner in the sense that we don’t have big brother government imposing something.”
Dan Lutz, Agriculture Canada’s director of integrated traceability, agreed it has been a slow process and could be costly for farmers.
“Depending on where you are in the chain and what precise piece of traceability you are talking about, some people are going to benefit more than others and others are going to carry more of the cost,” Lutz said.
Safety is a larger issue for the produce industries, said Jane Proctor of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, which has joined international efforts to develop traceability standards that can add value to fruit and vegetables.
“Food safety and traceability tend to be linked because traceability is a tool that supports food safety,” she said.
“It doesn’t mean the food is safer, but it is a tool to support getting better information and knowing where the product has been and where it has gone.”
There are also supply chain benefits and ways to add value to fruit and vegetables with full identification. However, produce faces special challenges.
Bulk produce such as apples, bananas and oranges have individual stickers with
a number, but that identifies only the commodity type and not the source. For
instance, 4011 on a sticker means banana.
A packaged item has a bar code with a number to indicate the brand owner or a
lot number from a packer.
Grocery stores in Ontario affix bar codes to the sticker that encodes a unique company prefix identifying the farm or packer.
“From the perspective of industry and consumers, there is certainly an interest in knowing whose product it is and where it is coming from,” Proctor said.
“The desire is to have the safest food system possible and anything that helps to demonstrate that … there is always a striving for that within the industry.”
