RFID in Animal Tracking Seminar, 20 June 2005
Innovation Waikato and NZ Trade and Enterprise hosted a half-day seminar on the use of RFID in animal tracking on Monday 20th June at the Waikato Performing Arts Centre, Hamilton.
The keynote speaker was renowned Italian veterinarian Dr Ernesto Beretta. Dr Beretta is currently the Director of the ‘Beef Quality Control Board’ of Coldiretti Milano e Lodi in Milan, Italy. Coldiretti is an association of approximately 600,000 italian agri-farm businesses representing the interests of the Italian agricultural sector with local, national and EU government.
Dr Beretta demonstrated and discussed a proposed system to provide "gate to plate" traceability within Italy. He described how it fitted into the context of the Italian and European requirements for animal traceability, and the challenges with attempting to support both half-duplex (HDX) and full-duplex (FDX-B) tags using the ISO11785/11784 standards.
In addition, there were presentations from Andrew Cooke, Rezare Systems on the Integrated Farm Management (IFMS) Project, and from Peter Tait, TCS Ltd, on the latest global developments in RFID technology.
The meeting concluded with a lively panel discussion on RFID technologies for use in New Zealand. The discussion centred around the applicability of ISO 11785/11784 low frequency standards vs. other technologies such as 13.56MHz systems. The discussion concluded with a brief video demonstration from Sharl Liebergreen (PrimaryLink) showing multiple sheep being read simultaneously using a 13.56MHz tunnel reader.
Resource Materials
Dr Ernesto Beretta - Presentation (now available - pdf, 5Mb)
Andrew Cooke - Integrated Farm Management Systems update (pdf, 1Mb)
Peter Tait - RFID Technologies (pdf, 460kb)