All of us at Syscan-ID would like to wish you Happy Holidays.

Seasons Greetings.

Reminder to all Canadian cattle producers, the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) has mandated all cattle must have EID ear tags as of January 2010.

Visual, and barcode dangle tags are no longer acceptable as a CCIA compliant ear tag.  The barcode tag must be cross-referenced with the new RFID tag in the Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) by January 2010.

A listing of approved EID ear tags is available at the CCIA website. The approved tags are HDX and FDX-B RFID ear tags from Allflex, Destron, Y-Tex, Reyflex (Ketchum), and Z tags

A listing of the verified and approved RFID readers is available here. 

 

 

 

 

The LiveTrack RFID wand reader is a verified and approved reader by the CCIA. Please contact us for a reseller near you.

The Livetrack ISO RFID wand reader is considered the most reliable hand held on the market today. The multitude of features and easy synchronization with Animal management Software enables users to be up and ready in no time.

Before choosing your software make sure to know your needs. This enables you to make a better choice today and further down the road. If managing your money and inventory is important to you, I strongly suggest having a closer look at the following software’s. They are simple and straight forward to use, some are intuitive, some are not….but all provide you with good information in order to better manage your heard.

Livetrack wand reader is tested and compatible with the following Cattle management software. Your options are:

Company	Website	Software	Demo
Cattlesoft Inc.	Cattlemax	Cattlemax Registered Edition Cattlemax Commercial Edition Longhorn Max CS	Free Trial
Midwest MicroSystems LLC	CowSense	CowSense Commercial CowSense Purebred	Free Trial
Lion Edge Technologies	Ranch Manager	Ranch Manager Cattle Edition	Free Trial
Cattleworks LLC	Cattleworks	Cattleworks	N/A
Bowman Farm Systems Inc.	CattlePro	CattlePro Choice CattlePro Choice Plus CattlePro Select CattlePro Standard CattlePro Prime CattlePro Prime Plus	Free Trial
Saltbush	Herdmaster	Herdmaster Stud Herdmaster Commercial	Free Trial
ComputerAid	CattleBytes	CattleBytes	Free Trial

Important note when looking for software:

• Know what you need the software to do, there is several software’s on the market all with particular needs, from basic management to full ranch management. Software is priced based on the complexity of the software.
• Make sure the software is EID compatible, some of the older software’s are not EID compatible.
• Make sure the software company provides support of its software.

Most cattle management or ranch management software that is EID compatible is usually compatible with the Livetrack RFID wand reader. If you would like to know if particular software is compatible with our Livetrack Wand reader, simply send us an email: info@syscan-id.com or give us call. 514-685-7778

CLONCURRY, Australia -- Dust billows in the sun-drenched sky as 600 cattle charge through the chute. They act as one, a writhing mass of legs and hooves. Flies swarm in their wake, and ranchers stand on alert, ready to jump into the fray if needed.

As each animal passes, its ear tag transmits data that's entered into a national database, allowing authorities to track each animal from birth to death.

In a global economy, where mad cow, hoof and mouth and other diseases can crush a market overnight, the ability to track cattle can be crucial.

In Australia, where 65 percent of all beef is exported, it's especially critical.

"It gives us lifelong traceability," said Ray Campbell, who owns a 26,000-acre cattle operation in Cloncurry. "It gives us the edge in the world market. Australian beef is known as clean and green."

In the United States -- where discovery of a single case of mad cow disease at a Mabton dairy in December 2003 prompted Japan, Korea and others to ban U.S. beef imports for more than a year -- some see the Australian system as worth replicating.

Since 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been attempting to develop a program similar to Australia's.

But not everyone likes what the USDA has been proposing.

"This is overly intrusive, overly costly," said Bill Bullard, chief operating officer of R-CALF, a Billings, Mont.-based organization representing thousands of cattle producers in 47 states.

"There's no justification for the onerous regulatory scheme the USDA is proposing ... We think this is un-American."

Whether a system such as Australia's can be developed in the United States remains to be seen, but most in the Australian beef industry said they were glad a universal tracking system is in place.

"From time to time, individuals indicate it's a load of garbage," Campbell said. "But they're getting fewer and fewer."

As the world's second-largest beef exporter -- only Brazil exports more -- Australia had compelling reasons for ensuring its products are safe and marketable.

In the 1990s, it watched the spread of mad cow disease in England. Mad cow, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), is a chronic, degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system of cattle.

Scientists suspected that people who eat the brain, spinal cord or other infected tissues from BSE-infected cattle can develop the incurable and always-fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which destroys the brain and causes dementia, memory loss, personality changes, hallucinations and other involuntary body movements.

