Tagging could unleash farm innovation

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 reports Stuff. 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.  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. 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."