The Alberta government has signed a traceability agreement with provincial and national beef groups.
The ability to trace food from the farm to the consumer is a guarantee of quality and food safety, provincial agriculture minister Jack Hayden said today at a news conference.
It is necessary if Canada hopes to expand its overseas markets, specifically into Asia, he added.
In 2009, the federal and provincial ministers agreed to a comprehensive traceability system for livestock to manage food safety, animal health and strengthen export markets where full traceback is requested.
“We are pretty high end and there are only certain places in the world that are interested in that, but they are big markets like China, Japan and India,” Hayden said.
The Guiding Principles for Beef Cattle Traceability are drawn from a Canadian Cattlemen’s Association blueprint for a system that must be affordable for producers and provide benefit to them and the food industry.
“Traceability is an initiative the industry began 10 years ago with mandatory animal ID,” said CCA president Travis Toews.
The industry recognizes the benefits for animal health and understands some customers want traceback.
However, beef leaders have also told government it must be affordable for producers and not demand more than current technology can provide.
“We recognize the importance of traceability that we implement it in such a manner that it is not going to leave us uncompetitive in the North American market,” Toews said.
The document will be circulated to other provincial beef organizations in the hope their governments will sign on.
“We would like to see as much adherence to these across the country as possible as we look forward to providing recommendations to the federal minister on what realistically the next steps of traceability might be,” Toews said.
Pilot projects are underway across Canada to determine if identification tags can be read and whether information linked to those ear tags can be transmitted easily.
“It has been pretty clear from those studies that there is still some work we need to do on technology,” Toews said.