The British government ultimately destroyed more than 4.3 million cattle as a safety measure because it didn't know which animals were infected.

In Australia, there was general agreement in the government and industry on the concept of a tracking system to identify which cattle may have been exposed to a disease, and even what they ate.

The Mabton case was suspected to have been caused by feed that a dairy cow ate in Canada that included brains and other internal cattle organs infected with BSE. However, authorities were unable to determine which other cattle might have eaten the same feed or where they ended up.

Despite the general consensus in Australia on the need for tracking, working out the details wasn't easy.

Ranchers, for example, were reluctant to disclose private business information, such as the number of cattle they owned, in the highly competitive beef market.

James Lord, owner of the May Downs cattle station, a 600,000-acre operation in Mount Isa, Australia, said cost was his top worry. Already, land rents were increasing and complaints about the cost of government regulation loom as large there as in the United States.

Ear tags alone cost the equivalent of about $2.80 U.S. each. For a large rancher, that can easily run into tens of thousands of dollars.

Lord now thinks the database has promise. One day it could be used to track fertility and weight -- data that could improve herd quality and economic returns.

In the meantime, he said the ability to trace diseases helps reassure international customers about product safety.

"We have a good, clean image. We have to maintain that image," he said.

The system works by clipping an ear tag encrypted with a 15-digit number to each animal. The code has the uniqueness of a Social Security number and is transmitted via radio or electronic frequencies to machines placed wherever cattle are being moved from one operation to another. The numbers in the machines are then transferred into a national database. Every time the animal moves to a different farm, ranch or stockyard, the database is updated.

By 2006, a system was in place to track the movements of every one of Australia's approximately 28 million cattle. Ranchers and producers are required to participate.

The database program, which includes proprietary information from ranchers, is administered by Meat and Livestock Australia, a privately operated, producer-owned company. The company collects the equivalent of $4.50 U.S. on the sale of each head of cattle. That money funds not only the tracking program but also a wide range of other activities, including international marketing and research and development.

Monitoring for compliance is conducted by each of Australia's state governments, and there are penalties for violations. While fines vary by location, they typically run the equivalent of $930 U.S., plus court costs.

Dale Saunders, a sale yard manager in Cloncurry, said the system isn't perfect.

"There are still a few kinks," he said. "We still have 10 percent to work on yet. ... As people learn to understand it, it's getting better."

Sometimes tags don't work or they fall out, and sometimes people will transfer cattle without reading the tags properly. Still, there's a general acceptance.

"I feel it's been effective," said Campbell, a Cloncurry rancher. "We use it as a marketing tool. ... It's like any industry. We've come a long way. You have to change with the times."

Changing with the times hasn't been as easy in the United States.

Perhaps that's because, unlike Australia, the United States exports only about 10 percent of its beef. As a result, there's less pressure to satisfy a world market.

But when that international trade is disrupted -- such as in 2003 when that cow with BSE was detected in Mabton -- the results can still be disastrous.

After the outbreak, American beef was banned for 18 months by Japan. That country was the world's largest foreign buyer of U.S. meat and had imported more than $1 billion worth annually.

A similar ban by South Korea cost the U.S. industry an estimated $1.6 billion over two years.

To this day, Japan, Korea and a number of other Asian nations require beef importers to meet standards that are stricter and more expensive than standard international guidelines.

In the wake of the mad cow scare, the USDA announced in 2004 the framework for a national tracking process known as the National Animal Identification System, or NAIS.

The USDA's long-term goal is to track the source of diseased livestock within 48 hours to stop its spread and remove any cattle suspected of carrying disease.

So far, it's spent about $147 million developing the program.

But its efforts have been slowed by resistance from the industry, which voices many of the same concerns raised by Australian producers when that nation was developing a program in the 1990s.

As a result, beef producers here aren't required to participate in NAIS. Only about 37 percent of the nation's livestock producers take part on a voluntary basis.

The USDA says that without mandatory participation, the program won't be effective.

Jack Field, executive director of the Washington Cattlemen's Association in Ellensburg, concedes a side benefit of a tracking system could be greater access to the world market.

Still, he said those who want to export around the globe -- and get the resulting premium prices for their beef -- are already doing so.

"The industry has been able to recapture current export markets with the voluntary system," he said. "The free market drove that process."

Similar objections are raised by Bullard of R-CALF, who said the United States has already done a great job of preventing and controlling diseases in the livestock industry.

He thinks the proposed system is more about promoting global commerce than disease control.

"We believe this is an attempt by the USDA and meat packers to comply with international standards for international commerce," he said. "It's misrepresented as a disease program."

