"I think traceability is something that's going to be coming,
so we just wanted to be ahead of it a little bit," Calhoun
explains.
That's why, in 2007, he signed up for the Ontario Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs' Traceability Pilot Project,
which helps both food producers and processors track vital information
at each stage of the food chain.
Before an animal leaves its herd of origin, the producers must
tag it with a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. Until
Calhoun implemented a traceability program, however, he relied
on physically reading ear tag numbers and recording them with
pen and paper to track the groups of cattle coming and going from
his busy Bruce county feedlot.
Now, thanks to the installation of RFID panel readers and a new
alleyway, he can quickly and accurately scan the ear tag numbers
of arriving and departing animals.
It's a simple, efficient system. Cattle simply walk past the
panel reader in the scanning alleyway, which captures the number
from the RFID tag. Special software then transmits that information
to an Excel file on Calhoun's laptop computer.
Back in his office, Calhoun can print off the Excel report and
attach it to the manifest for that truckload of cattle.
Switching to an electronic system has sped up how quickly he
can process cattle as they arrive and leave. The other major benefit
has been better inventory control. With new groups of calves arriving
on a weekly basis from across the country, keeping track of everything
with a paper-based system was no easy task.
Now thanks to RFID scanning and the management of electronic
files, Calhoun can quickly identify where each group came from
and where it currently is. It's knowledge that will pay off should
an issue with the herd of origin arise.
"If there was ever a problem, we could find the animals
pretty quickly," he says. "They're scanned in and they're
scanned out, so we always know what we have here."
And while Calhoun still relies on old-fashioned pen and paper
to record processes such as dehorning and vaccinations, a handheld
RFID reader lets him quickly identify the animal being treated.
Implementing a traceability system was not a trivial undertaking.
Calhoun had to physically rearrange his feedlot and build a scanning
alleyway. Finding the right software system also took time, and
there were some installation hiccups to deal with.
Now, however, it all works smoothly. And in the future, the new
system will allow Calhoun to take advantage of value-added opportunities
in the cattle industry by accessing each animal's date of birth,
which is linked to the RFID ear tag and logged with the Canadian
Cattle Identification Agency's online database.
Ultimately, that will help him to ensure his cattle are under
the maximum age requirements at the slaughterhouse, giving consumers
additional confidence in the beef they buy.
"Consumers aren't demanding traceability at this point,
but I think eventually it will happen," Calhoun predicts.
And when that day arrives, he'll be ready.
Traceability brings benefits:
By implementing a traceability system, Doug Calhoun:
Funding for the Food Safety Initiative
Traceability Grant Program and Pilot Project was provided under
the Agriculture Policy framework, a federal-provincial-territorial
initiative.
Figure 1: Curtis Calhoun,
feedlot operator, Dobbinton, Ontario. 
