Tagging could unleash farm innovation

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A controversial scheme to tag and trace cattle and deer could trigger a hi-tech revolution boosting farm productivity and profit, according to some in the industry.

But any sea change is unlikely to happen overnight.

Farmers are required to tag all deer and cattle with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips by the middle of 2011 after Cabinet approved the second-stage business case for the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Nait) scheme.

Stock movements will be recorded in a database to track animals during outbreaks of disease and to tell consumers where meat comes from.

The Government says the scheme will cost about $15.7 million to set up and $6m to operate annually. Nait is expected to deliver about $38m in benefits a year and reduce the impact of a foot and mouth disease outbreak by 4 per cent to 10 per cent.

Farmers could also use RFID chips and electronic identification (EID) systems to automate farm management, says Andrew Cooke, managing director of agriculture IT firm Rezare Systems.

Dairy farmers are best poised to profit because they can capture data daily and act on it immediately, whereas beef farmers might only handle stock once a week.

A dairy farmer might notice a cow is limping and flag it in a system so it is automatically drafted into a separate pen and treated.

One farmer using EID systems to flag and treat health issues early managed to reduce the somatic cell count - which indicates bacteria levels - of his herd's milk by about 30 per cent, boosting his profits.

Farmers with small herds can store information about individual animals in their heads, but this is impossible for those with 700-plus cows.

"With EID systems you're able to manage that information much more productively - your costs actually drop," Mr Cooke says.

EID systems can be expensive, with a system for assessing and automatically drafting dairy cows costing between $70,000 and $90,000, he says.

"But with a reasonably large herd, that will pay itself off in a year or two."

A minority of dairy farms already have these systems in place, but that number is growing, Mr Cooke says.

Nait will not necessarily drive adoption of these systems but will raise awareness, he says. "People might say, 'We've got to invest in these tags, what can we do with them?' "

Paul Gavegan, business development manager at agricultural software firm Agtrac, says EID systems let beef farmers collect and analyse information on growth rates, sire lines and live and carcass weights and make management decisions to get more "kilos out the gate".

Stud farmers have adopted EID systems - which cost anywhere between a few thousand dollars and $20,000, depending on functionality - because they rely on breeding records, but they are in the minority.

Australia launched a scheme similar to Nait five years ago, but only between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of farmers have bought EID systems. The rate of uptake in New Zealand will probably be the same, he says.

But Nait will give businesses confidence to develop EID systems and ultimately farmers will adopt them.

"There will be more automation and a lot more efficiencies put into the supply chain. There will be more continuity of supply through better forecasting and the industry will work closer with farms to boost volume and quality for specific markets offshore."

Federated Farmers has claimed Nait's costs will outweigh its benefits and has criticised the use of low- frequency technology in the scheme. Ultra-high frequency tags can hold more data, be read at a greater distance and multiple tags can be read at once. Meat and Fibre chairman Bruce Wills says it will work to ensure the scheme is cost-effective and efficient.

- © Fairfax NZ News