But Jay Gordon, executive director of the Washington State Dairy Federation in Elma, said that argument is a red herring.

"This is primarily about disease," he said.

"If we can't trace where foot and mouth disease is, what's left after the pile gets through burning we won't be able to sell," he said, referring to how England burned vast numbers of cattle carcasses that were feared diseased in the 1990s.

"This debate is getting old," he said. "We're risking so much by being unprepared."

Dan DeRuyter, a partner in George DeRuyter & Sons Dairy -- a 4,000-head operation in Outlook -- has been preparing to participate in NAIS for several years. He already uses electronic tags to record everything from a cow's family tree to its milk production.

Most dairy producers already use that kind of identification program to manage their herds. But DeRuyter said the next step is to integrate some of his data with the national system. He supports the USDA and its efforts to implement a universal program.

"Anything that would reassure the consumer we have a quality product is good for us," said DeRuyter, whose family has been in the dairy business for about 40 years.

Others are more skeptical.

The USDA conducted 14 listening sessions nationwide to take comments on the program, including one that attracted about 75 Western livestock producers in Pasco in May. Like Australia, concerns about cost were voiced.

If 90 percent of the beef and dairy industries participated in NAIS, the USDA estimates the annual cost at $176 million. That breaks down to $4.91 per animal. Buying and applying the tags makes up three-fourths of the expense.

The USDA estimates the cost for consumers would be less than one-half of 1 percent.

There's also concern by some cattlemen that confidential information would leak from a federal database. Such information could include a producer's herd size, which could aid competitors.

"There's fear of the unknown and who will control the database," Field said.

A few ranchers even worry that animal-rights groups could somehow gain access to the information to use against them or that their cattle will be tracked by satellite.

Field dismisses such claims as unrealistic, but believes the USDA's proposal has flaws.

"The current federal approach -- one size fits all -- is poorly executed," he said.

If a database is created, many Washington cattle producers want it controlled by the industry, like Australia's privately operated system.

An ideal program, according to many ranchers, would be privately operated systems for each state that have uniform standards for data retrieval. They believe such state-based databases would be more accurate.

"A huge (national) database would never be up-to-date," said Leonard Eldridge, Washington state veterinarian with the state Department of Agriculture in Olympia.

"We know our state. We don't know other states," he said. "When there's a need for animal tracking, disease tracking, we'll share with the USDA and other state officials."

Neil Hammerschmidt, NAIS program coordinator in Washington, D.C., said all options are being considered, but the concern is having a program that can be shared universally at the local, state and federal level.

Field and Eldridge hope to overcome these obstacles, and are discussing ways to develop such a system. They contend the federal government can set up the program's parameters, and each state can manage and control it. The states' veterinarians would work with other veterinarians and issue tags.

To Field, a state-run program is an acceptable compromise between a national system and no system.

"Now it appears the USDA isn't willing or ready to consider changing its direction," he said. "It can be frustrating to see the USDA political machine move."

Syscan-ID has made major changes to the ISO Livetrack RFID reader, in respect to it’s Livetrack Manager Software. Other changes include a newly developed firmware update software, to enable updates of the Livetrack reader.

Both of these free software tools are available at Syscan-ID.

The Current firmware update, includes faster tag reading, Alpha-Numeric keypad entry, manual weight entry.

Livetrack firmware loader software:

Current reader firmware is: VF05.21r

To verify the firmware on your reader simply follow these steps.

 

Turn on the reader

Press the right arrow to go into MENU

Press  the down arrow twice to highlight INFO MENU

Press the right arrow to go into INFO MENU

VER: VFXX.XXX is the Reader’s firmware version

If your firmware is below VF05.21r, please go to our website to download the firmware loader software, and follow the easy steps to upload the new firmware to your ISO Livetrack wand reader.

Livetrack Manager Software V3.4:

The Livetrack Manager Software, has been updated to include many of the new features, the Livetrack reader has.

Note: You must have the current firmware VF05.21r in order to use the new functions of the ISO Livetrack reader and newly developed Livetrack Manager Software.

Screen Shot of the New Livetrack Manager Software

The Free Livetrack Manager Software, which is included with the reader, now has the extra features below for Animal ID Management.

• Alpha-Numeric Entry
• Weight Entry

All the other great functions are still included in the software.

The Livetrack Manager Software acts as a stand alone Animal ID Management software, Ideal for smaller operations, that do not need to use third party software, and or just need basic EID reporting.

Reports can be exported in a .CSV (Excel) or .TXT (Text) files, for additional management, and or reporting to a governing agency, for animal movements etc.

National Sheep Association and the Livestock Auctioneers Association are jointly giving the opportunity to sheep farmers throughout England to learn more about the forthcoming EID regulations.

About 30 open meetings have been organized throughout England and are mostly being held in livestock markets. At these meetings and with the assistance of materials provided by EBLEX, the regulations will be explained and questions answered. In addition information will be given to farmers on what they will need to do to comply in a variety of sheep farming systems. There will also be advice on the practical challenges and potential training needs of undertaking the electronic identification of sheep as well as the possible management benefits for some flocks of adopting the technology.

NSA Chief Executive Peter Morris said “All are welcome to attend these open meetings which will run from mid October to early December. Similar meetings are being organized in other parts of the country and details of these will be available in due course. It is vital that all sheep farmers understand what they are required to do so that these regulations do not do unnecessary damage to their businesses.”

Date	Day	Venue	Time
Nov. 5th	Thursday	Norfork Showground, Norwich	2:30 pm
Nov. 5th	Thursday	Newmarket Heathcourt Hotel	7:00 pm
Nov. 10th	Tuesday	Harper Adams	2:30 pm
Nov. 10th	Tuesday	Worcester Market	7:00 pm
Nov. 11th	Wednesday	Cirencester Market	2:30 pm
Nov. 11th	Wednesday	Ludlow Market	7:00 pm
Nov. 17th	Tuesday	Bakewell Market	7:30 pm
Nov. 18th	Wednesday	Chelford	7:00 pm
Nov. 19th	Thursday	Bishop Burton College	2:30 pm
Nov. 19th	Thursday	Newark	7:30 pm
Nov. 30th	Monday	Bentham Auction mart	7:00 pm
Dec. 1st	Tuesday	Skipton	2:30 pm
Dec. 1st	Tuesday	Thirsk	7:00 pm
Dec. 2nd	Wednesday	Westmorland Showground	2:30 pm
Dec. 2nd	Wednesday	Carlisle	7:00 pm
Dec. 7th	Monday	Penrith	2:30 pm
Dec. 8th	Tuesday	Wooler	2:30 pm
Dec. 8th	Tuesday	Hexham	7:00 pm

For more information please contact NSA (National Sheep Association) January 1st. 2010 Sheep EID becomes mandatory through-out the United Kingdom. These meetings are designed to help, answer and aid in the up coming start of EID compliance.

Canada and Russia are creating ground-breaking new opportunities for agricultural trade and cooperation between the two countries. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced progress on a number of agricultural issues from Moscow today. Minister Ritz’s mission builds on the Joint Statement on Agriculture Cooperation signed in 2007 and Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day’s mission to Russia in June.

“Canada and Russia have a long history of agricultural cooperation and today we strengthened that relationship by creating ground-breaking new opportunities for Russian and Canadian farmers,” said Minister Ritz, after his meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Victor Zubkov. “Canadian and Russian farmers want to make their living from the marketplace and these agreements will make  huge difference on the bottom line.”

Russia and Canada agreed to a certificate on open market access for Canadian bone-in beef from animals under 30 months of age. The certificate finalized an agreement-in-principle negotiated during Minister Day’s June mission. Russia and Canada built on that success by agreeing to market access for Canadian boneless beef from animals over 30 months of age. Canada and Russia also agreed to have technical officials work within this calendar year to move toward giving Russian importers access to Canadian beef offal.

“I am pleased that my visit to Russia this summer and our representations there on behalf of Canada’s beef industry have paid off,” said Minister Day. “This will be a great opportunity for our producers to increase their exports to Russia, one of the world’s largest beef importers.”

The Canada Beef Export Federation (CBEF) estimates the value of under-30-month beef and over-30-month boneless beef will be worth up to $32 million. CBEF also estimates fully reopening the Russian market to Canadian officials will be worth up to $10 million.

Russia is expanding its sheep and goat production and opening market access for high quality Canadian small ruminant breeding stock. The Canadian Sheep Federation estimates the Russian market will be worth up to $8 million over three years.

Russian officials also committed to send a technical team to work with Canadian officials and the industry to complete meat plant approvals within this calendar year.

The Canadian industry participated in the Moscow Golden Autumn Agricultural Fair and finalized key agreements with Russian industry to provide high-quality beef breeding stock and technical training. Hawkeye Land & Livestock Ltd. of Canada signed a deal to ship up to 10,000 head of pure-bred beef breeding stock to the Russian-owned Northern Agro Industrial Company. Another Canadian company, Alta Exports International, signed another agreement with Inter-Regional Beef Breeding Cattle Development Fund, to support the establishment of a beef-breeding training centre to make sure Russian buyers can maximize production from Canadian breeding stock.

Source: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada